Citywilding (Miastozdziczenie) is a multi-threaded initiative based in Warsaw that encourages the reconnection with nature. The project focuses on the urban environment as the most crucial potential place for defining new human-nonhuman relationships and practicing sustainable development. It addresses global challenges by proposing a positive and inclusive path, participating in diverse interspecies communities, and changing aesthetic, managerial, legal, urbanistic or architectural paradigms.
Local
Poland
Warsaw
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): The Puszka Foundation Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Aleksandra Last name of representative: Litorowicz Gender: Female Nationality: Poland If relevant, please select your other nationality: Poland Function: President Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Wodniaków 27 Town: Warsaw Postal code: 03-992 Country: Poland Direct Tel:+48 662 128 767 E-mail:ola@puszka.waw.pl Website:https://miastozdziczenie.pl/
Citywilding (Miastozdziczenie) started in 2021 with the aim of popularizing the concept of wilding cities and fostering interspecies communities. The project draws upon input from residents as well as experts such as anthropologists, biologists, artists, and architects to promote sustainable, inclusive urban environments that recognize the equal relationship between humans and nature. To achieve its goals, the project engages in joint urban activities, education, co-creation, and by advocating for changes in discourse, law, language, and aesthetics.
We created an online educational database of interviews with experts and case studies from Poland and around the world. We also run a magazine column under the project’s title, and use a multitude of other media like podcasts, radio shows etc. to promote project ideas. The practical part of the project is taking place in Warsaw. Here, knowledge is deepened through live meetings of city residents and experts, through educational walks and workshops (e.g. about legal issues such as interspecies constitution, or writing interspecies poetry). We also co-initiated the pilot project of rewilding the Parade Square, the main square in the Polish capital.
“Atlas of All Residents” (Atlas wszystkich mieszkańców), a book co-created by Warsaw residents and experts is the latest and crowning part of the project. It consists of a selection of personal stories in various literary forms, about meetings and relationships with representatives of the fauna, flora, and fungi of Warsaw. The book is complemented by a number of educational and popularizing texts practical guides for the cultivation of interspecies relationships in the city, from birdhouses to the transformation of public spaces, from the cultivation of wild plants to the creation of interspecies courts as well as more theoretical texts that aim at bringing the contemporary discourse to the wider public. The book was distributed for free both in printed and online form.
Biodiversity
Interspecies
Community
Cities
Interdisciplinary
To achieve the highest standards of sustainability we follow some key principles that can be seen as exemplary in the wider context of actions for the European green transformation.
First, we believe that true sustainability can only be achieved by a close interdisciplinary collaboration equipped to address the complex nature of the challenges we face. In our project the interdisciplinarity does not stop at the scientific community but involves people with different skill sets and backgrounds ranging from artists to city officials and business community.
Secondly we believe that societal change can only be reached by education and engagement of all stakeholders in the process. In our project we go far to reach and engage different groups by using varied media and tailored engagement tools ranging from open call for short stories, lectures, podcasts, articles, workshops.
Lastly, we believe that to stimulate the imagination and provide validation, the theoretical work should always be supported by practical application. To that aim, on one hand we engage with the city planning body to influence how the city looks and operates, and on the other we provide hands-on experience for city residents through workshops and educational walks.
One of the important goals of the project is to search for new ways of speaking and understanding nature in the city through new aesthetics and experiences. We wanted to move away from old fashion aesthetic criteria of controlled and romanticized natural beauty. The sensitization to the more nuanced beauty of nature was realized during educational walks or poetry workshops.
Personal engagement with nature was also promoted through publication of stories created by Warsaw residents about their relationships with non-humans, written as longer and shorter texts with varied literary form and vocabulary, sometimes based on emotions, sometimes on professional knowledge. This new, individualized understanding of nature was translated into visual language by an artist who gave consistent and attractive graphic form to illustrate the stories.
A strong aesthetic experience was also achieved by the pilot project of the rewilding of Parade square in Warsaw. A small oasis, full of flowers, herbs, shrubs, and trees has been created in the very center of an urbanized concrete city. The plant species were selected to ensure the attractiveness of multicolored blooming throughout the season. In this way, we created a place of coexistence, relaxation, and rest to be experienced by neighbors, tourists, visitors, and animals.
Atlas’s premiere was accompanied by a special metabolized snack created by a food designer with the aim of bringing through gustatory experience the attention to the nuanced ways we relate and rely on small organisms for our well being.
The initiative can be exemplary in this context by proposing a comprehensible and attractive relationship between interspecies aesthetics and representation and experience (through drawings, prose, poetry, food design, and immersion during walks). This allows one to confront established, anthropocentric images and ways of understanding and open up to new interspecies worlds.
The project brought greater visibility to the non-human inhabitants of Warsaw (animals, plants, mushrooms) - they were recognized in the structure of the city's inhabitants and empowered as a category of inhabitants. The publication of illustrated stories of interspecies encounters made it possible to see non-human actors as individual entities. Their diversity, lifestyles, characteristics and diverse relationships that connect them with human inhabitants have been shown. A resident of Warsaw of any age could submit their story, which we encouraged during events leading up to the publication.
We also promoted a new language corresponding to a non-hierarchical, non-anthropocentric, new urban community - we replaced concepts such as broadly used "nature" with specific "non-human neighbors".
In the book, we promoted inclusive, also with respect to non-humans, ecologically responsible design. We created a guide through best practices in areas such as public space, architecture and garden design, material selection and green areas management.
All project events were free of charge, as was the printed and online version of the book. The project website was designed in accordance with the WCAG 2.1 standard at the AA level. All educational walks and workshops were carried out in accordance with the needs of people with special needs (e.g. in the recruitment process it was possible to indicate what support would be needed).
First part of the project, a series of published theoretical texts and interviews with experts about cities' rewilding strategies, sprung the public discussion and interest in the topic among engaged communities around Poland.
The discussion, that was taking place mostly in on-line space, provided a needed feedback and inspiration for later undertakings. We have learned about issues that resonate with the citizens most and those that were new and needed to be brought to wider attention. For example, the ideas about a deeper legal framework surrounding the non-human rights, an issue absent from mainstream discourse in Poland, attracted a lot of new discussions.
A series of curated series of workshops and educational walks that followed were directly influenced by our findings both in terms of themes, scope and target groups. By tailoring our program we were able to reach a wider audience. The success of this strategy was especially visible through an even distribution of participants of different age groups.
Many of the contributors to the "Atlas of All Residents” were directly involved in the workshops and used them partially as a testing ground for the ideas later described in the publication. For example, one of the workshops about hydro-botany attracted so much attention and practical questions about the topic, that it has been decided that the book should contain a hydro-botanical guide for all residents.
Lastly the literary contributions from residents to the printed and online publication of “atlas of all residents” played a significant part in popularization of ideas embodied by the project. They created personal relatable stories that resonated with a wider audience, and gave depth to our troubled relationship with nature.
Citywilding is, at its core, a local project focused on one city. However, it has involved a number of national and international stakeholders in its creation and leveraged the reach of various nationwide media outlets, such as printed magazines, newspapers, live radio stations, podcasts.
The project was financed by the Warsaw City Government as an art project (first phase) and through a competition for non-governmental organizations called "Diverse Warsaw" (second phase). Although the city government policy does not explicitly address the issue of biodiversity through the lens of redefining the identity of its inhabitants, it was open to financing and supporting the project.
The most significant stakeholder group, the residents of Warsaw, had a significant impact on the design and implementation of the project. They not only actively participated in events and contributed to the discourse initiated by the project but also guided the design decisions and created a significant part of the final publication.
The project also benefited greatly from the involvement of the scientific community throughout its duration, including experts from Poland and abroad (Romania, Canada, Brazil) who provided interviews, helped create and consult on the popular science parts of the book, and conducted workshops. At a regional level, we participated in the "Interspecies Communities" debate at the City Development Forum in Poznań and gave individual lectures at the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology and the School of Form in Warsaw.
Local ecological organizations such as the "Akademia Dzikiej Ochoty," an educational initiative of Warsaw biologists and ornithologists, and "Grupa Zakole," an initiative related to the wetlands of Warsaw, also contributed to the project content-wise.
A network of local NGOs, art galleries, libraries, public institutions, and cafeterias supported us by providing free distribution of our publications and venues for events.
Citywilding (Miastozdziczenie) is a science-based project. Every of its components has been revised by an interdisciplinary panel of science editor’s. Contributors have been invited to the project based on the record of excellence in their respective fields as well as their engagement in the public sphere.
The project engaged experts in various fields like biologists (specifically: dendrologists, mycologists, ornithologists, entomologists), biology educators, artists, anthropologists, architects, urbanists, food designers, cultural scientists, art and architecture historians, philosophers, legal scholars, poets.
They co-created the practical and theoretical parts of the project e.g. book contributors reviewed each other's texts, biologists and educators co-created a diverse program of events, and the artists translated scientific knowledge into visual language.
A group of journalists, popularizers helped to crystallize the ideas of the project to be more accessible and telling to the audience.
The project supported intergenerational transfer of knowledge by including in its operation young professionals and students, who were given opportunities to learn from and network with more experienced contributors.
Unlike many mainstream actions in the field, this initiative was not built on a top-down relationship with its participants, such as lecture series with expert jargon, that might be aimed at particular exclusive target groups. The project was accessible to anyone interested in becoming a part of it, and did not require participants to pay for any workshops, lectures or publications that were provided.
Our approach was to bring contemporary discourses and theories to the very concrete level of one city and the individual by means of a multitude of media and participation formats. The project aimed at making complex concepts more understandable and accessible via web, radio, podcasts, workshops, educational walks, social media, university and public lectures and a book. In those diverse ways it strives to bring together citizens' participation, scientific expertise and artistic imagination.
Importantly our initiative does not limit itself to the discourse but brings forth actual change in the urban fabric, to be an exemplar of a different approach to the city’s relation with nature.
Our project is based on methodologies and values that address problems that are common to most urban contexts, and therefore, with necessary adjustments, can be replicated in other cities.
Educational methods such as educational walks, art and science based workshops for residents, publication and popularization of expert knowledge, are easily replicable strategies. We believe that more collaborative forms of practice based on citizens' knowledge (e.g open call for stories of personal experience with nature) are good ways to anchor projects in their contexts, and should be widely used.
The tools such as the Atlas might be rewritten for each context creating together a constellation of accessible knowledge, that might enrich each of the local beneficiaries as well create a larger awareness of complexity and diversity of relationship with nature in the cities.
Although the urban context in our project was essential we can also see a potential of developing similar strategies for other types of settlements, neighborhoods, villages, or farms - creating a sense of belonging based on understanding of bioregional characteristics and community engagement.
The project is based on the recognition of an extended definition of urban community, in line with the results of the ZOEpolis a research project conducted by Polish researchers Małgorzata Gurowska, Monika Rosińska and Agata Szydłowska, as well as intellectual movements of ecofeminism and new materialism (Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, Timothy Morton, Rosi Braidotti, among others). The project revolves around Ingo Kowarik's notion of "fourth nature" and Donna Haraway's concept of response-ability. The project thus promotes values such as interspecies solidarity, sustainability and biodiversity enhancement
We propose to move away from the anthropocentric, exploitative and unequal model of building and managing cities and open up to the needs of a diverse population, without necessarily drawing strict boundaries between species. We promote deeper understanding, sensitivity, and attentiveness to our extended community. We see its development as one of the answers to the many threats we face in the anthropocene.
The project methodology assumes various methods of acquiring knowledge: from in-depth interviews with experts, through research based on case studies, action research (e.g. exploration educational walks) and crowdsourcing and citizen science (a publication co-created by Warsaw residents).
The project's aim is to redefine the relationship between humans and nature in urban ecosystems. With cities responsible for 70% of greenhouse gas emissions and 60% of resource usage, the project focuses on the city of Warsaw as an example to map interspecies relationships and raise awareness of human-non-human interdependencies. It seeks to break the status quo in creating public, civil, architectural, and semantic spaces by including all living beings without walls or strict boundaries. The project acknowledges the destruction of animal habitats and biodiversity loss caused by human activity and climate change, challenging cities to rethink their role and include mitigation and adaptation. The project's events and publications aim to find regenerative formulas and new knowledge to build a sustainable and diverse environment. We advocate for transformation of urban spaces through reduction of concrete surfaces and improvements of microclimate by use of plants, especially urban hydrobotany. Anthropopression is to be counteracted by recognizing plants and animals as neighbors who also need their territory and resources.
Since 2021, we have created a publicly accessible online knowledge database that we plan to further enrich with expert interviews and case study analyzes from around the world. In 2022, we conducted a series of workshops and educational walks, as well as released the book "Atlas of all residents." The book was well received, its print run sold out in less than a month, and the book was nominated for the nationwide Marcin Król Award for books introducing new ideas and ways of thinking.
In the same year, in a partnership coalition, we implemented a permanent art installation in the center of Warsaw - an interspecies oasis. The project also allowed for a meeting of urban nature and biodiversity enthusiasts and specialists. The initiative organizers were frequently invited to the media, also nationwide.
Thanks to the project, Warsaw residents have a concrete and attractive tool to broaden their knowledge and skills related to practicing interspecies responsible neighborhoods. They can learn about environmental law, how to adjust their surroundings to be more animal and plant friendly, and where to look for further expert knowledge in the field. All materials and events aim to expand their thinking and imagination, breaking anthropocentric patterns.
We plan to independently and continuously expand "Atlas of all residents" with new plant and animal portraits, and encourage other cities to adopt similar action. We also plan to continue research on the biodiversity of Warsaw and Poland, which will become material for future initiatives. At the same time, it is very important for us that the conclusions and results of the task are made available on the website dedicated to the project, so they become a resource for all those interested in the development of the Warsaw community of humans and non-humans.
The initiative stems from the idea that green transformation of European societies requires radical changes in ways we perceive and position ourselves in the environment, as well how we act in face of complex environmental challenges.
Citywilding (Miastozdziczenie) focuses on education and development of desirable attitudes that are in line with the European sustainability competence framework. Most of the knowledge skills and attitude statements throughout the framework are addressed at least indirectly by our project but the main target of our action is best described in the third subsection of "Embodying sustainability values" heading - "Promoting nature" ("To acknowledge that humans are part of nature; and to respect the needs and rights of other species and of nature itself in order to restore and regenerate healthy and resilient ecosystems").
The main thesis of our texts and books and activities is that we face a necessity to create a condition for human and nature to coexist on equal terms. In the representation of the inhabitants of Warsaw, we give space to non-human beings. During the walks, we show, on specific examples, the complexity of the ecosystems, the potential of the microclimate and the fact that nature has a huge regenerative potential.
Our project helps people develop new competences, regardless of age and level of knowledge. Through a series of activities, such as joint observations of urban nature, he develops exploratory thinking and attentiveness to non-human life. The initiative encourages knowledge sharing, as well as active participation in ecological transformation.
