The floating artist garden Theun Karelse built in Amstelpark called Otterdam was inspired by the return of the otter to Amsterdam after 50 years of absence. It’s aim is not to be a space designed for otters. In other words it doesn’t start from a classic ecological conservation standpoint where the otter is a ‘target species’, that we humans as more powerful and more intelligent beings can shape a suitable world for. Otterdam is more based on a relational idea, it celebrates the return of the otter as an iconic wetland animal during a period of unprecedented drought in Europe. The otter as a messenger, carrying wisdom that may be valuable also to humans.

OtherWise has been one of the first organizations to speak unapologetically about Palestine on WUR Campus. We think that solidarity and movement building, education, accessing other-than-mainstream-media information, and decolonial frameworks are crucial to shift public opinion about Palestine/Israel. Especially in the local contexts we are living and working in. With the aftermaths of Israel's genocide, students and staff in solidarity with Palestine organized to make WUR accountable for its complicity in war crimes by collaborating with Israeli institutions and companies. OtherWise co-organized many sessions together with Wageningen For Palestine and the Wageningen Student Encampment and invited research scholars, lawyers, artists, authors, filmmakers, or activists who work in and around Palestine. May justice be a seed to germinate and peace be its fruits. Free Palestine.

How do we collectively build alternative modes of existence on a planet facing unprecedented crises? ''The House Modernity Built'' is a metaphor that invites conversation around the modern/colonial global imaginary in which being is reduced to knowing, profits take precedent over people, the earth is treated as a resource rather than a living relationship, and the shiny promises of states, markets, and Western reason are subsidized by the disavowed harms of impoverishment, genocide, and environmental destruction. On an evening in the Clockhouse OtherWisers gathered to use the metaphor of a house and explored modernities' architecture through a listening meditation. We began decorating the house in groups that imagines alternative modes of existence in a context where the house appears to be crumbling, and, indeed, has always been a fantasy.Read the full story of each group here:

This year we organized the third edition of 'Resistance, Power, and Movements' in collaboration with the Sociology of Development and Change group at WUR. As a 6 ECTS course, students were encouraged to reflect on what it means to be an activist in today's political context and how to integrate this into their academic lives. This capita selecta created a space to explore and reflect on agency and power with a focus on combining theory and practice.

This was a collaborative and interactive series of events hosted by Otherwise and RUW Foundation (The Jester). Together we explored three related, yet distinct archetypes: the jester, clown, and trickster. With a blend of theory, history, and artistic/theatrical components we collectively deconstructed and reconstructed each of these figures by asking ourselves the following questions: What can these archetypes teach us in the capitalocene? Through satire, subversion, and social critique, how are we able to embody these archetypes and bring them to life?