Coordinators
Hi! I'm Tina (any), happily serving as Otherwise coordinator for the 2023/24 academic year alongside Katha. Throughout my time in Wageningen I have tried on many hats; from diva campesina to myco-advocate, I like to explore my entanglements with the beyond human world and forge unusual connections. The more I learn the more I realize I know so very little and have yet to digest important lessons from the other living beings around me. With social and environmental justice at its roots, my role at Otherwise is to create space for collective awareness, remembering, and responsibility. This task is rewarding and daunting and beautiful and frustrating. I invite you to join us as we dance, eat, paint, cook, sing, recite, feel, and chat like the birds.
Hey, I’m Katha (any), and I am stepping into the coordinator role together with Tina. Growing more ‘otherwise’ means I am getting much more interested in dispersing seeds, ensoilment, and composting the shit of modernity and systems of oppression through remembering other forms of knowing, doing, and being. Most recently, I have been practicing that through dancing, whirling, breathing, sowing, listening, asking, praying, foraging, fermenting, and laughing, constantly inspired to learn by and with my human and more-than-human friends how to live responsibly and caring. Within Otherwise, I want to break the silence around uncomfortable conversations and emotions that arise when facing the systems we hate yet we are addicted to, and create embodied spaces for new possibilities and imaginations to sprout. I am sure if we ask our microbes, birds, and insect friends they can teach us where to start.
Interns
Hi! My name’s Mo (they/them), and I’ll be an intern at Otherwise for half of the 2023/2024 academic year. During my time at Otherwise, I will mostly be focussed on curating and facilitating a course on queer ecology, in which we will dig into mutable multispecies worlds, more-than-human kinship, and postnatural performativity to weave our way towards the queer ecological futures of our dreams. At least, that’s the idea. Over my past three years in Wageningen, I have been surrounded and inspired by a bunch of queer activists, artists, wild-swimmers, freedom-seekers, dumpster-divers, and dancers, who relentlessly resist the status quo. I am very excited to be able to continue this adventure alongside the revolutionary beings at Otherwise.
Ian here :) I have joined OtherWise this September as an intern. I was drawn here through their events on degrowth and the Capitalist Realism course. I am very interested in the ecological and social impacts of capitalism and the connection to hierarchical human-nature relations. For my internship I am creating a Capita Selecta course on Degrowth where we will be exploring the anti-capitalist movement from different perspectives.
Board Members
Hi everyone, my name is Eleni (she/her) and this year I have the honour to be a part of the Otherwise Board joining the secretary position. I am doing Food studies and currently trying to explore food not as a commodity but as a human right and how we can build resilient and socially just food systems. In my everyday life I love taking care of my microbiome, my plants and my people. I recently volunteered in an off grid eco community in my home country which taught me how valuable and necessary is communal living and communal healing. As a member of Otherwise I would be excited to contribute to this safe space with artistic collective activities that have an aim to explore feelings and mental health, self-love and our relationship with the non-human beings of this planet.
Hey there :) I'm Ania (she/her) and will join Otherwise as a returning board member this academic year. I'm studying Environmental Sciences and work part-time as a meditation guide here in Wageningen. Previously, as a board member in 2021, I've explored topics such as Climate Anxiety, Inner-Sustainability and Indigenous Knowledge Systems. I'm now diving more deeply into Spiritual Ecology, non-dualism, ancient philosophies and mystic traditions. Within OtherWise, I aim to create spaces for deep reflection and facilitate open-minded discussions, in hopes of exploring new ways of being and knowing the world around us, and within us.
