News

SLU Urban Futures joins the Zoöp of Bauhaus of the Sea Sails Malmö

Published: 18 February 2025

SLU Urban Futures is now part of a new phase for the Bauhaus of the Seas Sails project and the Sea Forum in Malmö. In this new phase, the members of the Sea Forum will start a new form of collaboration as an Ocean Culture Hub through the organizational form of a pilot-Zoöp.

The Bauhaus of the Seas Sails (BoSS) is a European Union-funded project under the New European Bauhaus (NEB) initiative. It seeks to foster ethical and aesthetic regenerative development, reimagining our relationship with the sea from multiple perspectives. In November 2023, SLU Urban Futures joined the forum in Malmö.
 
The new phase of BoSS is launching a pilot-Zoöp. Zoöp is a collaboration in which humans collaborate with other-than-human life. It is short for Zoöperation: coöperation with zoë – (Greek for ‘life’). Together with other Zoöps the idea is to work towards the transformation of our economy into a regenerative human-inclusive ecosystem, a network of exchange of matter, energy and meaning that supports all life in its existence.
 
In all their actions BoSS aims to support the health of the ecosystems in which we participate, that include multispecies communities in in the water, on land, in the soil and in the air. By using the Zoöp model BoSS will continue the work with creating an underwater park in Södra Varvsbassängen in Malmö. They aim to explore how an underwater park can become an inviting and engaging space and how the reef in Södra Varvsbassängen could be made accessible to the people of Malmö all year round. They also aim to foster a shift in how Malmö residents perceive and interact with the sea, encouraging behaviours that benefit more-than-human life and support a thriving marine ecosystem.


The World Ocean Day

On June 8th, the World Ocean Day will be celebrated in Malmö. The BoSS project are going to organise maritime activities at the area of Södra Varvsbassängen, involving SLU students partaking. At the course Environmental discourses and Communication, which is a part of the bachelors program Forest & Landscape, the students will study the ocean as a forgotten landscape. Students will have the opportunity to dive deeper into questions related to the water landscape and join the World Ocean Day presenting their campaigns. Other activities include cultural activities, reef building, diving for litter and much more!


Call for action:

Are you, as a researcher, teacher or student at SLU, interested to know more or do you want to get involved in the project? Get in touch in case you are working with similar questions and urban waterscapes at large.

Facts:

  • Bauhaus of the Seas project
    Bauhaus of the Seas Sails Malmö is a pilot project within the New European Bauhaus. Bauhaus of the Seas Sails runs from January 2023 to December 2025 and aims to explore a new maritime culture in Malmö, a culture where Malmö residents and marine life live as neighbours looking out for each other. The project will engage residents, local actors in culture and nature, and life in the Öresund.

  • Zoöperation
    A zoöp is an organisation whose board includes a representative for the voices and interests of non-human life. The zoöp is based on the premise that the global climate crisis and ecological devastation are the effects of an economic system that has systematically put human interests above non-human interests: zoöps strengthen the position of non-humans within human societies, stimulate ecological regeneration or quality of life for multispecies communities (that include humans) and counter extractivist dynamics

    Source: nieuweinstituut.nl/en/projects/zoop/zoop-model

  • Waterscapes
    Waterscapes refer to the inter-relationships of water and society and their spatial consequences. Studying urban waterscapes explores water access,values, control and movements in space and time, shaped by climate, nature, culture, geography, technology and markets, representing (changing) water systems, landscapes and discourses.

    Learn more: https://urbanscapes.slu.se/scape-themes/waterscapes/