Land-Ally

Design Research : The role of the human in a landscape.

Land-Ally is an agricultural land turned into a participatory nature reserve, managed as a site for interspecies collaboration between people, plants and animals. The aim is to restore the land from its former agricultural use and form an alliance with the non-human. Marte Mei, the initiator, became the temporary caretaker of the property in the Gijzenrooi last fall. Her research was sparked by the discovery that this field, filled with wildflowers, insects, tree seedlings, and all kinds of birds, was registered with the map of the province as “yet to be turned into nature”. Unlike the surrounding nature reserves maintained through an agricultural approach, which are recognised as having high natural and cultural value. This kickstarted a design research into the human-centric narratives of utility on which nature preservation is built. Land-Allyship is an alternative attiude to the stewardship and rewilding models. Through this attitude, one forms an alliance with non-human life to increase their wellbeing and voice their needs. One of the ways this can be done is through the legal framework the Land-Ally foundation offers, in which the land becomes its own legal entity.

Objects to collaborate with Plants and Animals

Objects created for the land respond to what already is, rather than designing from an idea of what the land should represent. Looking at the qualities of the plants and animals on the land, tools were designed to interact with their specific characteristics or skills. This resulted in a collection of objects, displayed on the land, and activated by the participants during the care routines. The objects are modular and intended for temporary use, stored on the land for one yearly cycle, they will be removed and re-used in other iterations of Land-Ally. Other iterations on new locations may result in the development of new and different tools in response to the local environment. One of the objects is a molehill tool. The mole brings deeper sandy soils up to the surface. This soil is spread out using the tool and is ideal to introduce new seeds to increase the variety of the plant community. These seeds come from Biodivers, a collaborator that harvests wild indigenous seeds from native nature reserves.

Call for action

How can you feel responsible for something, when you can’t connect to it? Many Dutch nature reserves are designed as parks or fenced off. On the Land-ally field, everybody is invited to care for the plot of land by participating in one of the care routines. To experience a connection to the natural world by taking care of it: hands-on. Small gatherings are organised on the land throughout the year and are open for sign-up online. These gatherings vary from hands-on care, to the meditative practice of observing sheep and the creative contribution of braiding wool. A Land-Ally foundation has been started to continue this work on other, small scale, private or public lands. Land-Ally is thus calling for new participants as well as hosts to become part of the project, to explore what an Allyship with a land-community could mean in other places. The foundation will continue working on the legal framework in which land can be its own legal entity. To further continue this research, and open up this dialogue with a wider audience, a documentary surrounding the project is being created to reflect on the role of the human within the natural landscape of the Netherlands.