The art of co-existence – Details, episodes & analysis

Loneliness is all around - even on governmental levels where important decisions about our future are made. A feeling of togetherness is looking to be activated. In this episode Lucas de Man pleads for love as an antidote.  

With his company New Heroes he's involved in many different societal projects. What he flags is that our behaviour and thought patterns won't change unless we really connect with each other and act collectively. 🌀

Through their creative studio Biobased Creations they not only talk about change, but actually design, show and build the possible futures.  🪄 

Lucas and his team know how: through Artistic Intelligence (yes, AI)... There’s no ignoring the wicked problems we face, but the good things is: everyone now sees and feels (also in their wallets) that things need to change. 

🐚 Lucas’ souvenir for you: hug a loved one for more than 20 seconds. It will give you and them energy and you will feel why we are here. 

https://biobasedcreations.com/ 

Hosted by: Daphne Frühmann
Editing: Axel Frühmann
Music: Mark Oomen
Instagram: @theartofcoexistence
An Ourcelium Publishers podcast

 After this conversation, you'll want to zoom in on everything you wear, eat, touch, basically everything you see around you. Emma Van Der Leest is a biodesigner, researcher and teacher with a contagiously enthusiastic mission to rethink materials and to embrace microbial life. 🧫🦠 

Through her (art) work she invites us to rethink our relationship to food, materials, all the things we use on a daily basis. We can create all of it with help of biotechnology, making it much healthier and sustainable. 

🧪She moves between labs and lecture halls, between fungi and the building industry, between science and storytelling. 🌀She’s the best in connecting the dots and making the microscopic feel familiar through speculative design, but also through actual products. 

🐚Emma's souvenir: Stay curious. At the end of each day, reflect on what you learned or what sparked your mind, whether it was a scientist, a book, or a vending machine at the train station. 

Visit Emma’s website to follow her work www.emmavanderleest.com  

Hosted by: Daphne Frühmann
Editing: Axel Frühmann
Music: Mark Oomen
Instagram: @theartofcoexistence
An Ourcelium Publishers podcast

This is a clip from our conversation with George Birch. Like to know more? Find the whole episode here on "The art of co-existence" podcast!

Hosted by: Daphne Frühmann
Editing: Axel Frühmann
Music: Mark Oomen
Instagram: @theartofcoexistence
An Ourcelium Publishers podcast

We invited Andrew Carnie: a British artist whose work explores the science of our bodies and what it means to be human.

🦠 Andrew is inspired by the notion that 38 trillion bacterial cells live inside us, outnumbering our own human cells. So where does You actually end?
His art doesn't depict the scientific specifics. It captures the mood of something much bigger: the invisible connections between our bodies, other living beings, and the world around us.

🫧 We explore how we continuously exchange with everyone around us. How spending time with a friend literally refreshes your microbiome. How a kiss is partly your body sensing a biological fit.

We also ask a bigger question: are our bodies built for this planet only? And what does that mean for how we care for it, and for ourselves?

🌊 Andrew's nspiration: you're invited  to think of yourself as hotelier, caretaker not only of the world outside us, but of your inner ecosystem too. Because the sea lives inside us. And in that sense, we carry everything we've ever been.

🐚 Andrew's souvenir for you: he gives us a Soap Baby: a life-sized baby cast in soap (one of Andrew's works) that people instinctively want to care for, yet it slowly dissolves in your hands when you use it at the sink. A quiet poem about how we begin disappearing from the very moment we're conceived.

Go to https://www.andrewcarnie.uk/ to view Andrew's work

Hosted by: Daphne Frühmann
Editing: Axel Frühmann
Music: Mark Oomen
Instagram: @theartofcoexistence
An Ourcelium Publishers podcast

This is a clip from our conversation with Marta de Menezes. Like to know more? Find the whole episode here on "The art of co-existence" podcast!

Hosted by: Daphne Frühmann
Editing: Axel Frühmann
Music: Mark Oomen
Instagram: @theartofcoexistence
An Ourcelium Publishers podcast

🌊 Heaven is a place on Earth - it’s in the Ocean 

George Birch from Oyster Heaven enlightens us with all the benefits oyster reefs have to offer us. 

Oyster Heaven is on a mission to regenerate oyster reefs on a large scale, with a vision that this will positively impact societies on different levels. We learn about the creation of a Mother Reef from start to successful (and continuing) finish, and we dive into the meaning of ecosystem services. It seems that our current (capitalist) economic system is not valuing these correctly. George shares how Oyster Heaven challenges the status quo by offering an eco-positive value system, with oyster reefs. 

🧑‍🎨  George’s inspiration: diversify your interests. Finding creative outlets, because different parts of your life can spin each other up in a very beautiful way. 

📚 The Unnatural History of the Sea by Callum Roberts 

🐚  🦪 George’s souvenir for you: Keep eating oysters. Ask for more oysters. And go out, look at the sea. Not that long ago things were really different, try to look into that - it's wild and cool and it's such a thin shade of what is possible. 

🌀Follow Oyser Heaven or go to their website for more information. 

Hosted by: Daphne Frühmann
Editing: Axel Frühmann
Music: Mark Oomen
Instagram: @theartofcoexistence
An Ourcelium Publishers podcast

This is a clip from our conversation with Diane van der Marel. 

Like to know more? Find the whole conversation here @ the art of co-existence podcast!

Hosted by: Daphne Frühmann
Editing: Axel Frühmann
Music: Mark Oomen
Instagram: @theartofcoexistence
An Ourcelium Publishers podcast

Marta de Menezes is a Portuguese artist who works at the intersection of art and biology. Here, she explores how biological sciences offer us conceptual and aesthetic opportunities. She is named one of the pioneers of BioArt, but calls herself an artist first; she makes art, and sometimes that art belongs into the field of BioArt, sometimes it doesn't.

🧬 In her work she questions the concept of identity in a material and philosophical way.  Marta keeps you on your toes as this conversation goes very deep very quickly. We explore how biology and biotechnology are challenging our perception of ourselves and how her art plays a role in visualizing this.

🌀 Marta poses big questions like “what is art” and “what is the consequence of immortality”. She invites you to join her in meandering her brain paths, and to learn how she turns these questions into art concepts. And did you ever think you could imagine a love story in the biological mechanism of anti-bodies? You will now!

📚 Marta’s inspiration: Fiction is Marta’s most inspiring tool. It puts at play different aspects and conditions to the “what if…” question. If you want to imagine possibilities, it helps to read (science) fiction, and experience how your brain imagines these possibilities.

🐚 Marta’s souvenir for you: Pleasure as a souvenir. There is pleasure in knowing and learning new things. Through this exercise, you can become someone else at the end of something. There is pleasure in acknowledging that a transformation occurred over time.

🌀Follow Cultivamos Cultura and Ectopia for more information about artist in residency programs, the Cultivamos Cultura Summer School, collaborative projects and Marta’s role as curator for international shows.

Hosted by: Daphne Frühmann
Editing: Axel Frühmann
Music: Mark Oomen
Instagram: @theartofcoexistence
An Ourcelium Publishers podcast

In this very first episode of The art of co-existence, Daphne is joined by Diane van der Marel, a Dutch artist, photographer and impact investor. 

Diane talks about her strong connection to nature, her artistic practice and she shares a very personal story about letting go, grief and nature’s ability to connect on a deeper level. By observing the wild spirit of her garden, Diane has learned to trust that a healthy, composted soil grows strong ecosystems. She applies this metaphor not only in her garden, but also to understand the way we relate to societies, economies and ourselves. 

Make sure to listen all the way to the end, because she also announces the launch of a very exciting project on her land, starting in spring 2026 - for more information give @oud.terranova a follow on Instagram.

Content note: This episode contains a personal story about mental illness and suicide, which some listeners may find distressing.

Diane’s inspiration: 

👩‍🎨 Anaïs Lopez

📚 Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

🐚 Diane’s souvenir for you: try to really connect with something which is alive. Observe with all your senses: your eyes, ears, smell and touch. Set a timer if you like, but just observe for at least 15 to 20 minutes and see what happens. 

Hosted by: Daphne Frühmann
Editing: Axel Frühmann
Music: Mark Oomen
Instagram: @theartofcoexistence
An Ourcelium Publishers podcast

How exciting that you found us, welcome! 

Here you'll find deep conversations with artists, designers, philosophers, and thinkers who share their wildest ideas and projects of a more symbiotic future. A future where we see, understand and co-exist with nature.

You are invited to the art of co-existence.

We'll share a new episode on your favourite podcast-app every two weeks.

Hosted by: Daphne Frühmann
Editing: Axel Frühmann
Music: Mark Oomen
Instagram: @theartofcoexistence
An Ourcelium Publishers podcast