Artistic & Multimodal

Based on my research, and often in close co‑creation with the people and communities I work with, I develop artistic and multimodal projects. For me, these are not just ways of sharing results with a wider audience, but an essential part of how I do research itself. Together with academic and non‑academic researchers, practitioners, and people with lived experience, we give shape to a research theme and explore what a social transformation feels like from the inside: what we gain, what we lose, and which futures we would like to move towards. I call this approach the Futures in the Now method, which combines ethnography with co‑creative futures thinking and artistic productions. It has taken the form of theatre pieces, photo and art exhibitions, audio projects, and other co‑creative, multimodal research collaborations. Below is a short selection.

2019 – Theatre: Once We Ate Animals (future of food & animal wellbeing)

I wrote and produced a theatre piece based on my research on the future of food, human–nonhuman relations, and animal sentience, in close collaboration with animal welfare advocates. The piece was performed at the major Dutch music and arts festival Lowlands and in a more intimate theatre setting at Mediamatic in Amsterdam. The same research also resulted in the non‑fiction book Once We Ate Animals, whose world rights were acquired by HarperCollins and which has been translated into eight languages.

2025 – Theatre: The Future of Healthcare (AI, deskilling & ethics)

I co‑created a theatre production based on my research project on the future of healthcare, together with around twenty doctors and nurses. On stage, we explored their concerns about deskilling, responsibility, and ethics as their work becomes increasingly shaped by AI systems. The piece was produced and performed by Company New Heroes and has been staged in large and small theatres, medical settings, healthcare conferences, and medical training institutes. The performance is still available for bookings; more information can be found here.

2026/2027 – Artistic installation: The Identity of AI

Drawing on several of my research projects on digitalisation and AI, I am currently co‑creating an artistic installation that investigates the “identity” of AI: how these systems are imagined, embodied, and experienced in everyday life. For this work, I collaborate with the Next Nature Foundation and the Evoluon in Eindhoven, where the installation will become part of the permanent collection from 2026/2027 onwards. You can find more on this here.

Travelling photo exhibition: SAFE/UNSAFE (refugees, veterans & safety)

Together with people with refugee backgrounds and military veterans, I co‑created a travelling photo exhibition titled SAFE/UNSAFE, based on my ethnographic fieldwork in refugee camps and disaster‑ and conflict‑affected areas. The central question was how one can ever feel safe again after living or working in a place marked by insecurity and violence. Although refugees and veterans differ greatly in background and experience, they discovered shared themes: loneliness after “returning” to a safer country like the Netherlands, fear of “the other,” and unease with what remains unfamiliar. Both groups also played an important role in the creation of my novel Lief van je, which brings this complex theme to a wider audience and allowed me to work safely with highly sensitive research material that could not be published in standard academic form. You can find more on this here.

Audio & online formats: MOOCs and podcasts

I have co‑created and produced several audio and visual projects, including a Massive Open Online Course on the future of humanitarian aid and refugee care. This MOOC has been followed by more than 8,000 students and practitioners and is rated 4.7 out of 5. I also develop various podcast series that make social science research and key societal transformations accessible to a broad audience: interviewseries ‘The Braveheart Club‘ (Production, Interviews & edits by me, broadcasted in collaboration with Happinez Magazine), audiostory platform ‘The Emic – Anthropological Stories from the Field‘, in which I highlight the work of ethnographers from all over the world through coproduced radioplays, and ‘The Etic – Vreemd Gedrag Verklaard‘, a Podcast in Dutch which I co-create with colleague Michiel Baas, and in which we interview social scientists about their work to make our field and findings more accessible.