Seed fund

Rimvyde Muzikeviciute - Farming Sugar, Cultivating Salt
Campus Fryslân

Project descrption

The project "Farming Sugar, Cultivating Salt" aims to engage local stakeholders and inhabitants in exploring the ecological and cultural transformations of coastal agricultural landscapes in Groningen and Friesland. By focusing on sugar beet cultivation, this project dives into the complex relationship between humans and their coastal environment, emphasizing the historical, ecological, and societal impacts of agricultural practices and their impact on the modern landscape. By incorporating art-based participatory methods, it connects scientific knowledge on food consumption and production with the lived experiences of local stakeholders (e.g. farmers, consumers). The project aims to generate a dialogue on awareness and relatedness to our food and stimulate collective action towards more sustainable food systems implementing local embodied knowledge.

Project imapct

The Seed Fund project generated several valuable outcomes, including new ideas for future research and opportunities to integrate the project into teaching through guest lectures and workshops. It also expanded professional networks and created potential for future collaborations with the artist community involved in the project.

The project further supported the development of public engagement activities, leading to its presentation at a science festival alongside the European Citizen Science Conference. This experience provided an opportunity to share the research with the Finnish public and highlighted the value of public engagement as a means of disseminating research.

Alberto Godioli and Tjeerd Royaards - Cartoons in Court: A Traveling Exhibition

Project descrption

Due to their compact format and visual creativity, cartoons can be a powerful way to comment on societal and political issues. For the same reasons, cartoons are also often at the center of legal cases revolving around freedom of expression and its limits. How do courts of law deal with cartoons in different geographical and cultural contexts? And what international mechanisms are in place to protect the rights of cartoonists? By addressing these questions, this traveling exhibition aims to promote an open, inclusive debate on humor and free speech.

Project impact

The Seed Fund project has led to several important outcomes across research, collaboration, and public engagement. It will result in a peer-reviewed, open-access catalogue based on the Designed to Provoke exhibition (University of Groningen Press) and helped expand a network of cartoonists, supporting the circulation and impact of the Cartoonists Online survey, which contributed to the Under Pressure report by Cartooning for Peace.

The project strengthened ongoing collaborations with partners such as Cartooning for Peace and related organisations, and contributed to further public engagement activities, including a workshop on visual humour and freedom of expression at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia. In addition, connections developed through the project supported a successful Horizon Europe consortium grant (DELIAH: Democratic Literacy and Humour), bringing together academic partners and cartooning organisations.

Aranka Ballering - Chatcards for change: Conversations on living with persistent somatic symptoms
University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG)

Project description

Persistent somatic symptoms (PSS) are distressing somatic symptoms that last for at least 3 months. The disconnect between the symptoms' severity, persistence, and potential lack of clear somatic and mental causes, renders PSS stigmatized, as the legitimacy of (people with) PSS may be questioned. This project will explore, in collaboration with people with PSS, stigmatization related to PSS. Based on this collaboration chatcards will be developed. These chatcards offer people with PSS a structured way to discuss their experiences of stigmatization with others. Openness about health-related experiences may foster empathy and awareness about life with PSS, resulting in a decrease of PSS-related stigmatization.

Project impact

The Seed Fund project led to new insights for future research through the co-creation of “chatcards” with patients with fibromyalgia. This process generated important questions for further study, including the relationship between fibromyalgia and beauty standards, and the impact of limited public awareness on patients’ daily professional and personal lives.

The visual materials developed for the chatcards have also been integrated into teaching to help medical students better understand persistent bodily symptoms. Overall, the project highlighted the value of public engagement in scientific research and reinforced the importance of visualisation as a tool for communication and understanding in healthcare contexts.

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