open call
OPEN CALL ERF 2026 spring cycle RECONNECT
We welcome professionally established as well as up-and-coming artists from all disciplines and backgrounds. We also welcome curators, architects, philosophers, researchers, art managers and other thinkers and makers with a specific interest in, or at the intersection of, the following subjects: designing regenerative cultures, natural and social science, architecture and food.
For the second year Gagel farm will open her ecosystem to facilitate artists and cultural makers who want to help us in answering the question: How do we build upon regenerative cultures within our European context of the 21st century?
We live in a time of crises. The climate crisis, social injustice and loss of life are all apparent and accelerating. If you look closely, they are also interconnected. They all point to a crisis in our culture. In the global north, for centuries people have cultivated colonial extractive cultures that are inherently destructive. This now dominant worldview in modern Western society is based on separation – separating nature from culture, individual from collective, humans from other living beings. Separation causes disengagement with and abstraction from our surroundings. The more we get disengaged, the easier we refer to extraction and destruction.
Regeneration could offer an alternate pathway: one which reconnects us to place, each other and life (in the broadest sense of the word). To regenerate is to ask yourself with every action and decision you make whether it will result in more life. This question arises from a reciprocal worldview and builds on the understanding that taking care of others – plants, animals, microbes and people – is the same as taking care of ourselves. Indigenous cultures all over the world have known for centuries that we live in an interconnected world. In fact, they almost all perceive all life forms as sacred and honour the wisdom of the heart and hands as much as the mind.
This begs the question of how we, when disconnected, can get back in touch. How do we build a regenerative culture, with its own rules, sacraments, languages, institutions and rituals that facilitate life? And what would that even look like in a 21st century European context?
These urgent cultural questions are at the heart of Gagel farm RECONNECT residency.
ERF is a multi-year residency programme hosted by Valley of the Possible and Bodemzicht Foundation at Gagel Farm. Our mission is to facilitate the transition to a regenerative (agri)culture through the cross-pollination of contemporary residences taking place by artists, cooks and culinary professionals, farmers and scientists. ERF consists of three trajectories which each offer space for the situated entanglement of different disciplines through the exchange of embodied knowledge, theoretical knowledge, inspiration and collaboration at a regenerative farm.
For 40 days two EAT residents, two FARM residents and one RECONNECT resident will work collaboratively and side by side on the farm. All residents will work, cook, eat and collaborate with the entire Gagel Farm team, have designated mentors, are offered free coaching and are invited to partake in (interdisciplinary) workshops in order to stimulate cross pollination.
Space, time and infrastructure to experiment, research and develop a regenerative artistic practice at Gagel Farm.
A 40 days stay at Gagel Farm in a tiny house with a double bed, a small kitchen, a regenerative library and a small space for desk work.
A stipendium with a total of €2000 per per person per residency period and an additional artistic production and research budget with a maximum of €1.000.
Access to the vegetable garden at Gagel farm and a regular supply of climate eggs from our grazing chicken flock.
Access to a covered outdoor resident kitchen for experiments and gatherings
Access to a communal indoor space for study and work for all residents
Participation in the 'Holistic Context' course at Gagel Farm on 10-12 April, 2026 free of cost (participation is obligatory).
Informal insights into how a regenerative farm works and who grows, hatches, blooms, sleeps, flies and dies in which season.
The opportunity to cross-pollinate, through collaboration and inspiration with FARM and EAT residents.
(Group) coaching of ERF residents by Olaf Boswijk, co-founder of Valley of the Possible, to help guide you in your personal growth and the specific needs of your creative practice.