GRAPHIC DESIGN
COLLAGE ART
Enabling Place-based Community-led Regeneration
Creatively translating core patterns and strategic recommendations of a research project, through collage art and impact report design.
Really Regenerative CIC is a think-sense-do tank, creating place-based regenerative transformation across the different fractals of place. From the neighbourhood to the bioregion.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation is an independent social change organisation, working to support and speed up the transition to a more equitable and just future, free from poverty, where people and planet can flourish.
Project
What are the conditions that catalyze place-based regeneration? And what is the evolving role of philanthropy in creating those enabling conditions? Funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, these questions provided the starting point for the year-long research project that Really Regenerative CIC and Regen Labs Australia embarked upon. The result is a comprehensive report that provides an overview of observed patterns and strategic recommendations for JRF and the philanthropic field more broadly. Sympoiesis translated the core patterns that emerged creatively, producing two bespoke collages and a report. We produced a follow-up report, “Capabilities for Transformative Change”, based on Jenny Andersson’s writings and findings from the initial research project (see below).
Impact
Interpretation
The first collage was inspired by a quote from one of the interviewees and a pattern observed more generally among organizations receiving philanthropic funding. Grants often come with tight conditions that are counterproductive to emergent, place-based community-led work and the adaptive and disributive nature of living systems, in which energy and resources are exchanged freely. "How do we recognise that philanthropy has been a clot? How do we allow it to flow in a more distributed way?” The collage imagines philanthropic funding as a river in circular flow with tributaries: the life nourished upstream benefits the life downstream, creating thriving lifeworlds along its banks. In the centre, humans and more-than-human beings conspire to cultivate healthy soil from which balanced, wise, and integrative beings may come forth that take regenerative action.
Interpretation
The second collage is inspired by the work of Nobel Prize-winning chemist Ilya Prigogine who coined the term “Islands of Coherence”. In regeneration, the focus is not on a project but on place. The starting point of any project is the question of how the project can elevate its place to a higher order of vitality, health, and resilience by tapping into its unique potential. Hence, I created distinct islands with a unique character, woven together in relationship. The hands show the different roles of philantropy as weavers, convening agents of regenerative knowledge, and seeders of healthy soil, providing resources for regenerative action to take shape.
Testimonial
“Navigating the transition to regenerative futures can be challenging. The departure from our current way of thinking, doing, and being is often hard to express in words. The transformation of systems to something we have not yet imagined is hard for even the most creative mind to do. It has been really vital for us to work with brilliant conceptual artists who can understand, interpret, and visualise the evolution of the future. Imagery reaches the inside of the mind and soul in a way words do not always achieve. The combination of both is powerful. Few people we know can do this. Niels can, and does. It has been a joy to work with him, to have someone who can unfold my tangled skeins of thought and pattern into powerful images that move and resonate with the people we are in this work with, and invite in. He is a patient and mindful partner, able to adapt and adjust to whatever is trying to unfold between the brief and the outcome. I am always moved, surprised and awed by the reference images he finds to express what I am trying to say. I recommend Niels to anyone, and am endlessly grateful for his thoughtful approach to the work we have done together.””
Jenny Andersson, regenerative practitioner and founder of Really Regenerative CIC
Laid out hand-cut collage elements before they were scanned and digitally composed.
Project
Building on the first report, the follow-up report expands on the inner, relational, and systemic capabilities and capacities needed to catalyze place-based regeneration. The report weaves research conducted for JRF and Jenny Andersson’s experience and insights into regenerative practice and place-making.
To be released in Sept. 2025)
Interpretation
The collage draws inspiration from Francis Weller, who sees grief work as similar to the alchemical process. Grief requires heat and containment — a vessel that allows our emotions to stay warm, fluid, and in motion. Alchemists saw the material process of turning lead into gold not as separate from the journey of soul-making. We interpreted and expanded upon alchemical symbology and recontextualized it to illustrate the process of cultural transformation, catalyzed by our tending to webs of relationality — a making-with our fellow human beings and more-than-human kin. This co-creation births new ways of being in the world and the emergence of alternative futures, represented in the collage by the appearance of two portals.
Work with us.
We design immersive impact reports that regenerate and honor the attention of your reader. Through collage art, we create communication materials that are fun, alive, and engage the reader’s imagination and empathy. Reach out to us with your ideas, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.