ArtDialog & ArtMill — Towards an Interspecies Refuge: Regenerative Art, Community Resilience and Climate Adaptation

Over the past two years, ArtDialog develop an ambitious “Living Lab” in ArtMill dedicated to interspecies coexistence, regenerative land practices and community resilience. Rooted in the methodologies explored through the Transformative Territories project, this initiative brings together art, ecology and social practice to imagine new forms of shared life in times of ecological upheaval.

At the heart of this collaboration lies a simple yet radical question: How can transformative artistic practices bridge social and ecological concerns to reshape cultural understandings of interspecies cohabitation?

A Living Lab for Multispecies Futures

The Inter-Species Refuge at ArtMill was conceived as an open, evolving sanctuary: a place where human and more-than-human species can coexist, learn and heal together. Drawing from regenerative agriculture, queer ecology, pastoralism and eco-social design, the Living Lab blends research, creation and community engagement.

Seasonally open to the public, the site had welcome visitors for experiential and alternative education programmes from summer 2025 onward. It also offers a safe space for minority and historically oppressed groups, particularly through initiatives like OUT:HERE – Queer Šumava, which positions the refuge as a site of care, belonging and multispecies solidarity.

Education is central to the project. Workshops with students introduce themes of climate adaptation, eco-somatic awareness, and community resilience, embedding ecological learning in lived experiences.

A Site Shaped by Memory and Regeneration

The location of the refuge—a Celtic hill and birch grove—was selected for its symbolic depth and its existing role as a sanctuary for ArtMill’s horses and local residents. This landscape of cultural and ecological memory offered fertile ground for the regenerative approach pursued by ArtDialog.

Following ArtDialog’s Methodologies for Regenerative Arts, the project prioritised ethical relationality and holding space—creating conditions where humans and more-than-human beings can seek refuge, belonging and connection in an increasingly disrupted world.

Transformative Artistic Practices

The site is a space for experimental, embodied and interspecies artistic practice:

Khipucamayoc — Weaving Ancestry into the Landscape

During their residency, artist lwrds duniam created Khipucamayoc: weaver of arboreal entanglements, a monumental site-specific installation inspired by Andean Khipu traditions. Woven directly into trees and branches with biodegradable or found materials, the work bridged Afro-Indigenous cosmologies with the living presence of the Bohemian forest. Visitors were invited into a shared practice of learning, listening and reciprocity.

Community Works and Site Regeneration

Other significant contributions included:

• Václav Mach’s Refuge — a multispecies shelter crafted from the remains of invasive shrubs removed during regeneration.
• ISR SF, a participatory work by Gilles Yann and Anjan Salzer, which collected stories, drawings and reflections from over 200 visitors.
• An extensive species mapping and ecological database led by ArtDialog’s Botanical Research Director, Natália Kalná.

These interventions intertwined art, science and everyday ecological stewardship, turning the refuge into a dynamic site of study and creation.

Community as a Foundation for Climate Adaptation

ArtDialog considers community resilience a cornerstone of climate adaptation. The project therefore cultivated strong partnerships across disciplines and generations.

A pivotal collaboration emerged with Bc. Františka Tulingerová, an agroforestry student whose Bachelor thesis centred on the Inter-Species Refuge. Her ecological assessment—soil analyses, biodiversity monitoring and plant health surveys—laid the groundwork for the site’s silvopasture and agroforestry design.

The culmination of this phase was a collective planting of 60 trees, bringing together:

• 15 children and 3 teachers from the local school,
• neighbours and gardening families,
• 17 volunteers, including art students from Prague.

This event symbolised the merging of traditional farming knowledge with regenerative agricultural practices.

A Multi-Stakeholder Ecosystem

Living Labs rely on collaboration. The Inter-Species Refuge engaged:

• over 100 local residents through exhibitions and open days,
• 10 artists-in-residence,
• environmental scientists and agroforestry specialists,
• 60 students on excursions and plein-air visits,
• and the local municipality and a branch of the Ministry of Environment.

With support from the Environmental Partnership Foundation, the project was also shared across a national network of environmental organisations, strengthening its long-term impact and scalability.

Residency Highlight: Yeva Kupchenko

Artist and educator Yeva Kupchenko played a central role in connecting the refuge to pedagogical practices. Through the courses Critical Gardens (Autumn 2024) and Translating Landscapes (Spring 2025)—co-designed with an online school for Ukrainian high-school students—Yeva cultivated spaces for cross-cultural learning about gardens, landscapes and ecological futures.

Students explored:

• Ukrainian garden traditions and the Planetary Garden concept,
• ArtMill’s ecological care practices,
• Stories of landscape transformation exchanged with participants of Transformative Territories in Macao.

These encounters linked diverse histories—from Ukrainian famine to Czech occupation and Portuguese wildfires—tracing shared patterns of resilience across geographies and generations.

Looking Ahead

As this chapter of Transformative Territories concludes, the Inter-Species Refuge continues to grow. The next stages include:

• the installation of beehives on the hill,
• and the creation of KlimaHouse, a greenhouse replicating projected 2050 climate conditions to support continued community learning and climate adaptation.

Rooted in care, creativity and ecological imagination, the refuge stands as a model for regenerative cultural practice and a vision for interspecies futures grounded in reciprocity and resilience.

Pictures credit : © ArtMil

Read more at the partner’s website