“A hopeful outlook in difficult times”

Dirk Holemans

author, urban storyteller, keynote speaker and coordinator of Oikos think tank

About

Featured

The Tilting City
This publication aims to draw an image of what the city of the future could look like. We show alternatives to the current urban models and how they can be future-proof. This text will serve as a valuable source of information and bring up new thoughts among citizens...
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Publications

ENOUGH Thriving Societies Beyond Growth

ENOUGH Thriving Societies Beyond Growth

Aug 5, 2024

This book is a compelling narrative about a world with less inequality and fewer private jets, burn-outs and landfill sites, about a healthy planet with more quality of life, time for each other and sustainable products. In other words, about a good life for everyone...

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In the media

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 Agenda

Event Information:

  • Thu
    16
    Jan
    2025

    Carolyn Steel: How food shapes our lives

    7:30 pmAuditorium Suzanne Lilar UGent (Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent)
    Looking forward to have a dialogue with Carolyn Steel!
    Join us at this special public event, organised as part of a weeklong winter school on sustainability at University Gent, and think with us about the future of both food and the ways we let it shape our lives and the world around us. After a lecture by Carolyn Steel, we will engage in a discussion on what ‘Sitopic thinking’ can mean in a Belgian context with Dirk Holemans. Afterwards there will be time for questions from the audience and winter school participants.
    About the public talk: Food impacts almost every aspect of our lives. From the way we feel to how we structure our day, and from international politics to the way we design our houses and cities: the centrality of food cannot be overstated. Yet, for many people today, the relationship we have with our foods is profoundly disturbed. Alarmed by the societal and environmental destruction this ensues, London based architect Carolyn Steel calls for a serious reconsideration of the place and value given to food in modern capitalist societies.
    Following her reflection on the intricate relationships between food and cities in Hungry city, her most recent book Sitopia dares to envision how we can change our ways of producing and consuming foods, and thus regain the lost art of eating well. Literally meaning ‘foodplace’ (from the Greek sitos, food and topos, place), the notion of Sitopia invites us to once again centralise questions of food to address today’s social and environmental challenges.

    The keynote and conversation will be held in English.

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City walks

Hunger for Gent

While walking, discover how Ghent, as a great city in earlier times – the 14th and 19th centuries – provided itself with food and (delicious) drinks. Without fridge or microwave.

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