Capabilities for Transformative Change
graphic design
collage art
art direction
Client: Really Regenerative CIC / Joseph Rowntree Foundation (to be released in Sept. 2025)
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.
Capabilities for Transformative Change
Interpretation: The collage draws inspiration from my teacher Francis Weller, who taught me that grief work is similar to the alchemical process. For 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. I 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.
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
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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