The project
The full title of this project is:
Mobile Worlds: empowering third cultures for sustainable and inclusive mobility.
It is a project funded by the European Union, as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Post-Doctoral Fellowship, based at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) in Bergen, Norway.
MobileWorlds explores how we as people might be able to break out of unhelpful boxes 📦 (or even identify the boxes we tend to use) and think anew about individual, group and systemic pathways for our joint futures, and those of generations to come. To do so, MobileWorlds combines insights from various areas Kim and Wendy have worked with, connecting planning with geography, art, postgrowth, economics, history, psychology, children, literature and more.
We look at this in particular in the area of mobility, proximity and transport 🚲 🚶♀️🦽 🏄♂️ 🚣♀️ 🧗♂️ 🧘♀️🚌 🛴 🚝 🚋 🚛 ⛵ ⛴ 🚠 🚗 🛬 …, but hope the findings will be relevant beyond this field.
Research has been carried out in Bergen, Norway and Porto, Portugal.
The EU website of the project can be found here.
The project is coordinated and executed by Kim Carlotta von Schönfeld, in close collaboration with Wendy Tan – see more about us below! However, we aim to co-create the project results with all participants (see more under methodology) and for ownership to be shared.
The team
Kim Carlotta von Schönfeld
Kim recently finalised work as Marie Skłodowska-Curie Post-Doctoral Fellow at HVL (Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway). She now holds a part-time position as Associate Professor at the same university and continues as collaborating researcher at the Research Centre for Territory, Transports and Environment (CITTA), at the University of Porto.
Kim holds a PhD in Land Use Planning, in the area of social learning and social innovation in participatory planning. The key red thread through her research is about seeking social justice and environmental sustainability; trying to critically challenge contemporary enthusiasms while remaining constructive in seeking out connections between research, policy, arts and practice to make this possible.
Her PhD thesis, ‘Planning with Roots and Wings. Critical and constructive reflections on social learning in planning,’ focused on social learning in ‘co-creative’ participatory planning, and on how this does and does not lead to change (small and big). Her research interests include Planning, Governance, Sustainability, Mobility, and Public Space, especially with an international perspective. Research interest and experience in sustainability transitions about the aforementioned subjects.
She is interested in links to socio-economic history, development and philosophy, particularly in the search for socially as well as economically sustainable worldwide change (see e.g. ‘degrowth’). In doing so, she is especially interested in creating interaction between academic and artistic worlds (e.g. film, literature and photography, among others).
She has experience studying and comparing Latin American and European cities in particular, with an eye on connecting ‘Global South’ and ‘Global North’ narratives and knowledge on equal footing without forgetting persistent inequalities between the two.
Besides the Mobile Worlds project, she has also worked on a New European Bauhuaus project called Minante, led by the NGO RioNeiva-ADA, which is closely related to MobileWorlds at least in so far as it is all about co-creation between academia, civil society, municipalities and artists, as well as being about bringing together sustainability, co-creation and aesthetics. She also hosts the Planetary Planning Podcast, with important relevance for MobileWorlds in terms of thinking outside the box, and has been hosting a series of Planning Dialogues, connecting various planners from diverse generations and areas of expertise to reflect on the future of planning – including exploring the role of art in this, just like Kim does in depth through the MobileWorlds project!
You can find Kim on: Linkedin, Researchgate, HVL Website
Wendy Tan
Wendy is Full Professor at the Faculty of Engineering and Business, Department of Civil Engineering, at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences in Bergen, Norway. Additionally, she is a senior researcher and lecturer at the Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning chair of the Environmental Sciences Group at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands. She also serves as the research coordinator for the Foundation of Managing Public Space.
Dr. Tan’s research expertise and interests focus on the implementation of land use and transport integration, mobility issues, and the institutional perspective in planning processes in Europe, America, and Southeast Asia. From 2010-2014, she served as a board member of the Megacities Foundation. She received the Georges Allaert Prize in 2014 for her research contributions to mobility and spatial planning in society. Dr. Tan is also a member of the AESOP transportation thematic group and part of the international advisory board of the journal Urban Policy and Research.
You can find Wendy on: HVL Website
The logo
The logo has been designed by Kim, who has tried to capture the key essences of the project in the images and its various versions. The key idea is to break out of boxes of thinking. Then, depending on contexts, diverse variations with figures are made to give more of a feel of the intention.
The variations have been very fun to make, and we will continue to play with them throughout the project! Perhaps also together with you? Feel free to get in touch with ideas!