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Are you interested in the hydrological, ecological, and socio-technical dimensions of rivers and other bodies of water in Ukraine? And would you like to engage with a diverse group of scholars and practitioners to propose paths forward for riverine regions affected by war? For those interested, remember that this open-space takes place at Silent Stage on Feb. 23 at 9:00 at Cafe Kyiv (Colosseum Berlin), organised by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, with the support of KIU - Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies "The “Talking About Rivers in Ukraine: From Lessons and Reflections to Action” session brings together a variety of water researchers and practitioners who are currently working on rivers across Ukraine. During the first part of the session, Oleksandra Shumilova, Tetiana Gardashuk, Anna Lytovka, Seila Fernández Arconada and Francesc G. Rodríguez will share their projects and fields of activity in brief presentations, focusing, above all, on the practical lessons learned from their river experiences. The second part of the session will make room for discussion, especially about how their distinct perspectives on Ukrainian rivers potentially speak to and enrich each other. As an invitation to practice “actionable” steps, the session will end by inviting participants to consider how their work could translate into concrete collaborations beyond their current networks, and how this might open new avenues for researching, protecting, and reimagining Ukrainian rivers during wartime". During this collective session I will be sharing learnings from the ongoing project "Dnipro River, Ecosocial Belonging in Wartime" which I have been developing from Ukraine and initiate an Arts based participatory activity with all present. #rivers #DniproRiver #Ukraine #panel #artisticresearch #collaboration #transdisciplinary #bodiesofwater #waterbodies 
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I would like to share the video of the latest Art Therapy Force project in which I have been involved in as a mentor. The project named "Kids Arts Retreat" took place in late January in Ukraine and has been a heartfelt experience where all involved have given part of their souls to this collective journey. This creative and supportive space has been facilitated together with an excellent team of talented multidisciplinary professionals. The team follows a trauma informed approach aiming to create a safe space for expression, always communicating to allow learning to be applied between all. The most important is the supportive process, seeing the participants evolve is one of the best gifts, as well, this project is a profound learning experience. This project takes place in the current conditions of the full scale russian aggression of Ukraine and it is important to mention that all the kids selected to be part on this process are coming from regions on front line territories. Again, as usual I am very honoured to be part of the Art Therapy Force family, thank you for having me. Are you interested in the hydrological, ecological, and socio-technical dimensions of rivers and other bodies of water in Ukraine? And would you like to engage with a diverse group of scholars and practitioners to propose paths forward for riverine regions affected by war? For those interested, remember that this open-space takes place at Silent Stage on Feb. 23 at 9:00 at Cafe Kyiv (Colosseum Berlin), organised by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, with the support of KIU - Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies "The “Talking About Rivers in Ukraine: From Lessons and Reflections to Action” session brings together a variety of water researchers and practitioners who are currently working on rivers across Ukraine. During the first part of the session, Oleksandra Shumilova, Tetiana Gardashuk, Anna Lytovka, Seila Fernández Arconada and Francesc G. Rodríguez will share their projects and fields of activity in brief presentations, focusing, above all, on the practical lessons learned from their river experiences. The second part of the session will make room for discussion, especially about how their distinct perspectives on Ukrainian rivers potentially speak to and enrich each other. As an invitation to practice “actionable” steps, the session will end by inviting participants to consider how their work could translate into concrete collaborations beyond their current networks, and how this might open new avenues for researching, protecting, and reimagining Ukrainian rivers during wartime". During this collective session I will be sharing learnings from the ongoing project "Dnipro River, Ecosocial Belonging in Wartime" which I have been developing from Ukraine and develop an Arts based participatory activity with all present. #rivers #DniproRiver #Ukraine #panel #artisticresearch #collaboration #transdisciplinary #bodiesofwater #waterbodies #cafekyiv  I am deeply grateful to be on the ground in Ukraine as a mentor for the Kids Camp by Art Therapy Force. It is a profound honor to collaborate with such a talented and dedicated team. Together, we are facilitating a collective journey of healing and artistic expression for 45 kids from different regions of Ukraine close to front line territories. In the midst of everything, Art becomes our bridge to hope and a safe space for their growth. Here you can check on the team behind this project. дякую to all and specially Art Therapy Force team for making this possible and for the trust to be part of this heart-led project. #ArtTherapyForce #Ukraine #ArtTherapy #Mentorship #CollectiveHealing #Resilience #KidsCamp #CreativeExpression 
I am deeply grateful to have been part of the collective journey "Caring for the Caregivers: Supporting and Safeguarding Women Humanitarians" throughout 2025. Combining humanitarian work with my professional career has become a complex mission. For years, my artistic-research practice has focused on building bonds, as I truly believe collective art processes create life-long friendships, and these connections have naturally led me into challenging realities. I believe that the privilege of being able to develop projects internationally carries a weight: when a deep need arises, for me, that privilege becomes a responsibility. This is what brought me back to Ukraine in 2022. Since then, my life has changed to the core, reshaping my priorities in life and what is meaningful for me, despite the many obstacles as I remain an individual-freelance worker in a collective network rather than an institution. This work takes me totally out of my confort zone as it is hard, emotionally and physically intense, as I also face the daily reality of Ukraine with regular russian strikes, as I have experienced often for over one year and a half since 2022. I cannot be more thankful to have found the community "Caring for the Caregivers" via the Bosch Alumni Network. This platform taught me the vital importance of developing a "caring practice" while working in a war territory, learning from other women humanitarians facing crises across different continents. It has helped me navigate the complex feelings of "privilege" that arise from the fact that the war didn’t come to me, but rather, I chose to face it. This experience has reinforced my belief on how vital it is to expand networks of translocal solidarities which I will continue developing further. These sessions program strengthened my skills in empowerment, self-defense, mental health, and well-being, alongside a talented cohort of women humanitarians. To all the women in this programme, and to all women humanitarians out there: thank you. I am honoured to share this journey with you! #CaringForTheCaregivers #WomenHumanitarians #HumanitarianWork #TranslocalSolidarities #BoschAlumniNetwork #Ukraine #Solidarity #WomenSupportingWomen #ArtAsConnection Robert Bosch Stiftung
📷 various authors part of #lvivcandidatecityecoc2030 archive Finally, I’ve found the right moment to share some important news. This year has been extremely busy, and while most of my recent work isn't even online yet (it will be soon!), I must pause to reflect on one important experience I am proud of.
This story begins with an invitation to be one of the conceptual co-creators for the Candidacy for Lviv European Capital of Culture 2030. I couldn’t be more honoured and immediately responded, doing all I could to articulate a situated proposal to integrate with the other meaningful projects in the bid titled:"Responsibility to Be". Creating a situated conceptual approach for Ukraine with all it entangles, based on many levels of "responsibility" while making sense internationally was a challenge. But I can’t be more grateful to have contributed to shaping the vision of the proposal that, despite not reaching the successful final selection, reached the semifinal! For me, this bid is a powerful stand of commitment and creativity, structured as an innovative-situated-respectful programme integrating Arts and Culture as a vital space for safety, awareness, healing, dignity and knowledge. The main objective of the bid was to establish Lviv as a central space for socio-ecological regeneration that would strengthen communal bonds in Ukraine and abroad. However, I believe Lviv is already The Capital of Culture despite the decision from the European Commission. I would like to highlight and highly value the rigorous dedicated work the core team undertook for years to make this bid happen and reach this important stage, their commitment facing the war while working for this huge impactful project. Thanks to all the international institutions and professionals I contacted for support and partnership for the project section I was in charge of. From Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Spain, UK, Ukraine... their trust and the overwhelming motivation to participate were already a sign of how much this cross-border cultural collaboration is needed! I wish this work can be continued in the future. Meaningful, caring and committed collective work is the key to building the Culture we need in Europe. #lvivcandidatecityecoc2030 - The Artist's Dilemma: How Do We Validate Knowledge That Lives "In Between"?- (Reflection Part I) As a Multidisciplinary Artist Researcher, I face a common yet critical challenge: how to effectively validate the rigorous knowledge and skills acquired through a multidisciplinary international career path? My work isn't confined to a single box. It emerges from 15 years of situated research across international contexts, integrating transdisciplinary collaborations with diverse communities and cultures. This results in a potent blend of expertise, a "baggage" that goes far beyond a traditional CV which often impacts in artists livelihoods. ---- The Unseen Expertise: Embodied, Imagination, Resilience... The essence of this knowledge is often found in the "in between": intangible, fluid insights that resist easy categorisation, particularly within academic structures as artistic research evolves in permeability. The question: if practice is the place where knowledge emerges, and if artists are trained to integrate imagination and critical thinking, how should we validate practice-based knowledge emerging from situated artistic research and embodied learning? Our visions are often too complex to fit into existing disciplinary/institutional boxes. Artist's intentions are diverse and surely different to other profesional perspectives but this is the core for a rich innovative collaboration: diverse perspectives. Such partnerships require of trust not necessarily full understanding. This lifelong research has cultivated vast expertise on me: - from working in research collaborations and education: in situated research methods, academic research, embodied somatic practices, complex system thinking, transdisciplinary collaborations informed with trauma informed practices, conflict management, transformative education, mentoring, psychological practices... - the ongoing multidisciplinary research based on theoretical multidisciplinary knowledge includes: ecosocial justice, water management, ecological/humanitarian relational perspectives, decolonial and sustainability approaches, knowledge on climate change, natural disasters, conflict territories, cultural diplomacy... - multidisciplinary art and design techniques: film, photography, drawing, creative writing, sound art, sculpture, installations, website, publications... - this process also rests on a conscious nomadic lifestyle demanding personal and cultural adaptation as well as bodily resilience, all of which profoundly inform the research, lately, for example, working from Ukraine and how war not only impacts the work I do but myself. It is an ongoing evolution, continuously surfacing intangible "in betweens" to highlight relationality over categories and disciplines. Reflection part II ----- Expanding Multidisciplinary Vocabulary To give multidisciplinary academic language to what the practice already inhabits intuitively, I constantly join virtual or in person spaces to learn and exchange in order to keep growing and challenging perspectives. Recently I expanded my educational journey in various ramifications of the research I am developing. One of them I came across years ago, the Earth Charter, a UNESCO endorsed international declaration of fundamental values and principles for building a just, sustainable and peaceful global society in the 21st century. This took me to enrol the Ecoliteracy course (2023) by Haumea University run with Dr Cathy Fitzgerald. As she notes, “ecoliteracy means becoming familiar with the ecological philosophy, ethics, and sciences that advance an ecological worldview”. This foundational course led me to this year the Certificate on Education for Sustainable Development by Earth Charter International and UNESCO at the University for Peace (UPEACE) - UN Mandated in Costa Rica. I'm now proud to be a certified educator of the Earth Charter”! This expanded learning enhances my ongoing research, which centers on artistic practice as a core response to the current socio-ecological crisis. I weave artistic transdisciplinary methods, imagination, intuition, and critical thinking with transformative, collective ways of being. I am particularly fascinated by how transformative education and the Earth Charter merge with artistic visions and embodied-grounded forms of being, embracing our emotional and intuitive intelligence. This journey provided the theoretical words to articulate better in the educational context transferring what was already was emerging in my artistic practice. This is added to a number of recent certifications including "Trauma-Informed Art Practices" organised by Art therapy Force and Kings College London in June 2024 (Kyiv, Ukraine) and the course "teacher training methods and tools to help students navigate climate anxiety while fostering resilience and regeneration" (2025) by CLARITY run by One Resilient Earth with Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS and IIIEE The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (Lund University), REAL School Budapest and Climate Creativity and also "Water, Relationality and Ethics. A philosophical ethical and artistic exploration" (2025) organised by the University of Antwerp in collaboration with Atlas Bioethics Center and University of Almería. Here courses (list is growing to further add more already finished past courses): https://www.seilafernandezarconada.net/multidisciplinary-education.html ----- Next Steps: Sharing the Expertise This latest round of learning was achieved while immersed in multiple international projects, mostly in Ukraine but also in Portugal, Spain, Germany and other countries. The questions keep arising, feeding this ongoing research, however, with this journey concluded and planning underway for the new year, I am now offering:
If you're interested in exploring how my expertise can benefit your organisation or project, please check out what I can offer here: https://www.seilafernandezarconada.net/sharing-expertise.html and my BIO with a brief CV here: https://www.seilafernandezarconada.net/bio1.html 
  I would like to share about the recent discussion on "Artistic Practices and Care" in which I talk together with the psychologist Helena Samperio, as part of our project CREATE, PARTICIPATE, CELEBRATE. CULTURE AND COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH. A session to explore the connections between artistic practices and community mental health created by La Ortiga Colectiva.
The project CREATE, PARTICIPATE, CELEBRATE: CULTURE AND COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH focuses on exploring the links between cultural practices and community mental health. With a program that combines online meetings with in-person workshops, it seeks to focus attention on the creation of new narratives and scenarios that enhance, on the one hand, the vital, social, and emotional dimension of culture and, on the other, community mental health as a context for reflection and action in the face of contemporary eco-social challenges. Furthermore, throughout the process, an action-research is proposed, which positions participants as active agents able to participate in the collaborative creation of a cultural toolkit prototype, with the aim of identifying, supporting, and increasing the visibility of resources and practices concerning community mental health. During this online session, only the interventions of the invited speakers were recorded, not the discussion space that took place afterward with the people who connected, with the aim of creating a friendly space for relaxed conversation. Here you have the link to watch this conversation in Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYXSU8vVlKk Seila Fernández Arconada Multidisciplinary artist and researcher whose practice centers on contemporary socio-ecological uncertainties. Through situated collaborations, her (eco)socially engaged practice addresses transdisciplinarity, systemic thinking, ecosocial justice, conflict management, and trauma-informed practices, among others. This work is situated at the intersection of artistic practices, formal and non-formal education, and ecological/humanitarian practices. She has directed numerous multidisciplinary projects, workshops, and interventions internationally. She is currently working on several projects such as: "Dnipro River: Ecosocial Belonging in Wartime" and is a mentor for the Art Therapy Force project in Ukraine. Helena Samperio Licensed in Psychology from the University of Deusto. Collegiate General Health Psychologist CA-474. Couple and Family Psychotherapist accredited by FEATF. Disseminator of systemic relational methodology among professionals and institutions. Co-director of the Encuentrax program for judicial measure psychotherapy in the open setting of the Government of Cantabria. She has participated in national and international congresses. Organized by: La Ortiga Colectiva Funded by: Fundación Santander Creativa More information about the project: https://laortigacolectiva.net/crear-participar-celebrar-cultura-y-salud-mental-comunitaria/ #saludmental #laortigacolectiva #arte #culturacomunitaria #seilafernandezarconada #saludmentalcomunitaria #Cantabria #Santander #psicología #psicologíasocial #psicologíasistémica #helenasamperio This week, KIU Fellow Francesc G. Rodríguez Mansilla and KIU alumna Seila Fernández Arconada will present their research at the International Alumni Conference “70 Years of the Hague Convention: Learning from the Past and Present for the Future” in Cottbus. “The Many Lives of Rivers in Wartime: A Focus on Ukraine” 📅 Tuesday, 25 November 🕟 4:30–5:30 p.m. 📍 Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus-Senftenberg • Seila Fernández Arconada (KIU Alumna) “Dnipro River: Ecosocial Belonging in Wartime” — exploring the role of the Dnipro River in shaping identity and belonging during war • Francesc G. Rodríguez Mansilla (KIU Fellow) “Enduring Waterscapes” — an ethnographic study of war-affected riverine communities in Ukraine 🗣 Roundtable (onsite & online): 📅 Thursday, 27 November 🕑 2:00–3:30 p.m. Participants: Francesc Rodríguez, Issam Juha & Manana Tevzadze The conference is organised by the International Association of World Heritage Professionals (iAWHP) and funded by DAAD Worldwide
 S+T+ARTS Artistic Residencies in Esposende (Portugal)
Over the next 13 months, the Rio Neiva Association will host three artistic residencies aimed at reflecting, debating, and creating solutions for water management challenges in the Esposende territory. Part of the S+T+ARTS program—which unites science, technology, and art—these residencies involve the community and various local stakeholders, proposing new perspectives on water challenges through artistic creation. After receiving more than 50 applications, the selected artists have been chosen and have already begun their immersions in the territory. Get to know them: Challenge: Engaging the Unengaged – Water Literacy in the Northern Coast Natural Park Małgorzata Suś (Poland) @movementimage Project: “Acts of Belonging” Challenge: Waters in Motion – Reimagining Flood Resilience Seila Fernández Arconada (Spain) @o_fio_da_agua @seilafdza Project: “O Fio da Água: Embracing Water’s Flow for Resilient Futures” Challenge: New Waters, Old Stories – Regenerating Cultural Heritage Linked to Water Helin Ulas (Turkey) and Rita Eperjesi (Hungary) @helinulas @ritaeperjesi @kanape.studio Project: “Sea Shells, She Tells” Join us on this artistic journey and discover how art can inspire new relationships with water! @startseu #STARTS #ArtisticResidencies #RioNeiva #Esposende #Water #STARTSAquaMotion Image Credits: 1 Ana Clara Roberti 3 Antonina Polukhina |
