Het is er al / It's Already There
CarbonFix cohort
Type
Founders
Type of intervention
About this project
Rik van der Linden is making a second film with eco-philosopher Matthijs Schouten, about Schouten’s work over the past few decades and the people he has affected with his story.
It’s a story of how we humans conceive of our place in the world, and the forms of knowledge we rely on to interact with it.
The past 2000 years of Western civilization has been based on the idea of humans having god-given dominion over nature. Other cultures, including pre-Christian ones in the West, have long conceived of humans as partners or participants in nature. People in the West are now also shifting to this model… but our actions still don’t reflect our new beliefs.
We believe that the more people bond with nature and feel the grief of biodiversity loss and climate change, the more likely they are to do something about it. Not only as consumers, but also in their work, where they make decisions that affect the trajectory of massive companies and resources.
That’s why we gave a grant to Rik to develop his idea and to film the first scenes in De Burren in Ireland. We are looking for partners and co-investors to the change the story that drives us together’ Get in touch!
Founder Q & A
Q. Can you explain your project?
I’m making a documentary, Het is er al (’It’s Already Here’) that will be a poetic quest in search of meaning and the future of Western culture. It will be an invitation to broaden our horizons and to experience that we are a part of a web of life.
It’s based on the teachings of Matthijs Schouten, an ecophilosopher who has spent the past decades explaining the different ways in which we as humans can relate to nature, and encouraging people to shift their perspective. In Western culture, there is little room for experiences that make us feel part of the great community of life on this planet, or even all the elements in the cosmos. Our Aristotelian and Christian history led us to believe that we were the ‘rulers’ over nature rather than partners of it or participants in it, which is the perspective of many other cultures, especially indigenous ones.
Read the full Q&A here.