Debra Solomon

Debra Solomon

Debra Solomon is a Dutch artist and infrastructure activist with over 25 years of experience in public space. Her work merges art, infrastructure activism, and social sciences, focusing on biodiversity, climate crisis, and the multispecies right to the city and subsequent right to the urban metabolism.

She coined the term Multispecies Urbanism (MU) and showcased the concept in the Dutch Pavilion at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennial, titled "Who is We?". Currently pursuing a PhD in Urban Planning at the University of Amsterdam, Solomon is also the founder of Urbaniahoeve – Social Design Lab for Urban Agriculture. Its current (long-term) project is the 56-hectare Amsterdam Zuidoost Urban Food Forest (VBAZO), produced together with Renate Nollen and local human and more-than-human communities. She is experimenting with soil chromatography, which she develops in collaboration with mentor Ruben Borges.

Photo by Jeanette Groenendaal.

/ Urška Škerl

Multispecies Urbanism (MU) concept proposes that cities be designed and governed for the multispecies whole. In her manifesto, artist, infrastructure activist, and researcher Debra Solomon argues that healthy urban environments for humans are inseparable from the flourishing of other species and their microbial consortia. MU treats ecological labour—cooling, water buffering, pollination, soil formation—as infrastructural work […]

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