Infiltrating social designers into the deprived neighborhood called de Kolenkit in Amsterdam.
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The Kolenkittens is part of the program City Circles by Ketter&Co. City Circles is a project investigating the human factor within an urban circle with a diameter of one kilometer. City Circles inspires, activates and shows the ability and resilience of man to shape their lives in any given urban microclimate. In spring 2019, six WOW Artist in Residence and eleven students of DAE researched the Kolenkit neighbourhood.
Imke's infiltration methods
1. Give before you get
Presenting herself as a professional cat-photographer in the local Facebookgroup (see image on the right) gave Imke the opportunity to enter peoples private spaces, build a connection and gain trust.
2. Mutualise yourself in the other
Imke built a platform on social media for the cat owners where they could exchange information and stories of their beloved pets. This way Imke made herself inevitable and able to track all the important information.
3. Go undercover
With the right intention Imke was now able to dive deep into peoples lives and their relation with their pets. She could interview people about their feeling of loneliness but also extract data on the specific breeds of the pets. This way Imke got interesting data to work with.
Exposition City Circles presented all projects including Imke's Kolenkittens as mascots.
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Five local cats became an inspiration for variety and fauna in the city and Imke branded them as influencers of the neighborhood. They became the representation of pets in urban areas as Imke presented the interviews with their owners trough their visuals.
Kolenkitten mascots
poster exposition City Circles