The artistic research project opus they acknowledges that humanity is facing a series of interconnected global crises. Traditionally, human beings have defined the natural world as something outside themselves, something that can be dominated by technologies for the benefit of humanity. The situation is unsustainable, and finding ways of (collectively) challenging anthropocentric perspectives through creative and critical thinking has become more crucial than ever. This project studies how artists, architects, designers and others can contribute to an integrative approach to addressing global crises, through processes that promote cooperation and ethical action while critiquing dualistic distinctions between subjects (human beings) and objects (the external world, knowledge, matter, etc.). The research team’s goal is to design innovative and transdisciplinary entanglements of different entities (plants, animals, non-living things, people) by engaging other artists and stakeholders based in different disciplines through grounded theory and creatively reconfiguring traditional understandings of agency.

The name 'opus they' carries multiple layers of meaning, focusing in particular on a research process that aims to develop innovative work that explores new ways of thinking about coexistence, agency, and interdependence between humans and non-humans. 'They' refers both to the use of the pronoun in gender-neutral situations and to entities that are not human, such as animals.

In the context of this research project, it also evokes the concept of "the Other," referring to distinct "others" that are not merely resources or tools for human use. 'opus they' playfully modifies the Latin words 'opus dei' (work of God) to recast artistic creation as a plural task that promotes empathetic engagement—an imaginative act where creative persons can experience the world in fresh ways, simultaneously allowing for the ‘intrusion’ of other subjectivities.

The project aims to reflect about the following questions:

How can decentralised, cooperative systems serve to propose radical change through the arts, design and architecture?

Can the arts propose new ways of being in the world?