Listening for Peace
A Peace Centre was festively opened at the University of Twente today, in the building that formerly housed Starbucks. It is a beautiful space, this building, with double doors opening to the outside square, a high ceiling, a kitchen. More than in most buildings at the university, here you can feel the potential for a truly democratic space: of all kinds of initiatives, people and practices organising, existing next to each other and sometimes touching, inspiring, assembling. The study associations line the room on two sides and make it feel lively, open for initiative. This space has everything to turn it into what Hannah Arendt calls a ‘space of appearance’: a place where people come together and act in concert. The power generated through their actions could further build the possibilities for others to explore and express themselves.
And is this not what a university should be? A space for collective learning and exchange, for experimenting and trying out – but also for learning to take responsibility, standing up for what is important. The question is whether the University of Twente is, at the moment, such a space. While the international peace flag proudly flies over the campus entrance, UT (like many other universities worldwide) is increasing its collaborations with the defence industry. Students and staff joining the opening expressed their concerns about how this is happening without much discussion. It is a complicated issue, one researcher shared, whose country has been occupied within her lifetime. I know how this goes, I have seen it before, said another. For many of the UT community, safety and defence, war and peace, are not abstract questions at all, but lived realities.
On this particular Wednesday afternoon in this would-be Peace Centre, it is not quiet at all. We have planned a short performance with a poem and some piano music. The piano turns out to be dramatically out of tune, with only half of the keys working. The study associations behind us are rehearsing a DJ set for their party. Groups of young men laugh loudly. Students are studying with headphones on. “The soundtrack of peace”, someone comments. This is what the university sounds like today: study associations, business fairs, industry stakeholders and consortia, heard through the rhythm of impact, output, burnout and budget cuts.
But there are other sounds to be heard: we only need to listen more closely. Soft-spoken concerns and questions raised in department meetings. Experiences of displacement, migration, feeling lost. Bodies knowing what war, or peace feels like. Small jokes in the corridors, a moment of care for a colleague. We can listen even deeper; to the effects that the knowledge and innovation produced at this university have on other inhabitants of this earth, on climate and nature. What could impact, safety or security mean, if we listen beyond the familiar hum?
The Peace Centre was indeed opened: once the double doors had been pushed open, they would not close again. ‘This is a security risk!’ a student told us, afterwards. We informed the relevant authorities and left the space as we found it. But what opens in the space of imagination, cannot so easily be contained. The dream of a democratic space on campus, run by staff and students. A space for joy, rest, creativity, collective thinking: a space where other voices can be heard.
Catherine Koekoek is a researcher, curator and facilitator in the fields of architecture, feminism, and political philosophy. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Knowledge, Transformation & Society research group at the University of Twente. Her PhD Towards an Architecture of Democratic Infrastructures (Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2025) explored the spatial and practical conditions for democratic practice. It includes empirical-philosophical studies of community centres in Rotterdam, queer-feminist bookshop Savannah Bay, and participatory community theatre Rotterdams Wijktheater, with which she has worked since 2018. She was co-curator of the 2024 International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, Nature of Hope, and co-produces feminist architecture podcast Respons.