STAR 2.0 at CitSciHelvetia25 Conference
The STAR 2.0 project was delighted to take part in the CitSciHelvetia25 Conference at the University of Lausanne, held on 5 & 6 June 2025. The Swiss Citizen Science Conference “CitSciHelvetia” was convened for the third time, with this year’s theme ‘Citizen science in action: Collaborations between civil society and academia’.
The event, initiated by the Science et Cité Foundation and supported by the Swiss Academies of Science and University of Lausanne (UNIL), placed a spotlight on the pressing need for collaborative responses to global challenges, ranging from biodiversity loss to climate change and social fragmentation. Within this forum, STAR 2.0 contributed through its partner, the Street Art Museum Amsterdam (SAMA), under the track Knowledge Dynamics Presentations.
Street Art as knowledge Dynamics
The Knowledge Dynamics track explored how citizen science projects sustain participation, navigate barriers, and validate diverse forms of knowledge such as academic, experiential, and community-based. This theme resonates strongly with STAR 2.0’s mission, which is to train youth workers and communities to use street art as a tool for inclusion and engagement.
By positioning art as a form of public knowledge, STAR 2.0 demonstrates that creative practices are not separate from science but are themselves ways of generating, sharing, and preserving insights. The project’s curriculum, online training course, and digital community platform are designed precisely to equip facilitators with methods to unlock these knowledge flows and connect them with broader social and ecological issues.
Street art, Plants and Participation
At Lausanne, SAMA presented an innovative case study linking street art with plant awareness. Using the ArtSpots app, students from Ireland, Latvia, and the Netherlands analysed over 7,000 entries of murals and sculptures to see how plants were depicted. Out of 7,175 works, 1,882 included plants, prompting critical reflection on how nature is represented in the city.
This activity speaks directly to STAR 2.0’s vision of citizen participation through creativity. Just as citizen science often involves counting species or monitoring local ecosystems, this project mobilises participants to study and interpret urban artworks. In both cases, communities are empowered to notice patterns, ask questions, and contribute meaningfully to shared knowledge.
Student reflections captured the potential impact:
“Looking at the different street art depictions of plants allowed us to critically engage with the various ways plants can be represented, highlighting how art can express the human–plant relationship. Especially in the urban context, where green areas are often lacking, artistic representations of plants could be a good way to generate more awareness and interest in plants.” (Punzo et al., 2025)
This illustrates how STAR 2.0’s approach helps communities, particularly young people, develop ecological literacy and a stronger sense of agency in addressing environmental issues.
Street Art as knowledge Dynamics
At CitSciHelvetia25,
much of the discussion revolved around motivation, barriers, engagement pathways, and the reciprocal valorisation of knowledge which are the challenges that lie at the heart of STAR 2.0’s work. By harnessing the immediacy and accessibility of street art, the project lowers barriers to participation and opens social and ecological dialogue to groups often excluded from academic discourse. It recognises that issues of literacy, language, and cultural distance can limit engagement, yet street art has the power to transcend these divides. Importantly, STAR 2.0 places equal value on youth voices and community experience alongside academic perspectives, ensuring that the knowledge generated through creative practice is acknowledged as meaningful. Through co-created murals, storytelling initiatives, and digital archives, the project creates enduring pathways for civic participation and social inclusion, embodying citizen science in action.
Looking ahead
As STAR 2.0 continues to grow, its ambition is to demonstrate how street art can serve as both a mirror of society and a catalyst for change, reflecting lived realities while amplifying underrepresented voices. In doing so, it contributes not only to social inclusion but also to the broader goals of citizen science: producing knowledge in the service of the common good.
References:
Irvine, M. (2012). The Work on the Street: Street Art and Visual Culture. In The Handbook of Visual Culture (pp. 235–278). Berg Publishers.
De Certeau, M. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. University of California Press.
Punzo, V., Clementi, V., Pizzoli, T., Martellos, S., Le Bihan, S., Kochalski, S., … Stolyarova, A. (2025). Street art and plant awareness. Presentation at CitSciHelvetia25 Conference, University of Lausanne, 5–6 June 2025.