Svitlana Lavrenciuc is a research scientist, cartographer, and spatial practitioner whose work investigates the cultural meanings, representations, and values of soil. Her interdisciplinary research crosscuts the fields of spatial practice, environmental humanities, visual culture, and critical media studies, exploring how landscapes are perceived, represented, and governed.

Svitlana is currently a research scientist at the Wyss Academy for Nature, where she explores the intersections of environmental governance, indigenous cosmologies, and relational values of landscapes. With over a decade of experience, she investigates how different communities perceive and interact with nature, particularly in the contexts of soil, land-use planning, and climate resilience.

Her current work focuses on relational values and the materiality of soil in Madagascar, examining how social, cultural, and ecological dimensions shape human-soil relationships. She is currently developing a new research project in the Peruvian Amazon (Madre de Dios), which critically engages with indigenous and immigrant environmental values, alternative spatial representations, and governance models in rapidly changing landscapes.

Beyond her academic work, Svitlana contributes to interdisciplinary dialogues between science, art, and policy, exploring the aesthetic and conceptual dimensions of environmental relationships. She is an educator and lecturer in art and architecture, with a teaching practice centred on experimental participatory pedagogies and inclusive knowledge systems.

Svitlana is based in Bern, CH / London, UK and works internationally, collaborating with researchers, artists, and local communities to rethink how we relate to the more-than-human world.