We would like to express a wholehearted thank you to those who responded to our second Open Call. We received 11 proposals in all and take great pride and pleasure that so many students, teachers and workshop specialists presented us with diverse and stimulating visions for the future of art education.
With the following reflections we offer you a synopsis of the proposals, an overview of the topics they addressed and aspects of their research that we found to be exciting. The Editorial Board is sincerely grateful to those who applied, and eager to focus on facilitating the two new initiatives we have selected as well as supporting other promising proposals in carrying out a section of their programme.
1. Future Feminism(s) and Embodiment
The editorial board added the topic of Future Feminism(s) to its list during the second Open Call, and multiple proposals responded. There was a palpable desire to dismantle power structures by creating models of knowledge and structures of education that destabilise and undercut prescribed notions of sexuality and gender, and construct non-hierarchical alternatives. These proposals engaged with a broad range of queer and feminist theory, driven by ideas of a binary-free future, constructs of alienation and connecting the human with nature. Alongside this there was an urge to share practical and creative skills, such as ceramic-making, performance and writing, and to position knowledge as situated and embodied through both virtual and in-person approaches. Various proposals took up the body as a site for knowledge making, one positioned the body as a site for exhibiting, and others as a vital tool from which to make and think.
2. Collectivity and Relationality
It was striking to us that many proposals had a direct focus on connecting the Rietveld/Sandberg community to other academies in both the Netherlands and further afield. In one proposal the academy was positioned as an island, and there was a focus on finding new and sustainable ways to connect with other students in the wake of the pandemic, as well as a direct call for a national art student union. Another focused on methods of translation as a way to connect worlds, using this process to bring students and tutors together in a physical space. There was also a wish to question how students are positioned in relation to existing economic models, and to offer them a platform to connect with opportunities in Amsterdam post-graduation. A clear need emerged for moments of interrelation and the sharing of experience and knowledge between students, tutors, practitioners and workshop specialists, questioning what new kinds of education might surface.
3. Future of Materialisation and Technology
We received multiple proposals from groups who already exist in some form, and whose research dynamically combined material creative practices and research. One questioned the hierarchy of image over sound and another initiated the senses as a ground from which to explore the future of materialisation in urban landscapes. There was a focus on collaborative thinking, virtuality and technology, as well as audio culture and experimental practice. Many offered a list with an exciting range of guests and workshops, some aimed at devising tools for navigating virtual spaces and mapping the boundary between the public and the private, others proposed dating apps as a starting point for rethinking how bodies are surveilled.
A platform run by current students and alumni that aims to question the contemporary dominance of image over sound. They begin with the idea that the very materiality of sound offers experimental and interdisciplinary ways of thinking and making. Through engaging with the topics of future commons, the future of materialisation, and technology, they will organise a combination of listening sessions, workshops and seminars, culminating in the production of an audiobook. Alongside this they will construct an online platform to archive and collect audio pieces, sound experiments and podcasts produced by the participants throughout the duration of the platform.
A platform run by two students and an external researcher. Framed as a course, this platform seeks to produce new forms of knowledge rooted in the construct of embodied cognition. At its centre is a focus on reconceptualising student’s creative and research practices from embodied approaches, considering how the body shapes the way we think and create. Their activities will include lectures and workshops that bring together theory and practice through the themes of relationalily, ecology, economics and future feminisms, amongst others. The platform will culminate in a publication called the Embodied Learning Lexicon, using the format to collate the knowledge shared throughout the programme.
More information about joining these platforms will be shared soon.