Portfolio
In August 2023, CHA co-organized the summer school Supervising Artistic and Practice-Based Research, a collaboration between the Academy of Art in Copenhagen, the University in Århus and BAK, basis voor actuele kunst. For 5 days, 32 supervisors of dissertations between art and science met in Utrecht to talk about the challenges and dilemmas they encounter in their work. How do PhD students in the arts give form in words and images to the social and environmental challenges to which they want to contribute with their research? What is the relationship between the written word and the created image? How can the policy relationship be designed to do justice to the professionalism of the artist? How does the learning process of the artistic doctoral student best take shape? In August 2024, the second edition of this summer school will take place in Denmark. Participants spoke of spin-offs in Southeast Asia, among other places.
On September 1, 2023, Tessa van Asselt started as a researcher on the project Learning from LinC. LinC stands for Leadership in Culture, or a series of learning courses for cultural professionals offered from Utrecht University. These learning courses take shape regionally or thematically. Think of LinC ZeeBra, a regional version for culture professionals in Zeeland and North Brabant. Think also of LinC Artistic, the thematic version for artists, art curators, creative directors and artistic directors to which CHA contributes. Tessa will research the educational design principles that underlie LinC's success: what makes LinC deliver something for participants and thus "work"? These principles can then be shared with education for another professional audience.
Big explosions, imitation rain storms and a crew flying to film locations all over the world: filmmaking cannot exactly be called sustainable. How do we change this? Associate Professor of Media and Cultural Studies Judith Keilbach and her team conducted a year and a half of research and recently presented their report ‘Towards a Sustainable Film Industry’ to the Netherlands Film Fund. Find more information here.
Date: February 17, 2022, 2-5:15pm CET
Concepts are theoretical tools. They “do work” as they carve out phenomena or objects, and propose a perspective on the phenomenon or object thus established. As such, concepts are inherently creative and potentially critical: they provide meaning, establish connections, and generate reflection and perhaps debate.
The world today invites us to dwell on the role and use of concepts as we try to grasp the phenomena that we are also part of. A growing number of publications and projects across academia and the arts are accompanied by glossaries, dictionaries, or lexicons. What in contemporary academic and artistic contexts or in the world at large necessitates the curation of, and with, new or modernised vocabularies? What can be done with concepts and what are the limits of concepting?
About the workshop
The above observations and questions form the starting point for the Creative Concepts workshop. It starts off practically by inviting all participants to partake in a collective concept-building exercise according to a pre-set script. After the exercise, the following discussants will provide reflections on concepting across academia and the arts:
After the reflections, participants are invited to partake in another round of the collective concept-building exercise, now inspired by the reflections on concepting.
Critical Concepts for the Creative Humanities
Creative Concepts is organised on the occasion of the publication of Critical Concepts for the Creative Humanities by Iris van der Tuin and Nanna Verhoeff (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).
This workshop is mainly meant for academics, postdocs and PhD/MA students, artistic researchers, and artists interested in concepts and concepting.
RSVP: creativeconcepts@nwo.nl
Creative Concepts is a spin-off of the successful The Postresearch Condition (EARN/NWO Smart Culture) conference (January 2021; organised by Henk Slager with Odile Heynders, Janneke van Kersen, Iris van der Tuin and Kitty Zijlmans).
Creative Concepts was made possible by the MA of Fine Art, HKU University of the Arts Utrecht; the Creative Humanities Academy of Utrecht University; the Dutch Research Council (NWO).
November 2021
New book by Prof. Iris van der Tuin and Prof. Nanna Verhoeff on the rise of creative concepts "indispensable" for professionals in the cultural sector
"We benefit from an open and inspiring relationship with the field we research." So say Prof. Dr. Iris van der Tuin and Prof. Dr. Nanna Verhoeff on the occasion of the launch of the Creative Humanities Academy, a new platform and network within the Faculty of Humanities that encourages and enables collaborations between researchers and creators. The platform has been in existence for a year and offers several programs for professionals, including the successful course Leadership in Cultural Artistry.
A new book by the two researchers will be published this month: Critical Concepts for the Creative Humanities. More of a dictionary really, closely intertwined with the activities of the Creative Humanities Academy and education for professional.
Interview with Nanna Verhoeff and Michiel de Lange about the Media Architecture Biennale 2021. Read more about media architecture, smart cities, and creative methods here.