Rietveld Sandberg Research
The Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Sandberg Instituut piloted the ‘Research Fellowship project’ in 2018. The Research Fellowship project is an annual event that supports staff, alumni and third parties in the development of their artistic practice by emphasising the field of Artistic Research. In the first iteration, each department at the Rietveld Academie and Sandberg Instituut were asked to put forth candidates; to which many proposals poured in. Of the ten proposals that were honoured, the Research Fellowship project 2018 appointed three fellows from the Rietveld Academie: Riet Wijnen, Aliki van der Kruijs and Beny Wagner. The Sandberg Instituut appointed six fellows: Angie Keefer, the duo Eurico Sá Fernandes and Gamze Baray, Flavia Dzodan, NXS WORLD, Jules Sturm and Bitnik. The fellows received funding to develop their project two days a week for three months.
The Research Fellowship project was set up by the Rietveld Academie and Sandberg Instituut because of its wish to further develop Artistic Research practices within the institution. Besides this, the motivation for the Research Fellowship project is threefold:

First, it aims to inspire their alumni and staff.

Secondly, the Rietveld Academie and Sandberg Instituut hope that the fellows’ newfound knowledge, in turn, influences education.

Third, to actively support Artistic Research practices, as it offers visibility to students about different kinds of research attitudes (should they want to organise their practice in such a way.)

The Rietveld Academie and Sandberg Instituut acknowledge that there is importance in establishing and nurturing a research environment. To conclude the first round of the Research Fellowship project and to showcase the fellow’s findings, the exhibition and symposium hybrid ‘What is research?’ took place on April 12th 2019, organised by curator and writer Angela Jerardi. This afternoon sought to accentuate the polyphonic nature of the fellows, and offered an afternoon of presentations, talks, performances and a small exhibition.

Featured within this publication are several interviews conducted with a selection of the 2018 fellows:

Riet Wijnen, artist and teacher at the Graphic Design department.

Angie Keefer, artist and lecturer at the Werkplaats Typografie and Sandberg Instituut.

Jules Sturm, cultural analyst and Sandberg lecturer.

NXS WORLD (Karolien Buurman, Florian Mecklenburg & Monika Grūzīte) alumni and collaborative research platform.

Eurico Sá Fernandes and Gamze Baray, artist duo and Sandberg Instituut alumni.

For several of the fellows this was an introduction to the practice of doing artistic research. In the interviews they explain their research processes and their perspectives on what Artistic Research is.

This publication also includes a roundtable talk with the Rietveld Academie’s Artistic Research experts Jeroen Boomgaard and Paula Albuquerque. Jeroen Boomgaard is the lector of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and head of the Kenniskring. For the Research Fellowship project he supervised the Rietveld fellows. Head of honours programme Art & Research and supervisor of the research group Making Things Public, Paula Albuquerque spoke with each Sandberg fellow when asked to write a report on the project. These skilled researchers offer their individual perspectives on research.

Publication: Research Fellowship project (pdf)

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