Research Catalogue

Artistic research project: "Resisting Gentrification: In-situ Performative Protests in Trešnjevka Neighborhood"

Visual communication for ARMADIO ANTI-BORGHESE, Elisa Nicoloso's fashion collection. “With perhaps a somewhat radical spirit I want to destabilize the boring bourgeois schematic. For my collection, the starting point was the typical garments that characterize the bourgeois wardrobe of a classic bank employee. Double-breasted jackets, shirts, pleated trousers and trench coats are broken down into their component simple elements and then reassembled through a different scheme that introduces an unpredictable conflictual element. Garments that try to reconstruct their integrity will fail. So I attempt to annoy composure and morality through the same means they adopt, the scheme.” Elisa Nicoloso In the same way the box in which this display project is contained has been sectioned to his structural elements, attached to the same white cotton fabric the designer used for the collection and reassembled. The integrity however has been lost as the box collapses and dismounts as it gets opened. Not even when it’s closed it restores its initial integrity. The box alters his shape at every use as the overflowing fabric can’t be contained. It’s up to the user to decide whether to try to contrast this incomposture or accept it in the performative act of closing the box. Gloria Furlan

Nine research groups from HKU, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Fontys, and Utrecht University of Applied Sciences are joining forces with UvH and UMCU to bring a new perspective on healthcare through the arts, supported by the SIA-SPRONG grant. Using a transdisciplinary approach, this research group and its partners are developing new methods, practices, and scenarios within healthcare and well-being contexts—not for, but with each other.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023 MA Photography and Society This study examines what roles images can play in the disclosure of discipline within the Dutch political settlement known as the polder model. On November 24, 1982, the Accord of Wassenaar formalised the contemporary Dutch socio-economic and political character by adopting a method of corporatist consensus seeking and decision making between capital, the state, and labour called the ‘polder model’. The polder model has its origin in the creation of a key feature of the rationalised Dutch landscape, reclaimed sections of formerly submerged land known as ‘polders’. This study draws a connection between the signing of the Accord of Wassenaar and the historically rooted labour discipline of residents of the artificial landscape of the Netherlands. Incorporating archival material, visual experiments, case studies and descriptions of field visits, this study reflects on the role of the praxis of the image maker through artistic research, and emphasizes the disciplined character of the Dutch landscape. These concerns are examined through discussions of the artificiality of nature in the landscape, the grid, the signing of the Accord of Wassenaar, and invisible labour. Through visual interventions in the materiality of cartographic and national archival material, this study argues for a more broadly-encompassing praxis of the representation of power mechanisms in the artificial Dutch landscape. Through the juxtaposition of different visual interventions in the Dutch landscape, an alternative situational understanding of the position of the viewer in relation to the polder is proposed.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023-BA Photography This is the search for what is left of the myth of the Witte Wieven, in the landscapes of the Netherlands. Historically there are theories about who the witte wieven were, and still are. One of them is that they once were wise female herbalists and healers. It was said they had the gift for looking into the future. Another theory is that they stem from forest spirits and goddesses, something our neighbouring countries still believe. In the Netherlands the collective memory of the women is based on the image of scary ghosts, witches or mist figures. History tells us something different. I use the folktales as a guide and travel to the places mentioned. Strongly intertwined with the history of the Dutch landscapes, ancient nature and the east of the Netherlands, the witte wieven show the magical side of this ‘rational’ country. As the search continues, some themes keep recurring: the memory of the landscapes, the importance of female voices in storytelling and their structural silencing throughout history. Clues, maps and the original folktales guide me to fairy tale- like encounters and push me to reflect on fact, fiction and the space in between. Using the camera to document the remnants of this myth, another world is created where the borders of what is ‘real’ fade. A new narrative where they are being remembered in a way they still have their magic. To keep the witte wieven close, I started to collect materials from the places where the witte wieven live: pebbles, twigs and water. Trying to conserve and protect the memories they have in them. The spirits of the women are still there to be found in flowers, trees and rocks. It is important for us to remember, for the women and their story will not fade away over time.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 BA Interactive Media Design Absorbed by squares and straight lines, I am separated from my nature. By producing and consuming, we waste natural sources, till the point that the Earth can’t keep up any longer. What can we learn from the billion-year-old underground network of nature? Fungi might be mostly invisible but ever-present to feed, defend and break down all we ever are and will be. In the house as an ecosystem, I image a space for harmonious orchestrated chaos, connecting life and mediating resources embracing all streams by collaborating with fungi to understand that we are more than one.