Symposium March 20th: Doing artistic research: A Collaboratory

Participating in the event is free. Registration is required, by sending an email to symposium@lectoraataok.nl. Deadline for registration is March 15th.

Cartopology: In Search for Mapping Scenes – Marlies Vermeulen
Dear Hunter & Research Centre for Arts, Autonomy and the Public Sphere

Marlies Vermeulen is co-founder of Dear Hunter: a spatial-anthropological research practice producing alternative maps and atlases through qualitative fieldwork which incorporates relatively long periods of living and working on-site.

Currently, Marlies is preparing an artistic PhD research proposal. From her practice she takes both cartography – the making of maps – and anthropology – the acquaintance to an environment – and merges them playfully into a new kind of field, called ‘cartopology’. Cartopology builds on the premise that hidden knowledge can be discovered, transferred and modeled into space and time on maps effectively.

For this work session you are invited to reflect on and exchange the practicing of artistic research itself. Through sharing Dear Hunters dense maps and other works, several questions will be addressed. From how to ‘excavate’ invisible knowledge from a certain site, to how difficult the actual doing of artistic research is, especially when it meets academic contexts.

Articulating Bodily Senses – dr. Ruud Hendriks
Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Maastricht University

Ruud Hendriks is a philosopher in the Department of Philosophy of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS) at Maastricht University. He has worked as a care worker in mental health care and studied health sciences. His research focuses on artistic and technique-based interventions in mental health care. His work is characterized by a combination of ethnographic work and philosophical reflection. Ruud was project-leader and co-researcher (together with his FASoS colleagues Aagje Swinnen, Annette Hendrikx, Ike Kamphof) in the ZonMw project ‘Beyond autonomy and language; towards a disability studies’ perspective on dementia.’ He has widely published on normative aspects of clowning in dementia care and socio-cultural perspectives on autistic spectrum disorders. For his ethnographic work on clowning in dementia care, he was trained as a ‘miMakkus’ clown himself.

His current research in the ZonMw project ‘Make-Believe Matters; the moral role things play in dementia care’ (with Ike Kamphof and Tsjalling Swierstra) reflects on the ethics of technologies of make-believe in person-centred dementia care.

Artful Participation – dr. Peter Peters & Veerle Spronck
Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Maastricht University

Peter Peters (Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Maastricht University) is interested in the production of knowledge in artistic practices, and the innovation of musical cultures. Currently, Peter is working on a four-year ethnographic study of pipe organ building practices, exploring how knowledge, techniques and craftsmanship are developed in the practice of building a new baroque organ in the Orgelpark in Amsterdam. Recently, Peter – together with the research centre Autonomy and the Public Sphere in the Arts, and the South Netherlands Philharmonic – initiated the four-year project Artful Participation, which explores new and artistically meaningful ways of participation of audiences in the biographies/trajectories of musical works.

Veerle Spronck is a PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. She holds a BA in Art History and graduated cum laude from her MSc in Science and Technology Studies on an empirical study of the practices and methods of artistic researchers in the Netherlands and Flanders. In her current research, which is part of the Artful Participation project,  she ethnographically investigates how the value that emerges in symphonic music practices is related to the ways in which orchestras try to innovate participation in their everyday work.

How do you feel? – Writing and drawing feeling techniques
Ulrike Scholtes (University of Amsterdam)

Ulrike is teacher of movement and body awareness and conducting her PhD at the Anthropology department in Amsterdam and the Faculty of Arts in Maastricht. After finishing her studies in arts education in Maastricht and Anthropology in Amsterdam, she familiarized herself with different somatic practices in Europe and Asia – such as somatic movement, yoga, pilates, butoh dance, mime, Laban Movement Analyses and different massage techniques. Deriving from this triple background (arts, bodies, social sciences) she researches body techniques and practices that both enhance and require sensitivity. She researches how so-called “implicit” ways of knowing – such as tacit knowledge, sensitivity, intuition etc – can be learned and practiced by studying professionals and their techniques in both therapeutic and performative body practices. To do this she experiments with different forms of mediation or articulation, such as writing and drawing, to explore how the technicalities of feeling can be brought to paper.

Interview: Mayke Roels & Christoph Aussems
Mayke Roels is theatre-maker, actress and teacher at Theater Laagland (Sittard). At Laagland, Mayke is part of team Young Laagland, in which she lets children explore the fantasies of theatre. Mayke is graduated as theatre-maker and teacher at ArtEZ in Arnhem. She is interested in turning people’s life stories into theatrical productions. In her theatre work, Mayke therefore makes use of the personal input and experiences of actors.

Christoph Aussems is theatre-maker at Het Nieuwstedelijk (Leuven, Hasselt, Genk, BE). He studied Acting at the Maastricht Academy of Performing Arts. Christoph is one of the founders of theatre group De Queeste, of which he was the artistic director for years. At De Queeste, he staged newly written theatre texts and translated different plays. Since the merger of de Queeste and Braakland/ZheBilding into Het Nieuwstedelijk, Christoph wrote a series of plays, based on interviews.

Flora Lysen (University of Amsterdam)

Flora Lysen is a PhD candidate at the Mediastudies department of Amsterdam and also program coordinator for ARIAS, the Amsterdam Research Institute for the Arts and Sciences. In her thesis, she examines the rise of public demonstrations of brain science in the twentieth century, particularly the use of new media (film, television, exhibitions) to exhibit the “brain at work”. Before starting her PhD, Flora worked as a curator, researcher and teacher for several cultural institutions, including the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin and the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague.

Sissel Marie Tonn

Sissel Marie Tonn is a Danish artist based in The Hague. She is the co-founder of the initiative Platform for Thought in Motion together with artist and frequent collaborator Jonathan Reus. Together with Flora Reznik they arrange reading groups and other events in The Hague, engaging artists with scholars in a mutual exchange of knowledge. She completed a master in Artistic Research at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 2015. In 2016 she was the recipient of the Theodora Niemeijer prize for emerging female artists and in 2017 she was admitted to the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. Sissel’s practices focuses on the role of the senses and modes of attention in perceiving environments undergoing change.

dr. Christian Ernsten (Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Maastricht University)

Christian Ernsten works as a researcher and practitioner, and he is interested in embodied knowledge and methodologies – or more particular in notions of body as archive, landscape as archive, performance as archive. What does it mean to think through the body, affect and senses? He worked as an editor at Volume magazine, a quarterly on cities founded by architect Rem Koolhaas. He also wrote as a journalist for Italian design magazines such as Domus and Abitare, and he translated the oeuvre of the urban designer Gert Urhahn into a monograph titled The Spontaneous City (2010).

dr. Anke Coumans (Reader Image in Context, Hanze University of Applied Sciences)

At the research group Image in Context (part of Research Centre Art & Society at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen), Anke Coumans fosters projects in which artists and designers take up new roles and develop new research practices. Anke’s interests are currently in: Parrhesia and the role of the artist in the public sphere; design attitudes in health care practices; portraits as a form of encounter with people with dementia; and humour as counter-strategy for a polarised society. Her work starts from the notion of research ecology: researchers shape each other through different perspectives and methods, within a shared research environment.

dr. Ruth Benschop (Katanning, Australia 1969) is reader at the Research Centre Autonomy and the Public Sphere in the Arts. In developing a variety of research and educational projects practicing with and reflecting on artistic research, community art, documentation, and ethnography, Ruth maintains an estranging, anthropological stance that is foundational for the research centre as such, as well as for the engaged forms of artistic research developed within the centre.

Ties van de Werff is reseacher at the Research Centre for Arts, Autonomy & the Public Sphere. After finishing his PhD, Ties recently started as postdoctoral researcher in the project Artful Participation, at Maastricht University. Ties research interests are in the practical ethics of engaging forms of art, and the construction of relevance and value of arts in society.

Inge Römgens works as a lecturer at University College Maastricht. Inge started a PhD project in January 2018. Educated in the arts and humanities, she has an avid interest in the role of the arts in interdisciplinary approaches to (social) issues and problems. This interest has inspired her in her Master’s degree in Art & Heritage, which she completed in 2008 (cum laude) as well as in her earlier work as a theatre curator.

dr. Christoph Rausch is assistant professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences at University College Maastricht (UCM). He is a co-founding steering committee member of the Maastricht Centre for Arts and Culture, Conservation and Heritage (MACCH), which also constitutes the interdisciplinary institutional context for his research.

9:30 – 10:00                Coffee

10:00 – 10:30           Welcome and introduction by dr. Ruth Benschop (Reader of the Research Centre for Arts, Autonomy and the Public Sphere)

10.30 – 11.15              Cartopology: In Search for Mapping Scenes, by Marlies Vermeulen (Dear Hunter & Research Centre for Arts, Autonomy and the Public Sphere)

11.15 – 12.00             Articulating bodily senses, by Ruud Hendriks (Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Maastricht University)

12:00 – 13:00           Lunch

13:00 – 13:30           Interview Mayke Roels (Laagland Theater) and Christoph Aussems (Het Nieuwstedelijk, BE), by Inge Römgens (University College Maastricht)

13.30 – 14.15             Artful Participation, by Peter Peters & Veerle Spronck (Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Maastricht University, The South Netherlands Philharmonic)

14.15 – 15.00             How do you feel? – Writing and drawing feeling techniques, by Ulrike Scholtes (University of Amsterdam)

15.00 – 15.30             Coffee break

15.30 – 17.00            Panel discussion, moderated by Christoph Rausch (University College Maastricht).

Panel members:
Flora Lysen (University of Amsterdam)
Sissel Marie Tonn (artist and participant Van Eyck 2017-2018)
dr. Christian Ernsten (Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Maastricht University)
dr. Anke Coumans (Reader of the Centre for Applied Research Art & Society)

17.00 – 18.00             Wrap-up and drinks

The symposium is held at the Arts Faculty Maastricht (Zuyd Hogeschool), Herdenkingsplein 12 in Maastricht. When entering the building, walk down to the right, and enter the big open space (called Open Space).

The venue is located at a 25min walk from Maastricht Central Station. By bus: Take the bus in the direction of the Markt and exit at Boschstraat/Markt, Markt, or Vrijthof. From there, it’s a 5min walk. By car: you can park in the Q-park underneath the Vrijthof (paid parking). From there, it’s 5 minutes walking to the arts faculty. The venue is accessible for less abled persons.

The symposium is a collaboration between Zuyd Hogeschool (Faculty of Arts Maastricht, Research Centre for Arts, Autonomy, and the Public Sphere), Maastricht University (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Humanities and Sciences) and Van Eyck Academy. The symposium is made possible by het platform KUNST ≈ ONDERZOEK.

The organising committee of the symposium consists of:

Ties van de Werff – Research Centre for Arts, Autonomy and the Public Sphere
Inge Römgens – University College Maastricht
Pieternel Fleskens – Van Eyck Academy
Nora Vaage – Faculteit of Arts & Social Sciences, Maastricht University

Nabilah Binti Noordin – Student volunteer
Macarena Cabrera – Student volunteer
Jule Kurbjeweit – Student volunteer

Annual Conference of the Maastricht Centre for Arts and Culture, Conservation and Heritage

The symposium is organized in conjunction with the Annual Conference of the Maastricht Centre for Arts and Culture, Conservation and Heritage (MACCH), which takes place on March 18th and 19^th at the Arts Faculty Maastricht. This provides participants the additional benefit of the opportunity to combine both events on their visit to Maastricht. This event requires registration, see for more information: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/events/crossing-borders-arts-heritage