Rietveld Mulch was a pilot program of The Rietveld Society that focuses on life after graduation (2022-2023). We aimed to communally explore and share tools of support for developing artistic practices for and with alums. Within this program alums Nina van Hartskamp, Suzanne Bernhardt and Roman Tkachenko were working on a podcast, a series of workshops and an online platform. We touched upon topics like monetary funding, community support and aimed to give insight into possible routes within cultural fields.

In our program we asked artists, curators and other creatives to share their ‘mulch’. In a garden, mulch is used as a layer of material to cover, protect and feed the soil. For us Mulch stands for the many interconnected layers that support the development of an art and design practice. While each Mulch is unique, we aimed to collectively explore and uncover these foundations to inspire and support new graduates.

> Rietveld Mulch The Podcast was shared weekly. Listen to the podcasts here
by Nina van Hartskamp

> Rietveld Mulch Baking and Writing Workshop took place 8, 9, 10 March 2023 at Rietveld Academie
by Suzanne Bernhardt

> Rietveld Mulch Online Platform
by Roman Tkachenko

Rietveld Mulch The Podcast

In Rietveld Mulch the Podcast we focused on life after graduation and ask artists, curators, collectives and others in the cultural field to share their Mulch with us.

Our guests were: performance artist Mica Pan, art critic and writer Zoë Dankert, artist and co-founder of the collective research program - Iridescent Institute of Desire - Pedro Matias, in-depend gallery-owner Diego Diez, and polymash media artist, researcher, educator and Co-Founder of Salwa foundation, Shailoh Phillips.

> Listen to the podcasts here <

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Initiated by: Nina van Hartskamp (1990). She is a multi-disciplinary artist. She graduated in 2020 at Rietveld Academy (TXT) in Amsterdam. Her collaborative practice focusses on interdependent relations between humans, non-humans and the environment. Through site-specific installations, performances and material research she aims to investigate and voice various perspectives on being together and create experiences where you/we are invited to reflect on our relation with the many worlds that live in, up and next to us.

Rietveld Mulch Baking and Writing Workshop

Following the rhythms of baking bread, we playfully explored fund writing, cv compiling and biography building taking place between daily routines. Each session started with a talk about funding routines for artistic practices. We dived into different aspects of writing to situate our practice within the cultural field and to embody alternative perspectives to guide our goals. 

Part 1: Talks

For each session we invited a guest to share their funding routines for artistic practices. We dived into different aspects of writing to situate our practice within the cultural field and embody alternative perspectives to guide our goals.

> 8 March 2023, 16:00 - 17:00 hrs @ Room 101 Fedlev building

Submerging artist Philipp Shueller

> 9 March 2023, 16:00 - 17:00 hrs @ Room 101 Fedlev building

Artist and researcher Urok Shirhan

> 10 March 2023, 16:00 - 17:00 hrs @ Room101 Fedlev building

Writer and post-conceptual artist Alina Lupu

All Rietveld students and alums are welcome to attend the talks.

Part 2: Folding rhythms, funding routines

Following the pace of bread, we were led through a series of exercises that explored structure within bread and text. Baking bread is a slow process of folding, resting and stretching. The moments in touch with the dough are short, just enough to guide the bread to a different stage of fermentation. In between folding, we had time to explore the structure of a text, building up toward a piece that holds itself and rises! At the end of each session we had a start of a structure in text and bread, feeding our minds and our bodies. Also each participant took home a sourdough starter culture, to guide future folding rhythms and funding routines.

> 8, 9, 10 March, 17:30 - 19:00 hrs @ Sandberg Kitchen, Benthem Crouwel building

All workshops are open to all students and alums, but because of limited availability, the artists and designers who graduated last summer (class of '22) will be given priority in signing up for the workshops.

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Initiated by: Suzanne Bernhardt (1988). Her multi-disciplinary practice always originates from a specific location. Fieldwork, material experiments and immaterial memories from people form the fundamental basis for this collaborative work. Suzanne uses trace as an act and as an artefact to translate the moving, the inquiry, the path into the solid, the residue. These residues become the speculative players of food events, workshops and settle as objects into everyday life

Rietveld Mulch Online Platform

The Rietveld Mulch Online Platform gathered practical and encouraging information that can help graduates build a healthy art practice. The chosen topic for the platform was Funding as Foundations.

Since every artistic practice is a unique individual process that is deeply interrelated to its surrounding and soil it is in, we approach art practices as garden Mulch. In a garden, Mulch is used as layers of material to cover, protect and nourish the soil. Mulch online platform consists of gathered, scavenged and picked multidisciplinary information that can help new graduates with constructing their own Mulch. In different layers of Mulch you can find answers to frequently asked questions, tips for writing funds and cv’s, repository of funds, archive of publications, texts, lectures and workshops on the subject and much more.

This platform is a test model of a potentially larger structure with infinite possibilities of added subjects. Enjoy the dive.

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Initiated by: Roman Tkachenko. Roman an visual artist, architectural dramaturg and researcher. Roman has graduated from Architectural Design, Rietveld Academie in 2018 and Studio for Immediate Spaces, Sandberg Instituut in 2022. Born in Russia, he currently lives and works in Amsterdam for 9 hears. His practise is based on investigating the political and social implications of the built environment, along with a question who gets to imagine and participate in shaping its future. Roman is part of collective Timeis.Capital that researches and organises around a topic of self-organisation in the arts. 

This pilot is initiated by Bieneke Bennekers, alumni officer at Public & Projects

Programme by: Nina van Hartskamp, Suzanne Bernhardt and Roman Tkachenko

Design by Goytung @studio_buymytalent