Rietveld Mulch #6 Shailoh Phillips’s Mulch

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

In the 6th episode Nina van Hartskamp talks with artist, researcher, and educator Shailoh Phillips (1979, USA) about the Salwa Foundation, an organisation that supports non-eu and emerging artists in the Nederlands. From what need did Salwa arise and what support does the foundation offer to artists?

Furthermore we talk about the role of artists in society and where Shailoh’s drive to guide others derives from. What is the role of art in times of crisis and how do you prepare yourself for an uncertain future?

Shailoh (they/them, she/her) is an artist, educator and undisciplinary action researcher who creates participatory interventions. They have been working along the cracks in the cultural field for over 15 years, cultivating queer imaginaries and working to rekindle our ability to attune, perceive, respond and act in face of catastrophes. They are particularly interested in complex networked systems, exploring the dangers and potential of emerging AI technologies while remaining grounded in damaged landscapes of extraction. Originally trained in Cultural Anthropology, Philosophy and Cultural Analysis (University of Amsterdam, Humboldt University Berlin), they have been developing educational programs in the cultural field at Rijksmuseum, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Kunstgebouw, Hatch and Salwa Foundation - a platform she co-founded in 2015 to support artists with a migration background. She approaches teaching as a form of art, experimenting with more-than-human site-specific learning, material and embodied pedagogies. Since completing an MA in Education in Arts (Piet Zwart Institute, 2017), she has been teaching art and design schools around the Netherlands, including Rietveld, Willem de Kooning Academy, Artez, KABK and Design Academy Eindhoven. Since January 2023, they are a PhD researcher at the University of Twente (Psychology, Health and Technology), currently exploring how to invite people with advanced cancer to create meaning at the end of life in the project New Narratives: Art-Based Learning for Palliative Care.

Until recently, Shailoh was program developer and teaching the Future Framing course with Salwa Foundation and This Works.

Curious about Salwa? Visit: salwa.nl

Want to get in contact or join the mailinglist? Send an email to: Hello@salwa.nl