Studium Generale Rietveld Academie is an extensive transdisciplinary theory programme that addresses students and faculty at all departments of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. It regularly opens up to broader audiences. Studium Generale wants to show how art and design are linked with other domains (from the personal to the political, from the vernacular to the academic), how our ‘now' is linked with past and future, our ‘here' with ‘elsewhere'.
In the belief that art students can only learn to think independently when knowledge, imagination and reflection combine to work together in an unorthodox and critical way, Studium Generale Rietveld Academie embarks every year on slightly unruly and therefore always exciting research trajectories. Annually selected curators and numerous guest lecturers from all over the (art)world propose a wide variety of entry points to contemporary discourse.
Studium Generale Rietveld Academie 2024-2025:
Radical Accessibility: Crip pedagogies, Crip theory, Crip practice
Studium Generale 2024-25 explores the accessibility of art and cultural practices through a ‘Crip’ perspective. This approach emphasizes interdependency, mutual solidarity, and shared responsibility among our diverse bodies and minds. Once a term used negatively to describe people with disabilities, ‘Crip’ has been reclaimed by artists, activists, and scholars as a positive and empowering term, akin to ‘queer.’ It challenges harmful norms and prejudices and examines how disability intersects with gender, race, class, sexuality, and the environment, encouraging us to consider these connections on both personal and political levels.
Despite this, numerous barriers persist in our daily lives and learning environments. Many spaces remain inaccessible due to poor design and a lack of adequate accommodations and tools. Educational materials often marginalize or overlook diverse voices and bodyminds. By working with Crip artists, activists, and thinkers, we aim to reimagine the academy, our community, and our artistic practices through this Crip lens. How can we make accessibility a core aspect of our learning, thinking, and creating, rather than an afterthought or add-on?
The Studium Generale team will collaborate with people and collectives such as the Crip the Curriculum (Pernilla Philip, Alcide Breaux, Harriet Foyster, Akash Sheshadri, Menko Dijksterhuis), Staci Bu Shea & Mira Thomson, Jay Tan, Derica Shields, Johanna Hedva, UnSettling.
Dates:
SGxBasicyear, Jan 8; Preliminary program, talks, performances, screenings, workshop, reading group, lexicon, reader and website; 15, 22, 29 Jan. 5, 12, 26 Feb. 5, 12 Mar.; Audiovisual, participatory, performative, theatrical, theoretical contributions and student works at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 20, 21, 22, 23 Mar.
Staff
Jorinde Seijdel (Head)
Jort van der Laan (Coordinator)
