'On the Contrary: Rethinking Engaged Art in an Age of Social Unrest' is a collection of essays that re-evaluate key artistic concepts that influence the way in which engaged practices are conducted. Historically produced ideas about, for example, spectatorship, autonomy, what an artwork is, and the political role of the artist determine to a large degree how contemporary practices constitute themselves. Might these concepts be faulty when acted out in practices that occupy fundamentally diffe...

The innovation of higher education is incredibly important to the future of our society. In this volume, Jeroen Lutters traces the source of his pedagogical philosophy on higher education, the Free University of Bernard Lievegoed, founded in 1971. Fifty years after this alternative form of higher education was launched, the concept remains a crucial guideline for Lutters in creating a non-reductionist, de-disciplined, multi-level form of higher education. Essential reading for those looking f...

This inspiring book addresses questions such as: How can we become active within our own learning and unlearning process? What happens when we open to the wisdom of the body? Or for the knowledge that comes from conversations around the dinner table? How can we make time to really listen and not to understand? This publication is an invitation to deal openly and critically with numerous artistic learning methods such as making, listening, talking, researching, voting, asking questions and col...

The first publication on the life and work of the Argentine-American architect Helena Arahuete explores how she is one of the few architects who still practice the original principles of organic architecture, pioneered by Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan over a century ago. The book expands the scholarship on organic architecture by illuminating Arahuete’s personal philosophy and integration of this tradition with the current discourse on sustainability. With contributions by Alan Hess...

This book is about bodies. About how bodies traverse the familiar surroundings of one's home or move along the familiar routes of everyday life, but also about the relation of bodies to the public space. On another level, the book shows what the meaning of artistic research can be. Research tells of experiments and experiences, collections and vistas gained by the researcher during the course of the research. This book shows that any good (artistic) research creates futures.

The book stages...

Inspired by the 2019 Bauhaus centennial, ‘Designing for Precarious Citizens’ links the ideals of the Bauhaus to research by designers and students on the living and housing conditions of vulnerable groups in society today. For the Bauhaus, technology was a tool for reducing the vulnerability of working-class citizens, but in modern society it often prevents people from being able to make decisions about their own future. The various design projects featured here follow on the ideas of arc...

By investigating the interplay of technology and education within the arts, this publication reveals the often unnoticed structures of domination that influence our interactions with digital and learning environments. It challenges the perceived neutrality of technology and proposes a radical rethinking of our relationships with the tools we use to create and learn. It is also a call to action, encouraging artists, educators, and technologists to forge paths towards a more inclusive and equit...

The word “vegetative” usually brings to mind passiveness and decay. But vegetal matter is, in fact, a source of existence, sustenance, peace, beauty, and hope. When plants join in rhizomatic networks, they participate in a lively exchange of energy and information. Performance artist and writer Anushka Nair proposes a conceptual and artistic methodology in the context of plant life, encouraging an embodied form of co-existence. Nair thus offers a unique perspective on connecting with plan...

What do we mean by theory in the arts, and what role does it play in that sense? Theory appears as an active, transformative, fluid, and communicative element of art practices, and research in the arts in particular. Theory is the fluid that perfuses and connects the territory of fine art and design, as well as other art forms such as music, architecture, writing, moving images, dance, and theatre. At the heart of this publication is the new field of research in theory and the way the ArtEZ T...