by Jilke van der Kolk Structure and Format of the Seminar This seminar consisted primarily of a lecture-style presentation by Liesbeth Groot Nibbelink and Sigrid Merx, followed by an extended question-and-answer session with participants. The presentation offered a preview of their forthcoming book Simulation, Speculation and Futurity in Contemporary Dramaturgy: From ‘As If’ to ‘What…

by Tom Watkins During the seminar “Humour, Truth-telling, and Situated Knowledges,” Dick Zijp examined the idea that comedians function as “truth-tellers,” particularly within liberal frameworks of free speech. He questioned how humor comes to be understood as revealing truth in a “post-truth” political context, where satire is often positioned as an antidote to misinformation. Stand-up…

by Agata Kok As Secretary General of Culture Action Europe, Lars Ebert advocates for strong cultural policies in Europe through cultural democracy. During the lecture moderated by Toine Minnaert, Lars introduced Culture Action Europe, which is an organisation that brings together over 300 members from 39 counties, including various cultural networks, organisations, artists, activists and…

by Thorn Austin It is not a question of being against the institution. We are the institution. It’s a question of what kind of institution we are,  what kind of values we institutionalize, what forms of practice we reward, and what kind of rewards we aspire to. – Andrea Fraser 2005   Attendees of this…

by Jenny Chan What does it mean to expand theatre studies into space? With this provocation, Maaike Bleeker (Utrecht University) initiated an interdisciplinary and explorative conversation with Felipe Cervera (UCLA), Vivian Appler (University of Georgia), and Xiao-Shan Yap (Utrecht University). The conversation began with the speakers’ individual presentations of their work, followed by an open-floor…

by Ani Encheva “The multiple dimensions that make up objects also make up ourselves, as well as our categories. Telling the stories of an object therefore begins unpacking our own clichés, our certainties, our affects.” – Joseph Dumit (2014, 349) In encountering the inflatable frogs and clowning artefacts that populate contemporary protest, we are invited…

On Julian Hetzel in Conversation with Maaike Bleeker by Ani Encheva   “No moral, individual and personal, standards of conduct will ever be able to excuse us from collective responsibility. This vicarious responsibility for things we have not done, this taking upon ourselves the consequences for things we are entirely innocent of, is the price…

by Jenny Chan   In the seminar “Everyday Activism in Times of Collapse: Bridging the Personal and the Planetary”, Chris Julien explicated how theory and practice are interrelated under the current ecological conditions. Through theory and practice, Julien explored our implicated positioning and different ways of engaging with the world. Julien first drew from Markus…

by Ani Encheva “What is no longer archived in the same way is no longer lived in the same way.” – Jacques Derrida (1995, 18)   As colonial archives become digitized, what new sites of silence and forgetfulness emerge? How do contemporary visual art practices engage with Danish colonial history to trace and make sense…

by Jhor van der Horst   Trine Friis Sørensen presented a lecture on her PhD research, “We Can (Not) Work It Out: A Curatorial Inquiry into the Danish Radio Archive” (2015). While Sørensen intended to use this TiM lecture as an excuse for new research, a lack of time prevented her from doing so. Her…