Courses and research into Fine Arts Education

As an arts educator I develop courses and programs to provide time, space and ideas for students to explore themselves and their ideas. My teaching practice ties in close with my artistic practice, making for a strong vision on what arts education should be; challenging, fun, critical and mildly chaotic! My personal research into the field of education focuses on democratic and inclusive pedagogy through studies in social, academic and educational contexts. This is fed by a growing interest in participatory arts practices and current developments around such themes.

Currently I have developed the following courses for fine arts undergraduate students in Groningen, and I aim to expand my ideas towards a broader range of education and do more interdisciplinary collaborations. If you have questions or ideas, feel free to contact me.

Sustainable Minerva ​Offcourse
i.c.w/ Research Center Art & Sustainability

The Sustainable Minerva program expands further on the Sustainable Minerva Movement started by Gabriela Milyanova. In collaboration with the Research Center Art & Sustainability, we focus on research and community building in Sustainability. Our central question is how to develop a sense of care for sustainability within the student community of the Minerva Art Academy. In what ways can students express their care for their environment and how can we support and promote their efforts? Currently featured at Minerva Art Academy.

Jonge Harten
​Offcourse

The Jonge Harten Offcourse is a collaborative effort between Jonge Harten and Minerva. We aim to look at the Groningen arts field as united in its ideas rather than divided by media of performing arts, performance or visual arts. With Merel Heering's experience as theater dramaturge and Lola Diaz Cantoni's experience in performance art, we use ideas on 'arts in public space' as a bridge to the outside of the academy, channeled through the Groningen Night of Arts & Science as the stage for the final works. Featured at Minerva Art Academy in 2019.

The Pointless Course +
​The Pointless Community

 The Pointless Course is completely pointless if you don't like discovering, experimenting and critical thinking. For those that do, this course provides space to explore simple, everyday acts and reflect upon them using tried & tested ways. We explore the element of play within our creative practices and try new media such as music and theater, all the while reflecting on our findings through discussion, writing and taking good long walks. The second course, The Pointless Community, focused on the communal aspect of creating and learning, deepening the principles of the first course. Featured at Minerva Act Academy in 2017 and 2018.

Educational program about Flora Reznik,
SRV 2017 - VHDG Leeuwarden

The 2017 SRV project of VHDG featured artist Flora Reznik, giving her the opportunity to tour the Frysian landscape in the mobile studio-van and research the idea of land and ownership. VHDG asked me to create an educational program to accompany her residency. In the workshop 'Het levende landschap' ('the living landscape'), five primary and secondary schools in Friesland explored Flora's work and ideas through discussion and landscape interventions. We also organized a Q&A session for Leeuwarden's NHL college with Reznik, introducing Education in Fine Arts students with her work and process. The results of the educational program were featured alongside Reznik's exhibition at VHDG, allowing visitors to see the program's outcome and experience it for themselves through drawing the landscape around them.

PressPlay - ​Performance art

PressPlay is aimed at bringing students face to face with themselves in a performance art crash course. With their own body for material, students get to know what it means to perform and how they would like to use this artistic language for their own creative practice. Leaving art historical conventions at the door, we fast-forward into experimentation and critical reflection, working towards the interest of the student and his/her grand performative finale. ​Featured at Minerva Art Academy in 2015 and 2016.

Burning Questions Crisis Center

The Burning Questions Crisis Center: for things that keep you up at night focuses on the idea of crisis. Everyone's got burning questions, be it big or small, personal or for the good of all. We use a process-oriented approach whereby students have to undergo their own scrutiny and use their burning questions to develop new work that visualizes the matter at hand. This course is an collaboration between Michiel Westbeek and myself, featured at Minerva Art Academy in 2017.