Partnerships with external organisations offer an opportunity to profile student work, extend the outreach of research and challenge ideas in dialogue with others. Collaborations have taken a range of forms: exhibitions, publishing projects, lectures, public programming and screenings. Below are just a few of the organisations our different programmes across the Piet Zwart Institute have worked with in recent years.
TENT
A platform for 100% contemporary art that has its roots in Rotterdam. TENT connects the art of the city to events in the world at large. The exhibition space is housed in a monumental former school building in the Witte de Withstraat, Rotterdam’s cultural avenue. With its diverse programme, TENT addresses relevant developments in contemporary art, whereby special attention is given to topical themes. A visit to TENT is an introduction to the topicality of art in Rotterdam.
Graduation Exhibition 2013, featuring work of MFA alumni Kymberley Ward & James Whittingham (image courtsey of Ghislain Amar)
Sternberg Press
A publishing house with a focus on art criticism, theory, fiction, and artists’ books, the Berlin/New York-based publishing endeavor was set in motion with a pocket book series, edited in part with Nicolaus Schafhausen. Dedicated to an expanded notion of writing on art, Sternberg Press has created a formidable platform in which practitioners from the fields of art and culture (architecture, design, film, politics, literature, and philosophy) can engage in a critical discourse.
COOKIE! Second Volume of collected essays by Jan Verwoert, ed. Vivian Sky Rehberg & Marnie Slater, Sternberg Press & the Master of Fine Art programme, 2014
MELLY
An international public institution based in Rotterdam. Established in 1990 and formerly known as Witte de With, MELLY explores developments in contemporary art worldwide. The center often serves as a springboard to a professional career for many beginning curators, critics, scholars and educators. For over 20 years MELLY has been recognised as one of the world’s most influential and prestigious exhibition spaces with room for innovation and quality.
Jan Masschelein: a lecture entitled Making Art School programmed by the Master Education in Arts and the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art (January 31, 2014)
WORM
A Rotterdam-based Institute of Avantgardistic Recreation. WORM is an event venue, shop, cinema and workspace for music, film and new media. Activities include the Filmwerkplaats, the 24/7 Radio Station and the WORM Parallel University, among other.
An evening discussion at WORM, Rotterdam 2014
POST–OFFICE
A hybrid entity: simultaneously a public platform for cultural interaction and collaboration and a working space, providing materials, services and tools to professionals and students. By exploring collaborative models of working we aim to generate initiatives that are as refreshing as they are economically sustainable.
Book launch / Exhibition Interior Architecture and Retail Design, [X]City: Making Interior Cities at POST–OFFICE, 2014 (image courtsey of Ojodepez Photography)
V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media
An interdisciplinary center for art and media technology in Rotterdam. V2_ is doing research at the interface of art, technology and society. V2_ presents, produces, archives and publishes (texts on) art made with new technologies, and encourages the debate on these issues. V2_ offers a platform where artists, scientists, developers of software and hardware, researchers and theorists from various disciplines can share their findings. In V2_’s view, art and culture play an essential role in the social embedment of and attitude towards technological developments. V2_ creates a context in which technological issues are explored through critical reflection and practice-oriented research.
Consentsus, an open research project by Eleanor Greenhalgh that looked into critical feminist theories of consent. Several workshops were hosted by V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media, 2013
PrintRoom
A presentation space and bookshop dedicated to artists’ publications. Since 2012 PrintRoom runs a risography stencil workspace where artists, designers and other interested individuals can take part in workshops or print their own projects. The PrintRoom collection is comprised of various materials: from lusciously designed, full-colour publications, to small flipbooks and photocopied zines. The space hosts talks, presentations, book launches, and workshops that explore artistic strategies of independent publishing.
PrintRoom’s Director Karin de Jong tours Piet Zwart students through their diverse collection of artists’ books.
IFFR
The International Film Festival Rotterdam is one of the largest audience driven film festivals in the world, while maintaining its focus on innovative filmmaking. Taking place anually, the IFFR brings in films and filmmakers from across the globe to participate in screenings and debates at diverse venues throughout the city of Rotterdam, including the Piet Zwart Institute.
The Master Media Design and Communication programme organises an annual conference in collaboration with Creating 010 and the IFFR.
Mute Publishing
A multi-faceted publishing endeavour that embraces the challenges of theory and practice in tandem, concentrating particularly on the needs of independent producers and small organisations, with whom it shares lessons learnt while experimenting with new formats, technologies and distribution models.
Sniff, Scrape, Crawl… on privacy, surveillance and our shadowy data-double, ed. Renée Turner, published by Mute
Established in 1859, the Rotterdamsch Leeskabinet (Reading Cabinet) is an association’s library. Its impressive collection keeps over 250.000 volumes, and includes novels, poetry, history, art, architecture, design, biographies and philosophy. Various other categories (including crime stories and travel guides) are collected as well. In addition to this book collection the Leeskabinet has subscriptions to a great many national and international magazines which can read in or borrowed from the reading room. Furthermore, the Leeskabinet staff organises literary and cultural activities on a bi-monthly basis.
As part of the Leeskabinet project “Reading Without Borders,” the Piet Zwart Institute joined forces with the Leeskabinet and arranged a free library membership for all its students. As members of the Rotterdamsch Leeskabinet students and staff from Piet Zwart can borrow materials both from the Leeskabinet library and from the Rotterdam University library free of charge. “Reading Without Borders” strongly encourages students to recommend titles they feel their fellow students should not miss out on for the Leeskabinet to take up in its collection. They are also invited to participate with performances in the manifestation in the Fall of 2014, when the “Reading Without Borders” collection will be presented to a wider audience.
Het Nieuwe Instituut (HNI) organises exhibitions, lectures and fellowships, carries out research and development projects, and publishes reports on the outcomes of its projects. These are carried out within three multiyear programmes: Landscape and Interior, Things and Materials, and a third whose theme changes annually (2014: World War I; 2015: World’s Fairs). The collaboration between HNI and MIARD will result in yearly design workshops and projects that enrich our curriculum, and offer our students a unique professional opportunity with vast resources to develop their work and creative network.