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 aims to encourage critical forms of learning, making and thinking. It follows a new research trajectory every year around a specific theme that links up with current events, issues and discussions in the (art) world. Artists and theoreticians from home and abroad offer a broad spectrum of perspectives on the overarching themes with lectures, performances, presentations and screenings.

After a preliminary programme, which also includes film screenings, reading groups, workshops and publications, there is an annual four-day conference festival in collaboration with guest curators who make contact with urgent critical discourses from different perspectives and practices. This takes place at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and is open to the public.

Since 2014 Studium Generale teams up with Rietveld Uncut; departments and individual students develop projects in relation to the theoretical framework of Studium Generale. The presentation and exhibition of these programmes is simultaneous to the conference, bringing ‘the making and the thinking’ together.

To programme

Cybernetics - on social practice (AIDS/HIV) : ACT UP Taka Taka

Conditions for work, the common world of women. — Adrienne Rich.

Useful work versus useless toil — William Morris.

Amniotechnics (from full surrogacy now: feminism against family) — Sophie Lewis

In this virtual zoooom presentation, dragtivist Taka Taka will carefully consider the workings and needs of different activist artists’ collective practices through a lens of Cybernetics. Taka Taka will look at the historic collectives ACT-UP; Gran Fury; and the Guerilla Girls; as well as into the role of Drag performers in AIDS/HIV activism.

Taka Taka identifies as a professional drag-thing and edu-curator who produces performances as art director for the Amsterdam cruise club Church. Taka Taka sees drag as an amplified voice, whose purpose is to communicate, problematize, and propose methods according to local (Amsterdam) conditions. Taka Taka is the godmother of the House of Hopelezz, a sister for others, mother of the drag king House of Løstbois, and proud daughter of Jennifer Hopelezz. Taka Taka sees life through the lens of Dragtivism by producing weekly parties and para-educational strategies for the margins of the marginal LGBTQIA ++ community including political and gender asylum seekers, friends with the virus, misfits, and party monsters.

BROBY-JOHANSON, R.; HØRUP, Line-Gry (ed.)
BLOOD: The Poems and Archive of R. Broby-Johansen

Six years in the making, BLOOD is the first comprehensive English translation of the poems of Danish art historian, communist activist, and writer R. Broby-Johansen. Translated, edited, and designed by Line-Gry Hørup, Broby-Johansen’s poems are accompanied by a series of full colour photographs by Amsterdam photographer Johannes Schwartz, which document the pair’s trip to Brody-Johansen’s recently established archive. So recent, that they were in fact the first to view it. [publisher’s note]

P.S. It is an astonishly beautiful book – from the color of the cover, to the choice of the papers, etc.!

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