A gift of new impulses for art education
The Artist in Residence programme was initiated by the directors of the four faculties of the Amsterdam University of the Arts, as part of the activities of the Research group Art Practice and Development. The programme was born out of an ideal of educational renewal by innovative and influential artists of international stature. The Artist in Residence (AIR) was to provide directors of studies, teachers and students with impulses from contemporary art practice, and by doing so have an enduring effect on the atmosphere and culture of the school. Since the beginning of the 2004–2005 academic year, interfaculty professor Marijke Hoogenboom has shaped the further development of the AIR programme. Four years later, she looks back on a multifaceted programme, and looks forward to an even more diverse future.

Made to measure
'When we first started the artist in residence programme at the Theatre School, the Academy of Architecture, the Dutch Film and Television Academy and the Conservatory, we expressly chose for an open approach, except with regard to timeframe and budgeting. Our credo was ‘Freedom for the artist and institution to create a bespoke programme – in both content and organisation.’ This same principle still applies today.

In my position as interfaculty professor, I deliberate with directorates and artistic directors: I help shape the initial ideas, I discuss with them the best ways of approaching the artists and I examine the potential benefits of the intended collaboration. I am a mediator, a producer, but the institutions make the proposals. Each is responsible for its own AIR; they act as hosts and must ensure that their school creates space for the artist and the programme. In some sense, I’m the one who gets the initiators enthusiastic about their own ideas, by thinking along with them and showing them how to further develop the plan.

It’s a long process: a preparatory phase of eighteen months is not unusual. Besides that, it‘s essential that there’s a dynamic interaction with the artist and, from the outset, the artistic agenda of the faculty in question must be a determining factor: areas of particular interest to it; relevant current developments; the ways in which the AIRs activities should be distinguished from other educational activities; and so on. What I especially enjoy about it is that we end up with exciting collaborations that we wouldn’t have imagined at the start of the process.

Open space
All artists who have participated thus far have experienced the invitation as a welcome sign of recognition, and have often themselves chosen to involve their whole ensemble, company or agency in their programme. The artists are expected to reflect on issues pertaining to their artistic practice, while the school, from as early as the preparatory phase, has to have a clear idea of just who they are inviting. It's essential that the two parties share curiosity about developments within the practice concerned and can find common ground in their approaches to research and education. Within the AIR programme, the artists are also provided with the time and means to renew their work – or aspects of it.

Ideally, artists have their own proposals when it comes to connecting their activities with the educational processes of the Academy concerned. Frequently, the artist’s approach to education is very different from the school’s. In fact, they often question the very purpose of schools, and employ individual artistic methods to explore the boundaries of their expertise. Through this confrontation of approaches, an open space is created: for the artists, who are given the chance to reflect on their positions; and for teachers and students, who can re-examine things normally taken for granted within a given context, and enrich their experience. The AIRs differ intrinsically from other teaching staff – who slot into a circular, repeatable pattern – in that they disrupt the established educational process.

The space created in this way at the AHK, provides students with the opportunity to develop as independent and self-directed artists. At the same time, the encounter with international professional practice puts innovation in art education on the agenda. This was, in any case, high in the minds of the programme’s originators. I think the time is ripe for an inter-school exchange about these experiences, a debate about the state of art in the current climate: is our educational vision still up-to-date?; what influence do contemporary arts have on it?; how is it affected by developments in society?

Sustainability
With the passing of time, it has become clear that a proper introduction of the AIR to the faculty is a key determinant of success; the artist should participate in the community for a certain amount of time to create a fruitful basis for interaction with staff and students. It would be a missed opportunity if not all faculty members were acquainted with their exceptional guest – even if, initially, only a small group was actively involved. If a residency only delivers a hit-and-run effect, as far as I'm concerned the target’s been missed. AIRs create waves, disrupting the still surface and setting permanent changes in motion.

I think it's difficult to successfully implement the classical idea of a residency within the AHK: the structures available to us do not lend themselves to exclusive retreat, and each AIR must deal with the area of tension between autonomy and involvement. But it is also a challenge for the schools to both be hospitable to the artists and to involve them in the day-to-day activities, promoting the long-term viability of the collaborations. Directors of studies and teachers are key to this process, since they are the only ones who can pass on the new impulses to subsequent generations.

In my opinion, the potential of many creative strategies lies untapped when it comes to getting the most out of a residency and making it accessible to a wider audience. Until recently, post-residency presentations and publications were the most important methods of doing this. But now choreographer Krisztina de Châtel and oboist Bart Schneemann have each made documentaries, and creative director Erik Kessels, in particular, has demonstrated that more attention for internal and external communications can generate a great deal of
publicity.

Many forms
The AIR programme offers countless possibilities. Diversity – with regard to content, form, participants, outcome and documentation – is inherent to the programme, as demonstrated by the fourteen residences realised in the past few years. We’ve worked on location in Amsterdam, and in studios, concert halls, classrooms, clubs and editing rooms. The temporary think tank put together by theatre studies professor Maaike Bleeker and artistic leaders from the Theatre School, for example, offered the opportunity to reflect on the limits of our own imagination – both generally, and in the context of education. Nita Liem’s residency at the Teaching Dance course has had a defining influence on aspects of the syllabus relating to multiple cultural perspectives. Horst Rickels’ term resulted in his involvement in the new Masters programme Composing for Film, which is being offered by the Conservatorium and the Film and Television Academy. Peter Delpeut was brought in to work together with directors of studies to consider the question of how the Film and Television Academy could develop the artistic qualities of young filmmakers.

The most pressing requirement of some departments is to invite long-cherished international artists. But it is important to note that the AIR programme is not a funding programme – it exists to encourage development. I want to enter into discussion with initiators of future AIR projects about the content-related aspects of their proposals, and about possible connected perspectives for the artist, and especially the faculty. The Academy of Architecture reserves a special moment in the curriculum the AIR: it is the only moment that all design disciplines cooperate and the school receives foreign students. In this way, the programme is in endorsed by the entire community of students, guest professors and support staff and thus makes an enormous impact. And the jazz department at the Conservatorium has conceived a five-year-plan to provide jazz bassist John Clayton with all the space he needs to gradually expand on his his theme with various musicians, students and teaching staff.

Colourful future
The first years of AIR have seen many, inspired, individual interpretations of the programme, but from the 2008–2009 academic year onwards, diversity and quality will be stimulated even further. These days, it’s no longer appropriate for the AIR programme to restrict itself to the creative courses. Art practice has become hybridised and the boundaries between autonomous and applied art forms are becoming increasingly blurred: artists are transcending their disciplines and developing increasing interest in education. Examples of this phenomenon can be found in Museology, where artists are inspiring new ways of looking at archival, and at the Academy of Fine Arts, where many new ideas are being generated for the involvement of independent practicing artists and commentators.

There will cease to be a standard position for a single AIR per faculty, per year. The programme has been adapted to improve its response both to the environment in which it is operating and to the timescales in which AIR projects can best be realised. Again, there was and continues to be no blueprint for the confrontation with international practice. In the coming time, the Amsterdam University of the Arts Artist in Residence programme will, even more emphatically, become the place where inventiveness, flexibility and the power of the artistic impulse are brought to the fore.'

Marijke Hoogenboom became Professor of Art Practice and Artistic Development at the Amsterdam University of the Arts in 2003. She was previously involved in the founding of DasArts, a workspace for the various theatre disciplines. Hoogenboom is a member of the Grants Committee of the Prince Bernard Cultural Fund, and shares responsibility for international policy at the Dutch Council for Culture. She is an in-demand speaker, moderator and consultant in the fields of the arts and art education, in the Netherlands and abroad. In September 2008 she received the Marie-Kleine Gartman Pen for artists and theatre commentators from the Dutch Stage Association.