Monthly Sunday morning lectures organised by the master's programme DAS Creative Producing in collaboration with Adyen.

The lectures take place on Sunday morning, at 11.00, Adyen, Rokin 49, Amsterdam. Admission is free. Sign up using the registration form.

On Sunday morning, 11 May, we will host our monthly keynote-lecture. This time we will be joined by Shivant Jhagroe and Agat Sharma. The lecture will be in English. Moderator: Damani Leidsman.

In this keynote lecture we examine the human relationship with the earth and the concept of eco justice. Writer, researcher and artist Shivant Jhagroe talks about the importance of getting beyond ‘sustainability’. He explains how our Western sustainability narratives make us forget how deeply sustainability is intertwined with colonialism, capitalism and social exclusion.  

Artist Agat Sharma presents to us his project ‘Singing a new land into being’. This project investigates a collective reimagining of land-body relations through collective dreaming, improvised singing, and creating poetic/speculative digital landscapes informed by the cotton crisis in India and the impact of extractive agrochemical farming.

Shivant Jhagroe is a writer, researcher and artist. He works as an assistant professor at the Institute of Public Administration at Leiden University. His work revolves around questions of sustainability, politics, climate justice and decolonisation. In his new book ‘Beyond Sustainability’ (in Dutch, ‘Voorbij Duurzaamheid’), Shivant argues that thinking and acting from the perspective of sustainability often functions as a ‘green pacifier’ that prevents radical and just system change. The moral fixation on sustainability narratives (e.g. electric cars, eco-tourism) makes us forget how deeply sustainability is intertwined with colonialism, capitalism and social exclusion. He therefore advocates for a different political imagination, towards an ‘eco-just society’, which prioritises a loving and caring relation with the Earth and each other. 

Agat Sharma (he/him) is an artist, educator and theatre maker. His work prominently features themes examining the emergence, evolution and erasure of the relationship between land and the body from a post-colonial lens. He works with an expanded notion of what a song and a story can be and employs them as tools for evoking radical collective imaginaries. Agat is currently engaged in a long term research about cotton, conducting theatrical experiments exploring cotton's pre-colonial history, colonial extractivism and the ongoing agrarian crisis in India. Agat works between the Netherlands and India.

After the lecture, for those interested in the master's program DAS Creative Producing there will be time to ask questions to students and teachers. For more information, go to our website.

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About the collaboration between Adyen and the Academy of Theatre and Dance
In 2022, Adyen and the Academy of Theatre and Dance will launch a special collaboration to provide a space for inspiration, reflection, and action in the heart of the city of Amsterdam.  

The company Adyen was founded in 2006, in the center of Amsterdam, by a group of Dutch entrepreneurs. Adyen is a payment platform that processes payments for leading companies around the world. It currently has more than 2,000 employees and 27 offices around the world. In 2021, Adyen opened additional office space on the Rokin, in the same city center where the company's journey began. In collaboration with the Academy of Theater and Dance, the company is opening its offices to Amsterdam residents to connect with, and give back to, the city of Amsterdam. Within its education, the academy explores the ways in which art can contribute to shaping the world, based on the firm belief that art can set people and the world in motion.