Meespelen! is an exploratory design research project focused on the pedagogy for innovative musical instruments for students with disabilities. Creative changemaker My Breath My Music, which develops adapted musical instruments for people with disabilities, and social changemaker Het Leerorkest, which is committed to equal opportunities in music education, have invited the Research Group Arts Education (AHK) and the Research Group of Performing Arts Medicine (Codarts) to conduct research into a pedagogy for three adapted musical instruments: the Magic Flute, Adaptive Travel Sax, and the adapted acoustic guitar.

For each of these three instruments, a specific pedagogical guide is being developed and tested, based on the practical knowledge of a small group of pioneering music teachers who teach these innovative instruments. The testing will take place through a series of Music Education Labs, set up for this research in collaboration with Méér Muziek in de Klas. The researchers will analyze the findings from the Labs and iteratively develop the guides. The final pedagogical guides, along with accompanying instructional videos, will be published online.

The Amsterdam Museum is being renovated. An important part of the renewed Amsterdam Museum is a museum for and by children. But what exactly will the programming and museum spaces look like? What do children need to make these spaces their own and really use them as a place for artistic reflections on the city and their place in it? To answer these questions, during the period 2023-2025, the Amsterdam Museum will work together with Amsterdam children aged 9 to 12 to design the new Amsterdam Museum for and by children through the ELJA Children's Museum Lab. Besides attending lab sessions in the various districts of Amsterdam, working together on artworks and curating exhibitions, the children involved will be given a voice through a children's sounding board group and children's director. In this way, they help open the eyes of the public and staff and make the museum the place for children. But above all, making and looking at art provides opportunities for the children to reflect on themselves, their environment and the world. The Amsterdam Museum and ELJA Foundation are asking the Arts Education lectorate of the Amsterdam School of the Arts to guide the three-year trajectory towards a children's museum with training and research. The trainings for artists and museum educators, prior to the lab sessions, are based on the principles of 'wicked arts assignments' (Heijnen & Bremmer, 2020). The research was designed in phases with exploratory ('nurturing') research in the first year and impact research in the second and third years. To carry out the research, the professorship commissioned Urban Paradoxes (Sandra Trienekens).

View the full overview of publications and presentations of Melissa Bremmer.