At the end of 2020, the first participants of the Art & Society postgraduate honors programme started in the AHK Culture Club on the Marineterrein. Seven recently graduated AHK students were given the opportunity to start their own transdisciplinary manufacturing practice in a pilot edition in the coming months. The Art & Society programme was developed by Denise Harleman and Matthijs ten Berge, co-founder of the AHK Culture Club.

It was a widely supported wish within the Amsterdam School of the Arts to be able to guide AHK students who work beyond the boundaries of their own discipline for some time after graduation. After all, the start of a transdisciplinary manufacturing practice brings extra challenges, but at the same time also offers many opportunities. For the new makers, who increase the chance of building up a financially healthy practice by looking beyond the boundaries of disciplines and sectors and by committing themselves to questions that arise in society. But also for the AHK, which can learn from this. The Art & Society programme offers selected recent graduates from all academies of the AHK the extra opportunity to develop further in nine months. They are given the opportunity to build up a network, work together on issues that they want to address in their practice and share their knowledge as part-time lecturers directly with the AHK academy.

Beyond the boundaries of your own discipline
"With the Art & Society programme, we want to strengthen the power of starting makers and guide them in developing the knowledge and insights that are necessary for setting up a sustainable work practice," says Denise Harleman. Whether their period in the programme leads to a new project, financing or a specific business form, they are completely free to do so. The programme is a kind of lab in which participants investigate how they can facilitate and shape their own needs and expand their network. In doing so, the participants look beyond the boundaries of their own discipline and make use of various techniques, such as VR or AI.

Future dreams
Following two intensive pilot years of the Art & Society programme, a decision was made not to start a new team in 2023. The focus on an interdisciplinary creative practice and on art-driven change remains as valuable as ever. In the coming time, the way in which the Culture Club can be of broader significance in that regard within the AHK arts education will be examined further in consultation with the Executive Board and the academies. In addition, the relationship between the arts, technology & sciences, which can be found with AMS Institute and Codam at the Marineterrein, offers an interdisciplinary field of forces that can be of value to a new generation of artists and cultural creators

Matthijs ten Berge was director of the Amsterdam Creative Industries Network (now COECI) for seven years, the Center of Expertise for creative industry and digital technology in which the AHK collaborates with the HvA and the Rietveld Academy, among others. He previously conceived and developed urban education and knowledge platforms such as the Knowledge Mile and Campus Amsterdam. He also worked as a film producer and lighting designer for which he was awarded several times with a Dutch Design Award and a nomination for a Golden Palm for best short film. In addition to his work for the AHK Culture Club and the Art & Society programme, he works on behalf of the Executive Board on the plans of the AHK on the Marineterrein.

Denise Harleman is in addition to her role as developer of the Art & Society programme, affiliated with the AHK as a teacher at the master's in Art Education, the master's DAS Creative Producing and a number of bachelor's programmes at the Academy of Theater and Dance. Previously, Harleman was, among other things, business director at theater company Zina van Adelheid Roosen. Fascinated by the power of art in transition processes and the need for new forms of exchange of views, she takes initiatives herself from her company FUTURABILITY, including Collective Capital, an experiment of a basic income financed by citizens.

More about the Art & Society programme