event
12
Nov '25
Researching with the unknown
Researching with the unknown
In a time of ecological collapse, political violence, and institutional change, we gather to ask: how can artistic research hold space for uncertainty? ARIAS and the Art & Spatial Praxis research group invite the Rietveld and Sandberg community to an afternoon of shared reflection and experimentation. Through short presentations and an interactive session, we will introduce our ongoing projects - Care Ecologies, Weaving Stories, Climate Imaginaries, Plot(ting), and Slow AI - and explore how artistic practices can nurture ways of learning, caring, knowledge production, and connecting in unstable times.
“A question mark can be an act of aggression or interruption: ‘oh really?’ But it can also function as a kind of pause, a break in the horrible flow, the babble, the endless lies. (...) The question mark is the person who says: ‘hang on, what is being said here?’, ‘what is happening?’, ‘is this okay?’ The question mark is the question of the body that stands against the crowd, head bowed, frightened, but compelled by an inner question of their own – ‘is this the right thing, what they are saying?’ It is the feeling and the admission that one doesn’t know, and the intuition that there might not be a simple answer to the situation.”
Nina Power, !/? in Words for the Future, 2008
Amidst this state of not-quite-knowing, the Lectorate Art & Spatial Praxis (LASP) and ARIAS, a platform for research through the arts and sciences, collaborate on this gathering and introduce themselves to the Rietveld Sandberg community. Rather than await certainty, we bring the question-mark on stage and invite you to join us in sensing how artistic research might guide us through transitions on different scales.
Through a series of short presentations, the event introduces participants to some of the current research projects and upcoming events emerging from our thematic lines: from Care Ecologies, Weaving Stories and Plot(ting) to Climate Imaginaries at Sea and Slow AI.
Within the research groups, we have been reflecting on what it means to bring these thematics into practice. What forms of care and collective conditions allow artistic research to take root? How can we remain attentive to what is happening around us, on intimate and collective scales, without being overwhelmed by uncertainty?
This gathering extends these reflections outward, inviting participants to join in an exchange of ways of knowing, approaches, and nurturing practices.
Through this event we hope to introduce who we are, share the themes and urgencies shaping our work, and open a conversation on what artistic research can offer in being with uncertainty.
This event is for the Rietveld and Sandberg community. Please register here, so we get an idea of the amount of participants.
Being with Uncertainty is co-organised by ARIAS and the Art & Spatial Praxis research group.
Being with Uncertainty - Research as staying with the unknown
Nina Power, !/? in Words for the Future, 2008
Amidst this state of not-quite-knowing, the Lectorate Art & Spatial Praxis (LASP) and ARIAS, a platform for research through the arts and sciences, collaborate on this gathering and introduce themselves to the Rietveld Sandberg community. Rather than await certainty, we bring the question-mark on stage and invite you to join us in sensing how artistic research might guide us through transitions on different scales.
Through a series of short presentations, the event introduces participants to some of the current research projects and upcoming events emerging from our thematic lines: from Care Ecologies, Weaving Stories and Plot(ting) to Climate Imaginaries at Sea and Slow AI.
Within the research groups, we have been reflecting on what it means to bring these thematics into practice. What forms of care and collective conditions allow artistic research to take root? How can we remain attentive to what is happening around us, on intimate and collective scales, without being overwhelmed by uncertainty?
This gathering extends these reflections outward, inviting participants to join in an exchange of ways of knowing, approaches, and nurturing practices.
Through this event we hope to introduce who we are, share the themes and urgencies shaping our work, and open a conversation on what artistic research can offer in being with uncertainty.
This event is for the Rietveld and Sandberg community. Please register here, so we get an idea of the amount of participants.
Being with Uncertainty is co-organised by ARIAS and the Art & Spatial Praxis research group.
Being with Uncertainty - Research as staying with the unknown
12 November 2025
16.00 - 18.00 + drinks (walk in 15.45)
Theory Stairs, Gerrit Rietveld Academie
For the Rietveld and Sandberg community
About ARIAS
ARIAS is an independent platform for research through the arts and sciences and is hosted at Gerrit Rietveld Academie. It fosters the development of artistic research around current and emerging topics such as climate change, artificial intelligence, and practices of care. Since 2016, ARIAS has been working in between its five founding institutions for academic and higher education: University of Amsterdam (UvA), VU Amsterdam (VU), Gerrit Rietveld Academie (GRA) / Sandberg Instituut (SI), Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA) and Amsterdam University of the Arts (AHK).
www.arias.amsterdam
www.arias.amsterdam