Rietveld Sandberg Research
The research group Art & Spatial Praxis (LASP) starts a new Plot(ting) research group consisting of 11 new members. They meet on a monthly basis to discuss theoretical and material manifestations that speak to Sylvia Wynter’s concept of the plot. They had their first fruitful session on May 30th 2023.
The research group Art & Spatial Praxis (LASP) starts a new Plot(ting) research group consisting of 11 new members. They meet on a monthly basis to discuss theoretical and material manifestations that speak to Sylvia Wynter’s concept of the plot. They had their first fruitful session on May 30th 2023.

The Plot(ting) research group is formed by Taylor le Melle, G, Giulia Damiani, LOOM, (Radna Rumping, René Boer, and Katía Truijen), Flavia Pinheiro, Mariana Martinez Balvanera, Francisca Khamis Giacoman, Lietje Bauwens, María Mazzanti and Chris Julien. They will join Patricia de Vries (lector of the research group Art & Spatial Praxis) and Liza Prins (coordinator of the research group Art & Spatial Praxis) and meet on a monthly basis to discuss theoretical and material manifestations that speak to Sylvia Wynter’s concept of the plot, while focusing on conceptual, artistic and design imaginaries that reframe and reclaim cityscapes.

Each month one member takes the lead and curates the program, by either selecting a text, initiating a visit to an archive, going for a walk, joining a sit-in or initiating visits to exhibitions or sites. All reading is done collectively during the session sitting on a plot-blanket that is currently made by Liza Prins.
Taylor Le Melle has grown to find biography less cringe through building a practice of describing their activities with present participle phrases (“Taylor is writing”) and shedding the practice of categorising states of being (“Taylor is a writer”). Taylor has trained in art history, architectural theory and developmental psychology. From 2017 to 2022 they ran a publishing collective, PSS, through which they have edited and produced several collections of science fantasy, theory and one poetry chapbook with contemporary artists. This year, they are working their own book-length project for which they are making a series of 'draft objects' which both facilitate and result from the production of text.
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Luton, The Galaxy, The Mall. Mourning, natural death. Graveyards. Urns. Trinkets. Raves. Dancefloors.The 'Anti Bio’. ‘Non performers’, ‘Non Dancers’ everything that we are told we are not good at or need a qualification for. Humour x 10000000000000000000000000 Power Dynamics. FREE ART SCHOOLS. FUNDING 4 ALL Sculptures made in a day Care as a necessary tool Anthropology. The internet (beware 2nd hand information and the vacuous). Some Comedians. Performance as a survival technique. Embarrassing myself Bass players.Barbados.Semantics. Shouting in the countryside. Dancing instead of talking. My Mother and Father (RIP). Sci Fi as a survival technique. Britishness. Mental Health.Grinding my hips as slow as I can (Sam I love you).Sub woofers. Dressing up as other things.Joy.‘Non-Artists’. Friends above the age of 70yrs old.Exciting poetry. My forever ongoing Death Doulaship training (Be weary of it ever being done) Keeping naval gazing in check.
Dr Giulia Damiani is an artist, writer, researcher and curator based in Amsterdam working with performance. In 2022 she contributed performance work at institutions such as the HKW Berlin and Centrale Fies in Italy. An article on her latest performance is due to be published in the University of Manchester volume Gestures: A Body of Work.
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Loom is a practice for cultural transformation. Powered by dialogue and imagination, Loom provides reflections, propositions, rehearsals, and real-world alternatives that bring people together around urgent issues. Loom develops open, experimental formats to help find and unlock the transformative potential of people, places and organisations.
Flavia Pinheiro is a choreographer, performer and a researcher from Brazil currently based in Amsterdam. Her research foregrounds networks of resilience and resistance to systems of knowledge by fabulative speculations around Science and Technologies. Her artistic practice in an ongoing attempt to create breathing and vital conditions; in an unstoppable dance she creates improbable exchanges with the nonhumans such as bacterias, plants, birds, antelopes and ghosts.
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Mariana Martínez Balvanera (1988) is a designer and artist based in The Netherlands and Mexico, working in the realm of community lead urban and rural placemaking projects within the critical spatial practice approach: in the intersection between architecture, participatory art and social design.
Francisca Khamis Giacoman is a visual artist and designer based in Amsterdam. Through performances, installations, and audiovisual works, she recalls stories of migration and unfolds them at the boundaries of fiction and materiality.
The plot-blanket is currently made by Liza Prins.
The plot-blanket is currently made by Liza Prins.
Lietje Bauwens studied philosophy in Amsterdam. Based in Brussels, she works with Wouter De Raeve under the name '431', initiating artistic research projects such as "the new local" (2018) , the film "WTC A Love Story" (2020) and the upcoming film "WTC A never-ending Love Story". She is co-editor of "Perhaps it is high time for a xeno-architecture to match" (Sternberg Press, 2017) and "Speculative Facts" (Onomatopee, 2021). She writes essays and reviews and is an editor of the literary magazine nY. She was a resident at the Jan van Eyck academy in 2019-2020.
María Mazzanti (1988/COL) is an Amsterdam-based architect, teacher and writer interested in critical spatial practices and feminisms. María is an editor in Failed Architecture and teaches at the Sandberg Instituut and the Rietveld Academy. Her current research explores the entanglements of water, infrastructure and climatic justice.
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Chris Julien mixes research and practice in the fields of public innovation, ecology and culture, with a focus on epistemology and governance. He is currently pursuing a PhD at Utrecht university that combines new materialisms with decolonial and ecological thought to constitute a field of so-called ‘ecological governance’ supervised by Iris van der Tuin. Furthermore, he is active in, and a spokesperson for, Extinction Rebellion and as an independent practitioner focusing on urban ecology and regenerative cultures, besides siting on various boards and committees. He holds cum laude masters degrees in Conflict Studies & Human Rights and in Cultural Analysis.
research group
Art & Spatial Praxis
project
Plot(ting)
Photo: Monique Kooijmans
Photo: Monique Kooijmans
Patricia de Vries
lector/professor
Photo: Monique Kooijmans
Photo: Monique Kooijmans
photo: Simon Pillaud
photo: Simon Pillaud
Liza Prins
projectcoordinator
photo: Simon Pillaud
photo: Simon Pillaud
Taylor le Melle
Taylor le Melle
Taylor le Melle
Taylor le Melle
Giulia Damiani
Giulia Damiani
Giulia Damiani
Giulia Damiani
Flavia Pinheiro
Flavia Pinheiro
Flavia Pinheiro
Flavia Pinheiro
Francisca Khamis Giacoman
Francisca Khamis Giacoman
Francisca Khamis Giacoman
Francisca Khamis Giacoman
Lietje Bauwens
Lietje Bauwens
Lietje Bauwens
Lietje Bauwens
María Mazzanti
María Mazzanti
María Mazzanti
María Mazzanti