Photos Material Temporalities 2025

On Wednesday November 26, 2025, together with a group of students and teachers, we had the rare opportunity to visit and work in the Atelier building of the Rijksmuseum and NICAS (The Netherlands Institute for Conservation+Art+Science+). We were introduced to the workshops and laboratories at NICAS exploring different temporalities of art-making through the lens of material-based research. After that, we received a tour with presentations at four conservation studios: Textiles, Inks and Pigments (RCE), Furniture, Imaging Room. We ended with a guided conversation, collective mapping exercise and reading that attempted shifting our gaze from the moment of the now to the wider temporal dimension of conception, development and multiple phases of becoming what we perceive today of an artwork. We focused on the long and arduous processes that precede the perception of an artwork as a finished product. How can we unravel materials and techniques used in artworks? And does this affect the meaning of the artwork in the present?