Rietveld Sandberg Research

Materiality

The Materiality Research Group revisits the role of workshops in art and design education, asking how material comes to matter in the face of contemporary social and ecological challenges.
about

The Materiality Research Group revisits the role of workshops in art and design education, asking how material comes to matter in the face of contemporary social and ecological challenges. Amid climate crises and growing social inequalities, the initiative positions material-based inquiry as a critical area of research in art and design education. By foregrounding the socio-material intricacies of the workshops – understood as sites where infrastructures, materials, tools, and collective practices are closely intertwined, established tropes such as mastery, novelty, and tacit knowledge are being questioned.

Drawing on feminist and posthumanist thought and practice, the group considers the workshops not simply as places for acquiring skills, producing prototypes and products,but as spaces of negotiation and critical discourse, where materials, people, and ecosystems co-shape one another. The evolving collective material practices resist neoliberal tendencies of tech-optimism and economization of education, and instead propose workshops as sites where care, maintenance, and critical forms of collective knowledge production are being developed. By linking situated practices of making to global questions of extraction, waste production, and climate injustices, the group brings together students, teachers, staff members and researchers to develop self-conscious art and design practices attentive to positionality, responsibility, and material agency.
team
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Anja Groten
project researcher 
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Márk Redele
project coordinator  
news 17 Sep 25
Research project Connecting Otherwise receives grant for two years

Materiality – Rietveld Sandberg Research is delighted to share that a consortium led by Anja Groten, Head of Sandberg Design has been awarded funding by the Taskforce for Applied Research SIA (part of NWO) under the Artistiek en Ontwerpend Onderzoek 2025 scheme. “Connecting Otherwise: Developing artistic/design research methodologies and workshop formats for regenerative digital practices” will run from September 2025 to August 2027 with a subsidy of € 125,000 supporting the development of interdisciplinary workshop formats exploring regenerative aesthetics and the materiality of digital technologies through hands-on and collective research approaches.

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Interview Zaïra Pourier

Materiality – Fellows 22/23 Zaïra Pourier participated in the fellowship programme in the academic year 2022-2023 with the research project "Resonance in Displacement: Unearthing the Soul of Diasporic Artefacts". The interview below is published in the online publication “Fellows Published” that was launched in December 2024. fellowspublished.rietveldacademie.nl

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Interview Alaa Abu Asad

Materiality – Fellows 22/23 Alaa Abu Asad participated in the fellowship programme in the academic year 2022-2023 with the research project "The dog chased its tail to bite it off". The interview below is published in the online publication “Fellows Published” that was launched in December 2024.
fellowspublished.rietveldacademie.nl

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Interview Patrícia Domingues

Materiality – Fellows 22/23 Patrícia Domingues participated in the fellowship programme in the academic year 2022-2023 with the research project "Reverberations of the Earth: More Complex Notions of Materiality". The interview below is published in the online publication “Fellows Published” that was launched in December 2024.
fellowspublished.rietveldacademie.nl

event
25
Nov '24
Approaching Quantum Entanglements
How Material Comes to Matter
Theory Stairs, FedLev building, Gerrit Rietveld Academie

Materiality – How Material Comes to Matter Presentations and conversation by Agustina Woodgate, experts from the DLR (The German Aerospace Center) and students from Cologne International School of Design (KISD) and Parsons The New School.

event
06
Nov '24
Material Temporalities
Tour of conservation studios followed by a workshop at NICAS (The Netherlands Institute for Conservation+Art+Science+) and the Atelier Building of the Rijksmuseum
NICAS, Atelier Building, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Materiality – How Material Comes to Matter Rietveld and Sandberg students are invited to join our workshop Material Temporalities on 6 November. This workshop offers a rare opportunity to visit and work in the Atelier Building of the Rijksmuseum. During the first part of the workshop you will receive an in-depth introduction to the workshops and laboratories at NICAS, exploring different temporalities of art-making through the lens of material-based research. In the second part of the workshop students will be invited to engage in exercises and discussion evolving from their own material experimentations through the lens of preservation and restoration.

event
15
Oct '24
Otherwise Possible Connections: Queering Artistic Feedback
Talk by IPOP (In Pursuit of Otherwise Possibilities) followed by a conversation with Emirhakin
Unsettlingbar

Materiality – How Material Comes to Matter

event
10
Oct '24
Entangled fibers: Grey Oyster Experiment
Garden, FL101, Rietveld Academie

Materiality – How Material Comes to Matter This workshop brings together the students of the TXT bachelor department, the Garden Department and other living organisms in a collective site of material research to engage with material practices weaving together human and other-than-human knowledges.

project
How Material Comes to Matter

Materiality – The Materiality Research Group revisits the role of workshops and their pedagogies, asking how material comes to matter in the face of contemporary social and ecological challenges. This series of events is kindly funded by CoECI.