Current PhD projects
Habiba Afifi explores the notion of ‘radical rest’ as an artistic and spiritual mode of inquiry. This notion creates space for more-than-human ways of knowing. Her practice – rooted in ceramics, fertile soil, and speculative fabulation – invites slowness, ecological attentiveness, and co-creation.
Drawing on the concept of Al-Barzakh from Sufi cosmology – a liminal space where the soul resides after death and before resurrection – Habiba Afifi imagines rest not so much as as a form of personal or political recovery, but rather as a deliberate surrender. This way, rest can disrupt capitalist rhythms in favour of human and more-than-human care, slowness, and relational presence.
Simona Kicurovska investigates how digital automation technologies, such as algorithms and AI, are transforming the field of graphic design. She questions what cannot be programmed in digital design systems and what only designers can do. Her research focuses on ‘designer ways of knowledge’, which contribute to socially responsible engagement in times of automated, algorithmic design.
At the intersection of artistic research, queer and trans* care ethics and critical pedagogy, Milo van der Maaden investigates how queer and trans* deviant practices generate critical and creative forms of care and learning. These practices, often labeled as ‘deviant’, are born from systemic exclusion and resistance to oppressive norms of gender and sexuality. They are a source of critical and creative knowledge.
Through participatory methods such as performance and ‘anarchiving’ – an alternative, embodied and shared mode of archiving non-normative knowledges – Milo approaches these practices as pedagogies of care.
In a time of growing societal polarization, Zoya Sardashti investigates how performance and performative methods can contribute to nonviolent, relational forms of dialogue. Using practice-as-research methodology, autoethnographic inquiry, and Judith Butler’s work on the ethics of nonviolence, this artistic research develops performative interventions that reach beyond rigid identity frameworks.
Zoya Sardashti approaches ‘translation’ not merely as a linguistic act but as a bodily, relational, and performative process. This way, it is explored how performance can cultivate sustainable forms of nonviolent engagement across cultural and linguistic borders.
Marielle Schuurman investigates Co-creative Artistic Research Ecologies (CARE), that are part of the Creating Cultures of Care programme. In CARE labs, artists and designers work together with residents, clients, professionals, policymakers, students and researchers. Together they explore questions such as ‘what does it mean to live with dementia?’ or ‘what can music mean for nurses, patients and their loved ones after major surgery?’
These artistic practices have a significant impact not only on an individual level, but also on the relationships between all those involved. Mariëlle Schuurman investigates new concepts and practices of care and art that emerge here.
Marloeke van der Vlugt investigates the importance of the sense of touch. Her PhD research into touchability in and through art starts with her own artistic practice. She explores a tactile creative process using sculptural, unpredictable materials and techniques. She then shares the resulting artefacts, such as polyurethane balls with their mysterious contents of naturally coloured plaster, with the public in interactive performances. At a time when touch is easily associated with risk and taboo, Marloeke van der Vlugt seeks ways to activate tactile sensations.
Esther Willemse, teacher at HKU Art and Economics, is conducting doctoral research into what art experience is and what significance these experiences hold. While walking, listening and writing, she gathers stories of art experiences from students and teachers. Her aim is to arrive at a deeper understanding and to continue exploring their significance for the professionalism of cultural managers.
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