structure

The Monday sessions introduce a spectrum of practices of knowledge construction that are relevant to the proposition of this year’s Minor, and based on specific examples. On these days, we will address: how to learn or make research otherwise? Which practices emerge if relationalities are the core of the research?

During the introduction week, Suzan Tunca (guest tutor, CODARTS) will tune into our sensorial habits and possibilities for learning and unlearning.
Almar Bok & Zina Burgers (guest tutors, Brûs consultancy) will help you to reflect on and expand the decisions you make within your group’s inquiry.

Tutor duos’ – Wander van Baalen (EUC) and Josué Amador Valdez (CODARTS), Juliano Abramovay (CODARTS) and Irina Shapiro (WDKA) – will share with you their research approaches, working mediums and contexts.

Mondays are also the days when the teams share their inquiries and developments with the whole group, specifically during the Pressure cooker, Try-outs and Final presentations.

Structure of the curriculum

Becoming: never static, ever-changing.
Becoming-with: focus on relationality; response-ability.

On Thursdays, the focus is on the teams’ projects, their thematics, progress as well as obstacles or blockages, and the first ideas of the learning experience – it’s aim, format, medium, scale and rhythm, etc.
The formats of the days are mainly tailored feedback sessions with the tutors' duos: Wander van Baalen (EUC) and Josué Amador Valdez (CODARTS), Juliano Abramovay (CODARTS) and Irina Shapiro (WDKA).

Mapping through relating

Depthening in conversations

The Tuesday sessions, having an interactive and hands-on approach, focus on the four propositions of the RASL minor: undisciplinarity, collaboration, situatedness, and making public(s). We will explore the tensions and tenets of collaborative inquiry.

This ‘Unpacking’ track aims to support you in:
1) cultivating a methodology-in becoming for your group project;
2) re/composing your own ‘undisciplinary toolkit’ and
3) articulating how your approach relates to the ZOÖP methodological proposal for regenerative relationships.

Concretely, we will engage with questions including
"How does undisciplinarity take shape in your project(s)?"
"How do you position and situate yourself as a researcher/artist/human in networks shared with other researchers, practitioners and (non)-human actors?" "How do you make your work public, and which publics are mobilised through the questions, issues and practices you engage with?"

Tuesdays are led by Maaike van Papeveld (WDKA) and Claire Tio (EUC), with contributions from invited guests James Parnell & Yun Lee (..............).

Thematic Student-led days

The student-led days are to be organised by the learners of the Minor: you! At the RASL minor, we see students not only as active participants, but also as the crucial voices that contribute to making and unmaking the programme. Individual students or teams can pick one of the three available days and propose a happening. For example, you can invite the rest of the group to the institution you work or study, to your creative studio or community, or on an excursion; you can share your learning or research methods or design the day to address the uncertainty about it; you can invite guest speakers.

You draft a programme, commit to executing it on time and make documentation of the day (all can be done in collaboration with other students). These days are a medium and opportunity for you to explore and share how your own practices and knowledges relate to your field and to your peers, and how you situate yourself in relation to the matter of concern you are interested in and the society at large. Therefore, the description, documentation of and reflection on your student-led day may be submitted as your Situating Statement (see Deliverables below).

There is a budget available based on your proposal for travel costs and/or guest fees.

Should you wish to contribute to one of the student-led days please let us know before the 12th of September. On Thursdays, the focus is on the teams’ projects, their thematics, progress as well as obstacles or blockages, and the first ideas of the learning experience – it’s aim, format, medium, scale and rhythm, etc.
The formats of the days are mainly tailored feedback sessions with the tutors' duos: Wander van Baalen (EUC) and Josué Amador Valdez (CODARTS), Juliano Abramovay (CODARTS) and Irina Shapiro (WDKA).

The learning goals of the RASL Minor are:

1) You are able to select, map and frame a complex societal concern from a specific angle, through collaborative undisciplinary/transdisciplinary research;

2) You are able to reflect on how you engage with, and position yourself in relation to your fellow students, the researched topic, your audience and the particular context in which you work;

3) You are able to collaboratively develop a transdisciplinary approach for multi-sensory and situated research;

4) You are able to demonstrate how the research relates to existing academic, artistic and/or societal practices;

5) You are able to work and do research in, and from, a particular societal context;

6) You are able to justify and take responsibility for the choices you make throughout the learning and research process.

These learning goals are closely related to the 4 propositions of the RASL Minor. --->

1) Learning experience
During the first part of the Minor (week 1-10), you will work on a collaborative inquiry and develop a learning experience – a participatory format in which you invite the relevant publics to engage with and learn about the topic of your inquiry.

2) Publication
You are also asked to develop a comprehensive publication alongside the learning experience that gives insight into your research and process.

3) Situating statement (1500 - 2000 recommended length. or 7 minutes audio or video.)
The situating statement consists of an individual reflection on how you situate yourself in the undisciplinary inquiry in a specific context. You describe your position in the team, in relation to the practices you encountered or mobilised during the Minor. You also reflect on your experience of collaboration. Note that your team's reflection will become part of your publication.

1) Pressure cookers presentations - Monday 25 September 2023
In the pressure cooker weeks (weeks 2 and 3), you will work on the first iteration of the learning experience. This iteration focuses on developing the foundations of the learning experience, as a proper sketch that gives insights into the decisions about the topic, urgency, mediums and forms of engagements, etc.

On the individual level, you submit your process documentation to your teaching team by
25 September. This documentation will eventually become part of your publication.

The requirements for the pressure cooker presentation are:

> Share a learning experience of a maximum of 45 minutes, allowing participants to learn about a matter of concern in a specific context of the Hillevliet building, as a response to the offered framework of the ZOÖP research method in an undisciplinary manner [undisciplinarity] [situatedness]

> The learning experience facilitates collaborative/collective learning [collaboration]

> For this iteration, the form and content of the learning experience addresses the Minor community, but make it clear who are the public(s) that your project and matter of concern involves [making publics] [situatedness]

> Documentation of the process and sources you used to arrive at this learning experience. You use it to inform your final publication [making publics]

2) Try-outs - Monday 23 October 2023
Prefinal presentation, where you share and can test different elements of your final learning
experience. It’s not an official evaluative moment but an opportunity for experimentation and group feedback.

3) Final presentations - Monday 6 and Tuesday 7 November 2023
After the pressure cooker (weeks 4-10), you will continue with the collaborative inquiry making the second and final iteration of your learning experience, whether it means changing, deepening or totally shifting the core parameters of the research. The decisions are up to your team based on your own experience of the pressure cooker and interpretation of the public/participants' feedback.

Learning experience requirements:

> The learning experience of a maximum of 1,5 hours, allows participants to learn about a matter of concern in a specific context, as a response to the offered framework of the ZOOP research approach in an undisciplinary manner [undisciplinarity] [situatedness];

> The learning experience facilitates collaborative/collective learning [collaboration];

> The form and content of the learning experience considers the public(s) that your project and matter of concern address [making publics];

> The final learning experience is an evolution of its predecessor presented after the pressure cooker weeks and has clearly taken into account the feedback and new perspectives gathered along the way.

Publication requirements (submission by 12 November):

> The publication offers a concise reflection on the choices that were made to conduct the learning experience and how they are supported by a diversity of ways of knowing and making. [undisciplinarity]

> Through included documentation of the research and collaboration process, the publication gives insight into the process of the collaborative inquiry, your method(s), sources used and people/practices you were inspired by [collaboration]

> The publication reflects on the way in which you engaged or assembled related publics, through the form and content of the learning experience [making publics]

> The final publication is an evolution of its predecessor presented after the pressure cooker weeks, and has clearly taken into account the feedback and new perspectives gathered along the way.

Situating statement requirements (submission by 12 November):
1500 - 2000 (recommended length). or 7 minutes audio or video.

> The situating statement gives insight into how you position yourself/your practice within the mesh of approaches and visions you encountered during the Minor and beyond.

> Your reflection expands on the context you address in your inquiry; how you have influenced this context, and how it has influenced you (accountability of a researcher).
You reflect on your specific contribution to the existing mesh of knowledges revolving around your matter of concern.

> You reflect on and evaluate your learning process, including your own assessment in relation to the Minor’s assessment criteria (one of them or several that you find the most meaningful for your self-evaluation) or your reformulation of those.

> The medium and form of the statement are of your choice (including a student-led day). Still, they should be in a dialogue with the statement's content.