Expert Day at KABK

Hosted by the Master Non Linear Narrative
Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK)
Online on Teams on 26 April 2021, invites only
10:00 – 16:30 CEST

10:00 – 10:15 CEST Welcome

10:15 – 11:00 CEST
Ama van Dantzig
Colonialism and Plastic Waste
global waste trade; western fueled climate change; non-governmental collaborations
Ama van Dantzig, is a Ghanaian-Dutch social entrepreneur and creative thinker based in Amsterdam. She divides her time between Accra and Amsterdam, thinking about systems, connecting dots and building bridges between the two continents. She is co-founder of Dr. Monk, an international research and ideation studio tackling issues on global inequality and sustainability. Van Dantzig is also a speaker and moderator on a broad range of topics including social change, sustainability, gender, the arts, Africa and the world.
www.drmonk.org

11:00 – 11:45 CEST
Donald Weber
War Sand
ecologies of power; social memory; microarchaeology
Prior to photography, Donald Weber originally trained as an architect and worked with Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Weber’s work examines the hidden infrastructures of power, be it economic, political or social. He is the head of the Master Photography & Society programme at the Royal Academy of Art The Hague (KABK), and a PhD candidate at Leiden University.
www.donaldweber.com

11:45 – 12:30 CEST
Katarzyna Cwiertka
Chasing the Utopian Dream: A History of Plastics
democratization of luxuries; convenience; freedom
Katarzyna J. Cwiertka is Chair of Modern Japan Studies at Leiden University, specialising on a social and cultural history of daily life. She has published on a variety of topics related to food and nation branding in Japan and Korea, and currently is working on a book manuscript on the history of food packaging in Japan.
www.cwiertka.com

13:30 – 14:15 CEST
David Muñoz-Alcántara
Out of the Blue? Juxtapositions of Extraction and Liquid Superstructures
militant poetics; radical geographies; ecosocial reparations
Artist, architect, and researcher David Muñoz Alcántara’s inquiry deals with nomadism of thought and aesthetic praxis at the intersection of futurity and actuality. Founder of the research studio NÆS – Nomad Agency / Archive of Emergent Studies (2011 – ongoing), which claims the political space of research, and is a member of the editorial committee of Rab-Rab Press. Muñoz Alcántara lives and works in Helsinki.

14:15 – 15:00 CEST
Patricia Corcoran
Plastic Pollution in Sediment: A Powerful Icon of Human Impact
plastic pollution; microplastic particles; sedimentary record
Patricia Corcoran is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Western Ontario. Her research focuses on natural and anthropogenic sedimentary deposits in order to gain an understanding of Earth’s changing processes through time. One significant element of her research concerns the distribution, accumulation and degradation of plastic debris in benthic and beach sediment. Corcoran’s research has been featured in numerous media outlets, such as National Geographic Magazine, the Huffington Post, Science Magazine, and the New York Times. Her work on microplastics pollution involves interdisciplinary collaboration with academics in the disciplines of chemistry, biology, engineering, statistics, mathematics, visual arts, and the humanities.
corcorangroup.wordpress.com

15:00 – 15:45 CEST
Brooke Singer
Toxic Sites
toxic sites; slow violence; mapping
Brooke Singer is an artist who lives in New York City. She works across science, technology, politics and arts practices. Her work provides entry into issues that are often characterized as specialized to a general public. She is Associate Professor of New Media at Purchase College, a co-founder of the former collective Preemptive Media and co-founder of La Casita Verde, a living lab and community garden, in Brooklyn, New York. She has exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions such as MoMA / PS1, Warhol Museum of Art, The Banff Centre, Neuberger Museum of Art, Diverseworks, Matadero Madrid. She has been in residence at Eyebeam Art + Technology, New York Hall of Science and Headlands Center for the Arts, among others. Her writing has been published in Big Data and Society, Radical History Review and Brooklyn Rail. She is in the collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, Microsoft Corporation and Bucksbaum / Learsy.
www.toxicsites.us

15:45 – 16:30 CEST
Heather Davis
Plastic Matter
low carbon exhibitions; petrocapitalism; plastic inheritance
Heather Davis is an assistant professor of Culture and Media at the New School. She is the co-editor of Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and editor of Epistemologies and Desire Change: Contemporary Feminist Art in Canada. Her current book project, Plastic Matter, re-examines materiality in light of plastic’s saturation. She is a member of the Synthetic Collective, an interdisciplinary team of scientists, humanities scholars, and artists, who investigate and make visible plastic pollution in the Great Lakes. Her writing can be found at www.heathermdavis.com.
www.syntheticcollective.org