In response to the resurgence of far-right politics in Europe, artists, educators, and researchers are joining forces to explore how critical cultural practices can be taught, sustained, and protected in increasingly hostile sociopolitical climates.
Across academic, artistic, and activist communities, a shared sense of urgency is growing in response to the resurgence of far-right and illiberal politics in Europe. At a recent academic art event, educators and theorists called for deliberately anti-fascist art, culture, and theory.
This call was amplified in October 2025, when artists Jeanne van Heeswijk and Jonas Staal organised a 12-hour “sermon” at the Paradijskerk in Rotterdam, gathering over 40 art-activists, musicians, and political organisations before some 2,000 visitors. The event experimented with the sermon as a collective, performative form. A further prompt came from The Oxford Handbook of Illiberalism (2023), which underscores the academic community’s responsibility to engage with the current political climate.
Performative and embodied methods
This project brings together the Lectorate Art & Spatial Praxis at Gerrit Rietveld Academie (GRA) and the ATD Lectorate at Amsterdame Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (AHK) to establish an Amsterdam-based research assembly. Ten practitioners and collectives, united in their different responses to illiberalism, including misogyny, transphobia, systemic racism, and militarisation, will work collaboratively using performative and embodied methods. Drawing on the combined networks of both research groups, the coalition will connect existing relationships while inviting new interlocutors whose practices respond to the current moment.
Digital zine
Rather than producing a one-off event or traditional publication, the project pursues an assembly-like configuration aimed at building long-term collaboration and shared method development. Together, participants will probe how illiberal norms are reproduced, what challenges artists and educators face, and how performative experimentation can function as a mode of exchange and transmission. Findings will be translated into a digital zine with tools, prompts, and examples for others to adapt.
Critical cultural practices
The project responds to a question facing art education and research today: how critical cultural practices can be taught, sustained, and institutionally protected in increasingly hostile sociopolitical climates. It will also help assess feasibility and lay the groundwork for a next phase, including potential partnerships and funding.
Projectleden
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Patricia de Vries
Research Professor at Gerrit Rietveld Academie
Patricia de Vries leidt de interdisciplinaire onderzoeksgroep Art & Spatial Praxis aan de Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Deze groep onderzoekt hoe artistieke en sociale praktijken stedelijke ruimtes, land en territoria kunnen analyseren, opeisen en vormgeven. Vanuit feministische geografie, Black studies, environmental humanities en kritische theorie onderzoekt het team de machtsdynamieken die bepalen wie zeggenschap heeft over ruimtelijke ontwikkeling en landgebruik, en hoe hierop ingegrepen kan worden. Een van de initiatieven van de groep, Plot(ting), is een open platform voor artistiek onderzoek dat zich richt op alternatieve vormen van kennisproductie, bestaan en sociale relaties, door middel van kunst en academisch onderzoek naar ruimte en ruimtelijke relaties.
Eerder was Patricia universitair docent filosofie aan de Universiteit Maastricht.
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