Making Matters Symposium 2020
Collective Material Practices in Critical Times
19 + 20 + 21.11.2020


This online symposium brings together international representatives of collective material practices, who experiment with their material manifestations to critique and reimagine the world(s) we inhabit. The symposium will take place on 19, 20 and 21 November 2020.

Reserve your ticket here

Recent years have seen the emergence of a new kind of collective material practices, that transgress the classical opposition between theory and practice, or thinking and making. These practices actively engage with our catastrophic times and generate collaborations that connect cultural, technological and more-than-human concerns. They show a potential to develop a comprehensive approach to art, science and technology, driven by the necessity to fundamentally reimagine the relationship of humans to the world. In an attempt to map such practices the workgroup Material Practices (formerly known as Critical Making) organises Making Matters, the successor of the symposium in 2019 in West, Den Haag. For this edition, practitioners from various backgrounds and disciplines such as artistic research, publishing, sculpture, business and performance will share their work to help us experience the entanglement of thinking and making, and the critical potential that this entails.

Through online workshops and presentations, contributors want to invite a broad audience of makers, artists, activists, teachers, theorists, students, designers, etherpads and other non-humans, to engage with diverse subjects such as alternative economies, feral ecologies, shared authorship, xeno-biologies, pedagogies, publishing infrastructures and radical collectivities.

Confirmed participants:
Aliens in Green, a.pass, Display Distribute, Eleni Kamma, Ensad Lab, Feral Atlas, Garnet Hertz, Jatiwangi Art Factory, The Otolith Group, Olu Taiwo, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Kate Rich and the work group Material Practices (Leiden University, Willem de Kooning Academy, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Waag Society, West Den Haag and associated researchers Anja Groten, Pia Louwerens and Dani Ploeger)

We invite you to join us for three days of livestreams and online workshops. The livestreams are free upon registration. For workshops a ticket is required. We look forward to your input.

Find the full programme and timetable via:
https://research-development.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/