Call for applications: Across the Board 2017

A new educational initiative at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art is looking to bring together a select group of 20 professionals from the fields of contemporary art, politics, and business, who are at the cusp of their practice and who look to further their personal development.

Across the Board is Witte de With’s platform for professional development through cross-disciplinary conversation. Led by visiting tutors—significant agents in the fields of art, business, and politics—a select group of promising professionals works together to locate and re-evaluate the shared values between their respective domains and to confront the opposing philosophies and methodological frictions that arise through their exchange. The program, with a series of master classes at its core, attempts to co-formulate a more pluralized and nuanced trajectory, to be activated within their independent domains and within the cultural field at large. Across the Board aims not only to fuel the foundation of connections during the program, but to also provide a lasting platform between its future alumni.

Master Class program
Across the Board 2017 takes place from October 6 until December 15, 2017.

During the bi-weekly program consisting of master classes, workshops, and discussions, you will be challenged to develop a new and personal language in which disciplined forms of knowledge can be qualified. Connecting the public, private, and cultural domain is not only about sharing knowledge, skills, and dispositions. It is also about creating possibilities and locating values, which allows for a reorientation of the ways by which existing social structures, divisions, and inequalities are reproduced. And about challenging our thinking in domains other than those to which we belong.

Visiting Tutors 2017 include:
Viktor Misiano (Curator, Critic, and Editor; Founder and (Chief) Editor of multiple art journals, including Moscow Art Magazine and Manifesta Journal: Journal of Contemporary Curating)
Jeanne Gaakeer (Professor of Jurisprudence: Hermeneutical and Narrative Foundations at Erasmus School of Law at Erasmus University Rotterdam; Justice at the Appellate Court of The Hague)
Tom Cummings (Executive Board and Senior Management Adviser)
Tirzo Martha (Artist; co-Founder of Instituto Buena Bista – Curaçao Center for Contemporary Art)
More to be announced

Past Tutors 2016 include:
Cuauhtémoc Medina (Mexico-based Curator, Critic, and Historian)
Renilde Steeghs (Ambassador of International Cultural Cooperation for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Ron Soonieus (Managing Partner of Cultural Leadership firm Camunico)
Gabriel Lester (Artist and Filmmaker)
Wilfried Lentz (Owner of Gallery Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam)
Martijn Sanders (Chairman of the Board of Holland Festival)

More information about the 2016 pilot program on our website

Practical information
Dates: Fridays, October 6 (full day including introduction) & 20, November 3 & 17, December 1 & 15.
Time: 2–6pm. End times may vary in line with the programming.
Tuition Fee: EUR 1,200 incl. 6% VAT. 50% discount for registered non-profit and educational organizations. Individual, non-institutional participants are potentially eligible for a stipend discount.

More information and the up-to-date program on the Across the Board web page

How to apply?
Professionals with 3 to 10 years of work experience are invited to apply. Send a letter of motivation (350 words maximum), along with your resume, to education [​at​] wdw.nl, with the subject line “Application Across the Board 2017.” A select number of participants, reviewed by a selection committee, will be admitted to the program.

Witte de With is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and by the city of Rotterdam.