Piet Zwart Institute—the Lens-Based Media program focuses on approaching animation, photography, and the full range of contemporary cinematic forms as a single expanded field. The specialisation is committed to lens-based image making as an art and craft with distinct and formative long histories. We recognise the convergence of previously distinct analogue imaging media into a single digital workflow. Within the program, digital visual media forms are approached using the lens as a central metaphor in their process.
We seek students who recognise that the future of lens-based images lies in the proliferation of new forms, working methods and delivery platforms: new forms of cinematic narrative, interactive visual media, photographic and cinematic gallery installation, cross-media narrative, database film technologies, site-specific projection projects, and many more hybrid forms that loop together both digital and analogue techniques.
We will support you in strategically selecting the areas of contemporary lens-based practice you wish to make a significant contribution to, and devising research methods and studio practices that allow you to develop a strong creative voice.
Within the program you will be encouraged to employ your developing fluency and skills to create ambitious and distinctive new approaches to both cinema and photography. The specialisation prepares students to forge significant careers and make a meaningful contribution to contemporary lens-based culture.
The course is taught by core tutors with a wide range of cinematic and photographic practices: course Leader Simon Pummell is a BAFTA winning filmmaker and animator and Harvard Film Study Center Fellow; Barend Onneweer is the owner and director of the established NL film VFX company R3MWERK; Ine Lamers is a visual artist with a practice based in photography that has been exhibited extensively nationally and internationally; David Haines is a visual artist working with a range of media, predominantly drawing and video exhibited in the Stedelijk Museum, The Turner Contemporary, the Drawing Room London among many others. Rossella Nisio is a visual artist with a background in the theory of cinema and performing arts. She is a recipient of the Mondriaan Fonds’ Emerging Talent Stipendium. Her works have been shown in festivals internationally and are included in the collections of the EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam. Steve Rushton is a writer and artist. His publications include the anthology of his writings Masters of Reality, Piet Zwart Institute/Sternberg Press (2012), the series How Media Masters Reality for First / Last Newspaper, issues one through six. He has collaborated with artist Rod Dickinson as well with the artists duo, Thomson & Craighead. Natasha Soobramanien is a writer working across the fields of literature and the visual arts. Her current project is a collaborative novel with Luke Williams, (working title: Diego Garcia) forthcoming with Fitzcarraldo Editions, and Semiotext(e).
Please see our website for a list of recent guest tutors. You will find the application requirement and procedure online here.
Deadlines: Priority deadline for completed applications of Dutch, EU applicants and final deadline non-EU applicants is March 16, 2022. Final deadline for completed applications of Dutch and EU applicants is April 28, 2022.
The Piet Zwart Institute’s admissions committees review applications, interview, and accept candidates on a rolling basis from December 2021 to April 2022, until all positions in the cohorts are filled. Due to the quantity of applications the Piet Zwart Institute Master programs receive we strongly encourage you to apply early.
