International call for fellows

Het Nieuwe Instituut, the Dutch institute for architecture, design, and digital culture in Rotterdam, announces an open call for three research fellows to work in residence from June to December 2016.

Alongside the institute’s exhibitions, lectures, publications, and archives, the fellowship program will explore and challenge how research is conducted within an institutional context, pursuing alternatives to the expectation of predetermined outcomes, the use of official jargon, and the inertia power of the curriculum vitae. In the long term, the program is also intended to complement, reflect on, interact with, and critique the ongoing activities of the institute.

Applicants are asked to submit an independent research proposal that illuminates their own approach to research, including specific and unconventional methodologies. Proposals should confront subjects within or between the fields of architecture, design, and digital culture, but can also rely on a larger system of references, schools of thoughts, and practices from the fields of art, performance, non-fiction and creative writing, programming, humanities, social, physical, and life sciences. Research projects may influence or contribute to future exhibitions or events, but other possibilities may emerge independently of the existing programs of Het Nieuwe Instituut.

Previous fellows include Annet Dekker, Tal Erez, Dan Handel, Ruben Jacobs, Chris Kabel, Roos Meerman, Christien Meindertsma, Sascha Pohflepp, Malkit Shoshan, and Matthew Stadler. More information about them can be found here.

Research
In recent years, the concept and practice of research has attracted renewed attention within the cultural sector. In a world increasingly documented—and simultaneously obscured—by the speed and quantity of information in circulation, research plays a critical role in elucidating the relevance of both existing and new ideas, and the responsibility of institutions in their construction and promotion.

Het Nieuwe Instituut wants to acknowledge and give visibility to research projects, practices, and initiatives whose success is understood not in terms of academic citations, adherence to official formats, or profitability, but in their ability to offer departures from established modes of thinking and to become the motor for sharing collective forms of knowledge.

Theme
The programs of Het Nieuwe Instituut are organized around a framework of landscapes and interiors, things and materials, and an annual theme that confronts temporal shifts within these fields.

Taking as a departure point the centennial anniversary of the Russian Revolution, Het Nieuwe Instituut’s 2017 program will explore revolution, reflecting on radical movements of the 20th century while also investigating the unstable landscape of the present and the unpredictable territories of the future. Revolution has both political and cultural associations, referring to sudden disruptions in social, technical, and aesthetic practices and theories as well as to the cyclical, self-perpetuating nature of systems of governance and production.

Application
Applicants for a fellowship are invited to develop an independent research proposal and to articulate a relationship between their proposal and the frameworks and thematic subjects unfolding within the institute.

Starting from February 15, 2016, Het Nieuwe Instituut will take applications for the research fellowships. The submission deadline is March 28, 2016. The full application requirements and submission instructions can be found here.