There are no prerequisites for this course.

In Rooted in Research, you will engage in artistic research in an interdisciplinary context. You will collaborate with students from other disciplines, share ideas, reflect together and learn to see things from different perspectives. An artist-researcher will guide the process and introduce you to the world of artistic research. This will not only sharpen your gaze, but also your way of thinking, talking and collaborating as an artist. You will develop an inquiring attitude within the safe and reflective learning environment of the Academy.

Rooted in Research: Sustaining Artistic Practice (or How to Work as an Artist Without or Beside Art Market Systems).

This practice-based programme addresses a central question for emerging artists. How can artistic practice be developed, sustained, and shared without being fully dependent on commercial art market systems?
While the commercial art market can sustain some artists, it is also highly exclusive and reserved for a few, structurally unstable, often based on extractive or exploitative labour relations, oriented toward profit rather than long-term artistic development.

This course invites students to critically examine these conditions and to explore alternative economies, modes of production, and forms of organisation that support artistic practices over time. Drawing on real-life examples from the Flemish, Belgium and broader European cultural field, the programme proposes to look into collaboration, self-organisation, and shared resources.

Modules:

1. Beyond the Art Market: Critical Context:
- Introduction to art market systems and their limitations
- Precarity, exploitation, and discardability in cultural labour
- Artistic value vs. market value
- Guest inputs: artists that have an experience in being part of the art market system, sharing their experience

2. Collective vs. Competitive Models
- Collaboration as a political and practical choice
- Collective authorship and shared responsibility
- Case studies of collective and cooperative practices
- Self-Organisation & Self-Management (How artists organise themselves outside institutional hierarchies; Finding allies, building networks, and sustaining long-term collaborations)
- Guest inputs from self-organised initiatives, e.g.: BARN (Brussels Artist-Run Network); Level 5; Messidor; Elephy; Hanafabuki; Joke & Marthe (SamenSchool / oooooo / SisterServer); Vedran Kopljar & Parents

3. Sharing Resources: Artist–Producer Relations
- Artist–producer models and alternative infrastructures
- Resource-sharing, time-banking, and mutual support
- Invited perspectives from e.g.: Artist Day Antwerpen; Kunstenpunt; Egon Schoelynck (presenting his book: Huh, why did­n’t I know this?)

4. Funding Possibilities
- Overview of public funding, grants, and project-based support
- Alternative funding models (crowdfunding, mutual aid, micro-funding)
- Guest input, e.g.: Eva De Grote (crowdfunding); Anna Rispoli - Common Wollet initiative

5. Practical skills workshop and hands-on sessions focused on:
- How to write a funding application
- How to build a realistic project budget
- Aligning artistic intentions with funding language

6. Documentation & Archiving
- Why documentation matters beyond visibility and promotion
- Archiving as a political and artistic act
- Sustainable documentation practices for long-term careers

Teaching Methods:

- Round tables and critical discussions
- Case studies and peer learning
- Guest talks by artists, producers, and cultural workers
- Practical workshops and group exercises
- Collective reflection and feedback sessions

Permanent assessment: active participation and reflection in the group (50%).
First exam chance: presentation of artistic practice and the acquired insights (50%).

If you fail the first exam chance, you can only retake your presentation for the re-sit exam. There is no substitute assignment for permanent assessment.