2025 APRiCot Garden ~ We are thrilled to welcome theorist Antonia Majaca, former DAI theory tutor (2018-2020), as guest curator of an open-to-the-public research festival for alumni and friends, developed in dialogue with artist-researcher Bethany Crawford (DAI alumna, 2021). Their collaboration brings together DAI alumni ( former tutors and students) in a new constellation, as they engage with the DAI community across multiple platforms throughout the first part of 2025.
Between 2014 and 2021, DAI explored the potential of creating an experimental third-cycle para-institution alongside its MA program. Building on this legacy, APRiCot Garden aims to strengthen the bonds between alumni and their roaming alma mater, demonstrating how educational institutions can foster knowledge communities that extend beyond formal academic structures. Through spaces for inquiry, exchange, and collaboration, APRiCot Garden 2025 will culminate in a curated research-festival of one day in Rotterdam (Saturday 10 May, 2025).
APRiCot Garden 2025 is an initiative of the Dutch Art Institute, initiated and advised by Gabriëlle Schleijpen, with concept and curation by Antonia Majaca in dialogue with Bethany Crawford, organized by Dina A. Mohamed, and supported by ArtEZ University of the Arts.
Program Structure APRiCot Garden 2025:
January 2025: Confluence 3 | Nida Bethany Crawford launches the program with her groundbreaking workshop "Pleasuring Technics," exploring how pleasure can disrupt and reimagine economies of technical production through vibratory media.
March 2025: Confluence 4 | Nicosia Antonia Majaca follows with her thought-provoking workshop "DEAD SERIOUS: A Hands-On Introduction to Ideology Critique," delving into the urgent necessity of ideology critique today and exploring how critical theory can be practically engaged to challenge dominant narratives and structures.
DEAD SERIOUS: A Hands-On Introduction to Ideology Critique
In an era of political hallucination, buffoonery-as-governance, and endless doom scrolling, perhaps the most radical act is to take things genuinely seriously. In this workshop, we will use a case study approach to investigate how contemporary cultural events naturalize existing power relations while presenting themselves as neutral, experimental, or post-political, and ask: what ideological work happens in the space between grand planetary visions, institutional structures, and aesthetic practices? We'll track the money, decode the spatial politics, unpack the metaphors, and examine how technological frames mask political agendas. This workshop is about developing critical skills for a moment when the stakes couldn't be higher and the spectacle couldn't be more distracting. After the hard analytical work, we will go hug some trees and do some collective somatic exercises to ground ourselves in the soil and cleanse our cerebral palates.
Saturday 10 May, 2025: Research-Festival | Rotterdam
Our APRiCot Garden 2025 initiative culminates in a one-day conference conceptualized by Antonia Majaca, with programming developed in dialogue with Bethany Crawford. This gathering will bring together DAI alumni, researchers, and practitioners to explore diverse manifestations of artistic intelligence and new epistemologies of crossing for the Symbiocene. We are delighted to announce that the research-festival will be hosted by Het Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam, building on the research resonances and continuing exchanges within the DAI orbit between Antonia Majaca and Ramon Amaro, Senior Researcher for Digital Culture and Lead Curator of -1 at the Nieuwe Instituut. This collaboration resonates with both institutions' shared commitment to addressing urgent planetary challenges through tentative practices and affective research.
Full program details and registration information will be announced shortly. For updates, please follow our social media channels and subscribe to our newsletter.