Sint Lucas Antwerpen Research

Grounds #2 launched last night at Extra City @extra_city Designed by Ward Heirwegh, this new issue approaches publication as a spatial and material practice: layered, tactile, unfolding through touch, movement, and rereading. More than graphic design, the publication becomes a research object in itself, translating this edition’s questions around holding, care, relation, and memory into form. Grounds continues to work through long-term artistic research trajectories, with editors acting as coaches throughout the process. This issue brings together contributions by Shayma Nader, Myrthe Bokelmann & Cèlia Tort Pujol, Ruth Razan Loos, Loraine Furter, Sammy Baloji, and Saskia Van der Gucht, each tracing infrastructures of relation and memory through performance, mapping, publishing, spirituality, ecology, and counter-archives. Thanks to everyone who joined us yesterday. You can still grab your free copy during Antwerp Art Weekend at Extra City's café. @studiowardheirwegh @kim_gorus @nachtvreugd @twentyninestudioproduction @celiatortpujol @myrthebokelmann @ruth.loos @lorainefurter @wesleymeuris @marnie_jane_slater @tom.viaene.31 #petravanbrabandt #joachimbenyakoub @sintlucasantwerpen

SLARG PhD researcher Phạm Quang Trung (Việt Vũ) invites you to a one-day seminar at the intersection of artistic research, filmmaking, and socio-political reality. -The Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA), Room S.209, Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000 -28 May 2026 | 09:00–17:00 -Hybrid (on-site + Zoom) 'Research and Creation amid Asian Socio-Political Sensitivity: Methods and Reflections' brings together filmmakers, artists, and scholars working across China, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Iran to share how they create, research, and think under conditions of censorship and constraint. For researchers, artists, filmmakers, and students navigating complex contexts, this seminar offers concrete methods, critical reflection, and collective insight on how to transform limitation into creative and research potential. With: Amir Muhammad · Hajar Mehrani · Matthew Hunt · Trương Minh Quý · Sabrina Qiong Yu Come and join us for this great line up, and urgent seminar that promises to deliver methodological and conceptual tools as well. Register + more info: go to 'slarg.be' and click 'activities' in the menu. @vietvu.phm @hajar_mehrani @truongminh_quy @amirmupalsu @mhuntuk @sintlucasantwerpen @sofie_verdoodt

SLARG invites you to the public PhD defense of artist Sammy Baloji. Kunsthal Extra City, Antwerp 18 May 2026 14:00 Exhibition visit 15:00 Public defense 17:00 Reception Contemporary Kasala and Lukasa: Towards a Reconfiguration of Identity and Geopolitics is an artistic research project that engages with memory practices from Congo, in particular Luba mnemonic forms such as the kasala and the lukasa. Through these, the research reflects on questions of identity, colonial border-making, and historical narration. Promotors: Ruth Loos (Sint Lucas Antwerpen), Bambi Ceuppens (AfricaMuseum) en Paolo Favero (Universiteit Antwerpen). The defense takes place in the context of Baloji’s exhibition Copper thread, Rubber thread, Sugar thread (17.04.26 – 16.08.26) at Kunsthal Extra City, where several strands of the doctoral research are brought together spatially and visually. Registration and further information via link in bio. Photo at Kunsthal Extra City – Exhibition Sammy Baloji, Copper thread, Rubber thread, Sugar thread, 17.04.26 – 16.08.26 – Photo © Brent Mertens @ruth.loos @extra_city

🐜 As part of her PhD research at @sintlucasantwerpen - KdG and ARIA - Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (University of Antwerp), Garine Gokceyan warmly invites you to a two-day public research seminar.   On Tuesday May 26, we will host a day of hybrid presentations and discussions, bringing together multilingual voices, around authorship and ownership in collaborative design practices. This seminar day addresses the politics of accessible resource-making alongside approaches to unlearning the language of design. It is also a good occasion to celebrate the launch of the “Alphabettes Soup” book by @bikini.books featuring contributions from many of our guests.  On Wednesday May 27, we will gather around a workshop led by @khajag and @naima_labureau , entitled “Revivals Reconsidered” to discuss the question of what constitutes a Typeface revival. Does its significance shift across time and geography? What politics are embedded within it? This workshop invites participants to move beyond rigid definitions and explore revival as a living, evolving practice. Together with the participants, we will critically rethink this practice and explore possible futures by creating a shared set of revival-making guidelines.   Who is this workshop for?  Design and art students, practitioners and educators in the field of graphic design, type design, visual arts, paleography, calligraphy, lettering, researchers and writers engaging with graphic archives, interested in alternative pedagogies and decolonial, queer, feminist methodologies and histories, multilinguists, diasporas etc. ✨We are delighted and honoured to have with us @paimnina @ayoh.kre @khajag @naima_labureau @lorainefurter @lundiloiseau @ra.sheen @movseshrayr , Joachim Ben Yakoub 🔗 For more information on the Full Programme as well as to learn more about the speakers, visit SLARG.BE Participation is free, registration is required! 💌Fonts in use: (A modified version) of Amiamie by @miratmasson & distributed  by typothèque @bye.byebinary , Apfel Grotezk by @13minigorle & distributed by @collletttivo .

LAUNCH GROUNDS #2 ✺ Antwerp Art Weekend 15 May 2026 — 19:00 Kunsthal Extra City Join us for the launch of Grounds #2, the artistic research journal of Sint Lucas Antwerpen School of Arts - KdG. An evening where publication is not an endpoint, but a way of thinking in motion. Discover how artistic research unfolds through making, writing, performing, and experimenting. Meet the researchers behind this edition and enter the conversation. With contributions by: Sammy Baloji @twentyninestudioproduction Shayma Nader Myrthe Bokelmann & Cèlia Tort Pujol @myrthebokelmann @celiatortpujol Ruth Razan Loos @ruth.loos Loraine Furter @lorainefurter Saskia Van der Gucht @nachtvreugd Design: Ward Heirwegh @studiowardheirwegh Editors/coaches: Kim Gorus @kim_gorus , Petra Van Brabandt, Wesley Meuris @wesleymeuris , Joachim Ben Yakoub, Marnie Slater @marnie_jane_slater , Ruth Razan Loos, Tom Viaene @tom.viaene.31 As part of Antwerp Art Weekend, we open the evening with drinks, music, and exchange. + 20:00 Talk with Sammy Baloji and Samuel Saelemakers In the context of the exhibition Copper thread, Rubber thread, Sugar thread, a layered reflection on colonial histories. Come by. Celebrate. Meet, read, listen, think. More info via the link in bio. @extra_city @sintlucasantwerpen Language: English

For the creation of “Whirly Loops”, our team The Algorithmic Gaze was inspired by “Bow Echo” by @azizhazara , where five young boys climb a mountain on which they then play the kazoo in strong winds. In dialogue with this work, we designed five “whirly tubes” controlled by motors that turn based on visitor’s movements. Creating an evolving sonic experience, the generated wind answers back to Hazara’s “Bow Echo”.  The installation can be seen at @smakgent , and will be running between the 1st of April and the 3rd of May 2026. Be sure to pass by in the upcoming month to experience the installation yourself!
 Hardware research & design: Lieven Menschaert Software: Frederik De Bleser @enigmeta Concept & sonic development: @celiatortpujol Project coordination: Aline Van Nereaux @trixttrix and Peter Aerts Production manager: Berdien Floré Technical installation: @christoclaeys with the support of @aorta_art_services 📸 @enigmeta (2, 5) and @celiatortpujol (4, 6-8) 📽️ @celiatortpujol and @myrthebokelmann April 2026

open call - RAIVE AI Summer School The Algorithmic Gaze and CREATIE, both Antwerp-based research groups, will join forces again to organise a summerschool for everyone who’s interested in the topic of performative AI and interdisciplinary creation. After two great editions, RAIVE will take place again between the 31st of August and the 6th of September in the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp. The call is open to anyone who considers themselves a young/starting artist, regardless of age. Prior knowledge or experience with digital media isn’t necessary, but of course welcome! We can host a maximum of 12 participants. If the number of applications exceeds this amount we will make a selection. The deadline for the application is 19th of April at 23.59pm (CEST time). More info and sign up are on this website: https://raive.school/ Images by Cèlia Tort Pujol and Myrto Grigoriou. @sintlucasantwerpen /@ _slarg_ / @royalconservatoireantwerp / @creatie.research / @celiatortpujol / @myrthebokelmann / @enigmeta / @giusycarusopianist_researcher / @umutreldem @myrtoi

Last February, our research project brought us to Brno, Czech Republic. There we shared the work “Assume calibration pose: this breath isn’t mine”, which has already been presented in Barcelona, Antwerp and Tallinn. Every time we perform it we adjust the piece to the current status of the research, allowing ourselves to discover new elements and perspectives of the work that we would not encounter otherwise. In Brno, we performed in the context of the Theatre Conference JAMU, organised by the Theatre Faculty of Janáček Academy of Performing Arts. The conference was about “ANALOGUE vs. DIGITAL HUMAN feat. ART”. Thank you, @df_jamu , for hosting us and organise such a good event. And special thanks to @nataliekulina for sharing the best bistros and cafés in Brno. Last but not least, thank you to all the institutions who are supporting this journey: @festivalmixtur , @centredartssantamonica , @_slarg_ , @sintlucasantwerpen , @aeconservatoires , @emta_ee , @ciemess , @elle.s.g , @michaellazicmess , @df_jamu and @ipn_brno . 📸 Petra Čumíčková (1-7), Johana Sedláková, Jáchym Kolář (8-10), @enigmeta (11) February 2026

What happens when two schools, two continents, and three years of intensive collaboration converge around artistic research? This. A publication that is not just a collection of texts, but a tangible trace of a shared period of inquiry between the Philippine Women’s University and Sint Lucas Antwerp. Funded by VLIR UOS, it grew out of exchange, dialogue, doubt, and experimentation. In February 2026, faculty and researchers came together in Manila for a collective workshop focused on publishing creative studies. Not a conventional conference. Not a top-down format. But a workspace. Thinking with hands. Editing together. Searching for forms for research that cannot be reduced to theory alone. This artists’ book is the provisional result: curated by the participants themselves, designed by Gerard Leysen (first image), a designer and educator with a keen eye for printmaking and materiality. It is a precursor to a future printed edition, but already a statement in its own right. The book embodies what these three years represented: research as encounter, publication as collective practice, form as content. A fitting conclusion to an intense journey. And, simultaneously, a new beginning. @pwu_arc @sintlucasantwerpen @melaniebotor @josephineturalba @alaenen @devetann @marnie_jane_slater @uitslag_punt_net @kim_gorus #petravanbrabandt #kurtvanbelleghem

Tomorrow is the last day to see Sea Through Skin @extra_city the culmination of Bianca Baldi’s PhD @_slarg_ ✨📷: @miremariastudio

SLARG Guest Lecture | George Tebogo Mahashe This Friday, 23 January at 16:00, SLARG is pleased to welcome Dr George Tebogo Mahashe for a guest lecture in the AdMa room (K.03.09). Mahashe is an artist and researcher based at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, whose work unfolds across photography, museums, archives, and the afterlives of anthropology. His practice operates at the intersection of artistic research and practice, drawing deeply on khelovedu as a conceptual framework that challenges dominant ways of knowing and opens up trans-disciplinary approaches. His current research platform, ‘––defunct context’, explores collaborations between art, science, technology, and Indigenous Knowledge Systems. This inquiry culminates in his recent monograph, —defunct context: Ambivalence to important work (2023), an artist book that assembles 15 years of practice into a layered, physical “dreamscape”, engaging photography, the camera obscura, museum refiguration, and collaborative exchange. Through exhibition projects such as Pavilion Prototype II: U406, Mahashe expands photography beyond representation, using installation as a site for participation and collective practice. A long-standing interlocutor of our Advanced Master, Mahashe will also join us this week as a jury member for Bianca Baldi’s public defense. His visit continues SLARG’s commitment to critical, practice-based research and experimental forms of knowledge production. AdMa room (K.03.09) Friday 23 January 16:00 More on George’s research: humanities.uct.ac.za/michaelis/contacts/george-mahashe Conversation with Christo Doherty: iono.fm/e/1175383 @defunctcontext @georgemahashe @sintlucasantwerpen @bianca_baldi

Join us for an exciting research moment! SLARG researcher Bianca Baldi presents her public doctoral defense: Play-White: Racial Passing and Embodied Images Thursday, 22 January | 16:00 – 18:30 | Kunsthal Extra City, Antwerp Bianca’s practice-led PhD explores racial passing not as a fixed historical phenomenon, but as a complex, embodied condition. Through studio work with glass, textile, pigment, sound, film, and photography, passing reveals itself as something lived at the surface of body and image. Protective and violent, strategic and exhausting, visible and concealed. Her work also investigates how race, visibility, and classification are produced through visual, scientific, and bureaucratic systems. Exhibitions like Sea Through Skin show how opacity, distortion, and transformation resist fixed meanings, opening questions about memory, inheritance, ecological time, and more-than-human witnessing. The defense will be evaluated by a distinguished jury: Diana Arbaiza, Hicham Khalidi, George Mahashe, Jyoti Mistry, Wesley Meuris, Petra Van Brabandt, and Kurt Vanhoutte. Come support Bianca, witness this research in action, and be inspired by her exploration of seeing, becoming, and making. Register via link in bio to join. @sintlucasantwerpen @extra_city