In collaboration with BEAR, Fine Art, Arnhem.

Polyphony in Practice: Ways of Thinking, Making and Teaching is a five-book series at the intersection of art and pedagogy. Born out of BEAR (Base for Experiment, Art and Research), the BA Fine Arts programme at ArtEZ University of the Arts, it weaves together art-making, ways of being, experimental research and propositions for education. By turns creative, speculative and scholarly, this series troubles settled notions of the purpose and form art education can take. Through tactile exercises, embodied methods, and speculative propositions, Polyphony in Practice asks what art and imagination can teach us about ourselves and our worlds, and asks what collective creative habits we might cultivate for a more just and liveable present.

In Water as Method, researchers Madison Bycroft, Beatrice Catanzaro, Anik Fournier and Andrea Pagnes ask if water was a method, what would it be? What happens if we listen to water, not as a subject of inquiry but as a dialogue partner? Turning towards water as a relation rather than a resource, they consider water through its dynamics: its forming of soft bonds on a cellular level, on which life depends; its habit of taking shape as clouds; its fluidity and capacity for nonlinearity; and its endlessness as understood through the hydrological cycle. While keeping in mind water’s entanglement in extractive logics, its role in escalating violence, and its use as a weapon or tool in human conflict, Water as Method considers what other ways of knowing, feeling and being with water might flow.

As the research collective I rather be generous, Laura van Grinsven and Miriam van Rijsingen explore generosity. They ask how it can be cultivated in our work, thinking and daily lives. It turns out that generosity is a complex weave of threads, knotting together, yet going off in a multitude of directions. Through an examination of ideas such as repetition, experimentation, humour and ‘the muddy road,’ I rather be generous uncovers generosity as a radically interdisciplinary and relational practice, a collective endeavour to be shaped and practised by many hands.

What do we do when we feel crippling doubt about our work? Or fear about becoming an artist, and what comes after? The Black Hole by Hester Oerlemans is the story of an art student, a teacher, a seemingly sinister and strange phenomenon floating around the art academy and a nearby derelict building. This graphic work points at the similar paths many of us find ourselves on as we try to find our footing in the ‘art world,’ and the buoying power of collectivity and collaboration as we find our way.

Gijs Assman argues that the most important question in any form of education is not the subject we might be studying, but instead ‘how to live.’ Inspired by the liturgical book of hours, Devotional Practice is organised through five moments in the day and a series of suggested practices to give them shape. Offering both guidance and salve for finding our way as artists, Assman makes the case for the powerful allure of rituals, the criticalness of saying yes! to one’s process, the willing embrace of the often-tedious trial and error of our work, and the capacity for surrender—allowing ourselves to become receptive and open to life’s mysteries and things beyond our control.