Jan van Eyck – a Defendable Space

• I attended the Jan van Eyck in the mid-90s, but the institution’s significance continues to reverberate — not just for me personally, but throughout some of the most significant conversations about graphic design taking place at the end of the 20th century and into the new millennium. Under the leadership of Jan van Toorn as director, and the tutelage of many of design’s sharpest creators and minds, graduates of the programme — including Daniel van den Velden, Femke Snelting, Jop van Bennekom, to name but a few — have substantially contributed to the most significant conversations and questions in design, as well as to its production. It is through this special, tiny place tucked away in Maastricht that influential ideas have developed and taken root; its loss for design — not just in The Netherlands, but globally – will be hard to fathom.

  — Louise Sandhaus
  Ex-researcher Design – Jan van Eyck Academie
  Former Director and current Faculty, Graphic Design Program – California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)
  Former AIGA Board Member, AIGA Design Educators Community Steering Committee Chair

• The Jan van Eyck is an institution quite unlike any other I have come across; as I told the people who hosted me during my visit there, ‘It feels like being at school, except everyone is extraordinarily bright, and the “students” seem to have the run of the place’. For anyone who has been to the Jan van Eyck, and who wishes there could be many more places like it, it is absolutely transparent that the present attack on it – part of a larger trend of threats against the humanities and critical thinking across Europe – is based on nothing more than ideological bias, pettiness, and willful (and avowed!) ignorance.
  At a juncture when Europe seems to need unconstrained, innovative critical imagination most, it is also going through its own version of the ‘culture wars’ that have blighted public debate in the US for decades. This is, of course, no coincidence; at a time when it is absolutely evident that things have to change, those who have an interest in them staying as they are will try to cripple as much as possible the capacity to transform them. To defend spaces like the Jan van Eyck is not only fighting to defend what is great in Europe against a narrow-minded, xenophobic, socially unjust conservative project; it is also fighting to keep open the possibility of a new Europe.

  — Rodrigo Nunes
  Associate researcher PUCRS – Brazil
  Member of the editorial collective of Turbulence 

• The Jan van Eyck offers a very unique culture of cross-disciplinary research. It is able to bring together the most interesting and intelligent people and facilitates a peculiar openness to singular ways of research and production, which fostered the most daring, futuristic, diverse, courageous, mind-opening and dissenting projects I have ever encountered. The proposed cuts will destroy a sphere, a constellation, a network and an international attention which cannot be reconstructed nor be replaced by any Bologna-streamlined research model. In terms of numbers - just to speak on that level - this is not intended to save money, but will indeed waste it.

  — Katja Gretzinger
  Ex-researcher Design – Jan van Eyck Academie
  Designer – Berlin

• I was a research resident at the Jan van Eyck Academie between 1999 and 2001. This institution provided me an exceptional platform to develop my work in interaction with residents from virtually all over the world, and under the supervision of international art practitioners of the highest calibre. For residents coming from developing countries, as in my case, this institution is especially treasured. For two years, the best possible facilities were provided: technology, craft, documentation, assistantship… Moreover, this academy was the springboard to connect with the international art scene, otherwise “undreamable” for artists, designers and theorists of limited institutional resources. For most of us, the Jan van Eyck Academie was a decisive turning point in our career and our lives. A decade later, we still enjoy the benefit of our Jan van Eyck residency and we look back to those days with a grateful heart. I am aware of the shortening of funding occurring at this moment in sensitive areas like health and social security in The Netherlands, due to the financial crisis. It should be noticed, though, that limiting the performance of this institution would produce a significant setback in the international recognition that The Netherlands have been building for several decades, that is to say, as one of the world’s most prominent hubs for intercultural dialogue, research and production.

  — Rubén de la Nuez
  Ex-researcher Theory — Jan van Eyck Academie
  Visiting Assistant Professor — School of Art, Design and Media — Nanyang Technological University Singapore 

• I started coming to Maastricht in the early 80s and have had painting studios in Houthem. So many people I have met in Maastricht have been through the experience of the Jan van Eyck, all of whom speak of the time at the academy and that it adds to the town of Maastricht. I am way over here in New York, yet the news that comes my way is of the short-sighted cuts in Art and Design. The value of the people that engage in the creative field and their adding to the world at large and the (Living IN) environment is never a matter of just money, it adds to the whole Limburg landscape. I have loved the experiences I have been given to observe at the Jan van Eyck and the ideas that have come my way have added to my far-removed-from-Maastricht life. I just cannot believe that closing places like this is going to do The Netherlands any good in the long term. The place I have been to so many times is a place of great culture and thinking.

  — Mathew R. Weaver
  Exhibits Specialist – Cooper-Hewitt – National Design Museum –
  New York 

• When art’s social and economical usefulness is to be proven, things have gone terribly wrong. Instead – attempting to avoid the recent discourse set by the Dutch government – I’d like to defend the Jan van Eyck Academie as an exemplary utopian space. Everyone who has had the privilege to conduct research at the Jan van Eyck knows the egalitarian spirit and the incredible richness of artistic, social, and political experiences that is produced here and exchanged worldwide. To shut down an institution like this is to destroy a space of humanity.

  — Andreas Müller
  Ex-researcher Design – Jan van Eyck Academie
  Architect – Berlin 

• The Jan van Eyck Academie had an enormous impact in my professional and personal life. I applied to its postgraduate program because its uniqueness. It offers a platform were three different areas of specializations organically interrelate. These areas are rarely combined in any other academic institution. As a consequence, resulting projects are usually cross-disciplinary and highly experimental. Furthermore, the effort and dedication the staff and advising researchers put into the program and researchers development is outstanding. Ten years after my residency at the Jan van Eyck Academie, I still refer to it as a unique creative hub and a model of what a post-graduate institution should be.

  — Danné Ojeda
  Ex-researcher Theory – Jan van Eyck Academie
  Creative director and founder of ‘d-file’ graphic design studio – Amsterdam
  Assistant Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media – Nanyang – Technological University – Singapore 

• Invited three times to speak at the Jan van Eyck Academie, I have come to know and appreciate the exceptional work and study space it provides for gifted thinkers and artists of the future. I earnestly hope the government can find ways to continue financial support for this institution, one that is a true honour for The Netherlands.

  — Alphonso Lingis
  Professor of Philosophy – The Pensylvania State University – US

• The Jan van Eyck Academie has been carrying out a very important task as an international art institution for artists and post-graduate students who want to develop their skill and projects. I was a participant at the Jan van Eyck from 1993-1995. It was a difficult period for me, confronting what I could do with my art, but the confrontation gave me the strength to carry on my artwork. If I think back now that was a necessary and very important experience for me. I wish the Jan van Eyck to survive in this difficult situation and would like to support it.

  — Keiko Sato
  Ex-researcher Fine Art – Jan van Eyck Academie
  Artist – Japan 

• The Jan van Eyck Academie is one of very few institutions in the world that supports intense interdisciplinary engagements between artistic, design and theoretical practice to the benefit of each. Even during the short time I was at the Academie it was supporting and nurturing the work of an international set of artists, designers and theorists, many of whom have gone on to do important social and cultural interventions, some to international acclaim. For my part, the Jan van Eyck supported one of the first collaborations between designers and sociologists of science and technology (GOVCOM.ORG) – one of the outcomes of which has been developed and is now being used by Internet researchers all over the world, to understand the politics of the web as a contested issue space. This is only one small example of the contributions the Jan van Eyck supports and makes possible. Its closure would cut off one of the few remaining European institutional platforms for such endeavours and in so doing demote The Netherlands as one of Europe’s leading hosts for ‘creative’ and intellectual practice.

  — Alex Wilkie
  Ex-researcher GOVCOM.ORG Media and Design Fellowship –  
  Jan van Eyck Academie
  Lecturer in Design & Research Fellow in Sociology – Goldsmiths – University of London
  

• The Jan van Eyck Academie is one of the very few Dutch art institutes with a genuine international reputation as a place of excellence — a true Institute of Advanced Studies for the artists, designers, curators, philosophers of the future. The Jan van Eyck Academie gives researchers enormous street-credibility, inside The Netherlands, but even more so in the rest of the world. The cutting-edge profile of the Jan van Eyck in countries such as the UK, Germany and the US is enormous. It would be foolish to look only at its reception in The Netherlands, as it has made such a wide impact outside the Dutch borders as an actual EU institute, and one of true distinction. The best proof of the Jan van Eyck’s commitment to excellence is to glance over the list of previous researchers, and the impressive state of their current careers. As a place of dialogue and exchange, of creativity and progression, the Jan van Eyck Academie is the antidote to mediocrity. It should be treasured at all costs.

  — Hanneke Grootenboer
  Ex-advising researcher Theory – Jan van Eyck Academie
  University Lecturer in History of Art – University of Oxford 

• Once, The Netherlands were counted among the most tolerant, progressive and open-minded countries in Europe, with a cultural policy of international renown and several outstanding (post-)academic institutes. In this light, the recent turn of events is nothing but frightening. Like many other formerly ‘progressive’ countries in Europe, The Netherlands have succumbed to the temptation of right-wing populism and neo-liberal conservatism.
  The announced closure of the Jan van Eyck Academie is the latest, and without doubt, one of the most regretful manifestations of this logic of cultural parochialism. I have spent two of the most productive and intellectually stimulating years of my life as a researcher at the Academie, and have assisted to several events of prime importance in the international scene of philosophy, art and design. If the Academie cannot be safeguarded, then Europe will lose an invaluable node of intellectual and artistic exchange, and the ruling Dutch government will always be remembered for committing a terrible mistake.

  — Eli Noé
  Ex-researcher Theory – Jan van Eyck Academie
  Psychologist/philosopher 

• Dear Colleagues,
  Let me express my firm support for the campaign to defend the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht.
  Yours sincerely,

  — Rastko Mocnik
  Professor of Sociology – University of Ljubliana – Slovenia 

• Jullie moeten blijven!
  Economie is gebaat bij cultuur, cultuur bij uitdaging en uitbouw, cultuur stimuleert de economie.

  — Y.L.M. Prince
  Chair CVB Kindante – Foundation for primary and secondary special needs education – Sittard-Geleen – The Netherlands 

• Na drie jaar in stilte te hebben gewerkt werd ik in 1985 toegelaten tot de Jan van Eyck Academie. In de twee jaar daarna heb ik leren nadenken en spreken, door oefening, herhaling en toetsing van mijn eigen en andermans standpunten. Vooral de veelheid aan nationaliteiten van de deelnemers was daarbij van het grootste belang. Het is helaas zo dat de ideale maatschappij nu verder weg lijkt dan ooit en dat de Nederlandse staat naarstig bouwt aan een nieuwe toren van Babylon. Niet de kunstenaars zitten tegenwoordig in een ivoren toren, politici zijn nu de bewoners. Toch hoop ik dat het belang van de Jan van Eyck Academie, en alle andere instellingen in Nederland die de blik naar buiten richten, zal worden ingezien door de mensen die nog wel nieuwsgierig zijn naar de wereld buiten Nederland.

  — Stijn Peeters
  Ex-researcher Fine Art
  Artist – Eindhoven, The Netherlands