Research

IRMA FÖLDÉNYI
(2024-…)

Voices of Materials: Probing the Cultural Ecology of Material Finitude

How can jewellery act as a performative medium that tells stories about material finitude on a planetary and local scale? This question came forth from my design practice, which concerns with the sourcing and valuing of materials, and my role as a jeweller within contemporary environmental discourses.
Just as the ‘Blue Marble’ image shed new view on Earth, can jewellery, with its small scale in this world, be able to create new, caring ways of relating to planetary processes or hyperobjects we are part of, yet which remain, in their complexity, hard to grasp.
The subject of this research is material finitude, the planetary limitation of materials. From an eco-critical approach, I propose an inquiry that goes beyond the human time scale to materiality.
With the methodology of probing I aim to learn what materials have witnessed and how they have transformed within their economic and environmental- cultural contexts. The voices that emerge are brought to public conversation in the tactile and visual language of jewellery.
Actively listening to three materials – sand, coal and water – forms the basis for three case studies, and a range of outcomes that contributes to wider discourse on the entanglement of humans, materials and ecosystems.

GARINE GOKCEYAN (2024-…)

Exploring the Diasporic Life of Armenian Script: a multiscript design laboratory
This multiscript research project addresses the inequities between scripts taking the Armenian writing system as a living proof and a laboratory script. Through an intersectional feminist and decolonial lens, the project seeks to create a series of multilingual and multiform resources that will change the under-resourced and disadvantaged status of Armenian script and will integrate it into the contemporary design realm. A much-needed space for dialogue and critical discourse around under-resourced languages could be created. (Fig.: Roman Capital Letter “I” according to the Human Body and Face, from Geoffroy Tory’s, Le Champ fleury, 1529. Paris. Source: © Bibliotheque national de France).

SHAYMA NADER
(2022-…)

Against Forgetting: Exploring poetic gestures of return(ing) to the land in Palestine
This research project intends to examine the erasures caused by settler-colonialism and the subsequent practices of resistance to that erasure, by exploring ways of relating to and cultivating the land through generative acts of resistance rooted in issues of seeds, soil, and popular pedagogies. The main objective is to interlace the reactivation of collective memories with multiple forms of storytelling and critical remembrance drawing from notions of the undercommons and fugitivity, collaborative grassroots filmmaking and critical fabulation, to inform poetics gestures and conversations envisioning land-centered and post-colonial imaginaries.

VIET VU (PHAM QUANG TRUNG) (2022-…)

Queering the censorship: A (self-)investigation through the first-person perspective of an experimental filmmaker in Vietnam
Seen from the first-person perspective as a queer experimental filmmaker, this project asks the question of how the community of Vietnamese radical audio-visual artists have been encountering and transcending different legislative and latent types of censorships imposed by the Vietnamese society, Vietnamese government, and the artists themselves.

Supervisor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Wesley Meuris
Supervisor UA:
prof. dr. Kyoko Iwaki
More info:
studio-if.nl

Supervisor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Ruth Loos & PhD researcher Loraine Furter
Supervisor UA:
prof. dr. Kathleen Gyssels More info: www.garinegokceyan.com

Supervisor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Joachim Ben Yakoub
Supervisor UA :
prof. dr. Gert Van Hecke & dr. Matthias De Groof

Supervisor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Sofie Verdoodt
Supervisor UA: prof. dr. Philippe Meers More info: www.vietvuphm.wordpress.com

PIERRE-ANTOINE VETTORELLO
(2021-…)

Black Yarns
This research project aims to reveal a decolonial critique of fashion museology by sharing
genealogies of black women designers between 1939 and 1966. In it, Pierre-Antoine Vettorello reflects on the absence of black women designers in contemporary fashion history in France and Europe coming from my French/Ivorian designer-researcher background. He wants to restore missing narratives by re-editing archival garments and jewelry, potentially reattributing designs to their owners by publishing a research book of portraits and photographs including restored pieces. Creating archives, crafting garments issued from collective fashion memory will help fill the blanks using speculation and fiction based on black women who played a role in fashion between France and Senegal.
Image by Mama Casset, courtesy of Revue Noire.

MONA HEDAYATI
(2021-…)

Reverb-Resonate: Sounding the Affective Frequencies of Migration 
The project endeavors to create embodied conditions for communicating the ineffable psychophysiological complexity of lived experiences of migration to depart from reducing these experiences into verbal or visual narratives that cannot withhold their ineffability. The project’s aim is, thus, to capture, collect, and transform somatic markers—to stand in for psychophysiological changes—into sound as an affective medium to build sensory-performative experiences. As an interdisciplinary project embedded in the space of art-science-technology, the secondary aim is to denaturalize the legacy of scientific objectivity predicated on quantifying and datafying varied phenomena, including somatic markers. As such the project juxtaposes the logic of quantification and datafication against the materiality of the body by initially subscribing to and eventually departing from normative technological processes. The project, hence, reconfigures affective data into speculative acoustic spaces through the body that is already mediated by the technoscientific infrastructure.

DANIAL SHAH (2021-…)

Visions of becoming and belonging: an (autobiographical) exploration of photo studios in Balochistan, Pakistan.
Focusing on the world of photo studios in contemporary Balochistan (Pakistan), the present project enters the terrain of the vanishing. With the arrival of digital technology photo studios are disappearing and along with them also their hand painted backdrops, props, costumes and cameras, the long sessions, the chatting and the manuality that make up the social life of these environments. What is not disappearing, however, is the desire to transform life by means of photographs where individuals are allowed to enter a fantasy world. Photographic studios in Balochistan are spaces where dreams are born and lives are shaped. In a studio you can become anything, a freedom fighter, a friend of the prime minister, the boyfriend of a movie star . Photographs are not mere representations, they are tools for performing life, for becoming. The disappearance of the studios also carries a deeper social meaning. Photographic aesthetics are in fact key terrain around which local communities gather. They bring individual fantasies in touch with a sense of belonging to the local community. So what will happen once they disappear? The project builds on my practice as a photographer and documentary filmmaker as well on my own biography as a displaced artist from Quetta, Balochistan, lending my own story and my own self to become the object of the work of local photographers. My exploration of the world of vanishing photographic studios will allow me to further explore the meaning of photographs in a South Asian context. Doing this I will also address matters of race, ethnicity and gender as they meet and merge in the context of the studios.

HODA SIAHTIRI (2020-…)

Singing the Silences
The songs of nomadic women of Bakhtiari, freely express the emotions and opinions of their female creators concerning different aspects of their daily lives. Through this research, I float in the fluidity of the songs of Bakhtiari inhabitants of Zagros mountains in west of Iran. 
By mediating the processes of embodiment and transformation of the possibilities and the qualities of resistance in the repertoire of Bakhtiari songs against the ordeals of patriarchal social system, I propose to experiment with forms of embodied sonicity of resistance in performative audiovisual forms. 
Engaging in this work, not only allows me to incorporate my own personal ancestral relations in Iran through the practice of singing, but also allows me to reconsider my situation as a displaced body in the heart of Europe, in Brussels. What bridges both is an embodied practice of survival in a society in which dominant voices mute and silence fragile narratives and ways of being, sensing and feeling. Together they push my research into poetic approaches of resilience to speak, narrate, voice and sing the silences I inherited.

Supervisor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Kim Gorus
Supervisor UA:
Prof. dr. Kathleen Gyssels
Prof. dr. Diana Arbaiza
More info:
pierreantoine.vettorello@kdg.be

Supervisor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Frederik De Bleser
Supervisor UA:
Prof. dr. Roschanack Shaery-Yazdi

Supervisor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Ruth Loos
Supervisor UA :
Prof. dr. Paolo Favero
More info:
www.danialshah.com
www.instagram.com/danialshah_

Supervisor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Joachim Ben Yakoub
Supervisor UA :
Prof. dr. Paolo Favero
More info:
Hoda.siahtiri@kdg.be

BIANCA BALDI
 (2020-…)

Play-White: Racial Passing and Embodied Images
This research introduces a critical approach to “racial passing” and its complicity with image production. Someone who can pass for white is socially designated as one racial construct but performatively plays out whiteness. Passing complicates our current understanding of visual production and categories of identity.
Through my image-making practice, I reflect upon a visual history of racial passing in the South African context. By looking at the United States context I will establish synergies with the South African one to broach the absence of formal discourse. Through a reading of popular culture and literature, I clarify a contemporary position on the visual production of passing. 
Play-White is a meditation on passing, embodiment, self-presentation, and the aesthetic thresholds of identity.

ANNELYS DEVET (2019-…)

The PhD research project “Disarming Design from Palestine” questions how design can be a vehicle for empowerment and solidarity in conflicted realities. How can one through the practice of design develop sustainable positions in fractured societies? Building upon relations of trust and long-term involvements in Palestine, Annelys de Vet will analyse, define and design the conditions for design to have a social, political and eman-cipatory impact. A concrete goal is to develop, in close collaboration with local partners, new forms and platforms for design education, collaboration and exchange in Palestine, reinforcing the economic, political and artistic sustainability of designers.

LORAINE FURTER (2019-…)

The research project The politics of publishing: researching encounters between artists’ books and intersectional feminist tools addresses artists’ books and the politics of publishing, creating forms to uncover forgotten histories in this field, through a critical design approach which includes feminist tools. The project will materialize in a series of hybrid publications (paper, digital, spatial, oral) that re·activate objects and histories and re·circulate them.

SAMMY BALOJI (2019-…)

Contemporary Kasala and Lukasa: towards a Reconfiguration of Identity and Geopolitics. This project aims to create new memory devices, based upon two existing devices used by different Luba groups living in the DRC:
– kasala is a ceremonial poem, sung or recited by Luba in the provinces Kasai Occidental and Kasai Oriental and Sankara, that serves as a public and solemn way to pay homage to and laud the actions and accomplishments of kings, chiefs, lineage heads and other types of public figures;
–lukasa is a memory board used and ‘read’ in a ritual performance by Mbudye, an association of men, responsible for the transmission of historical knowledge at the court of Luba kings, situated in the former province of Katanga.
These two different Luba groups were divided during the colonial era by boundaries between the former provinces of Kasai and Katanga. Descendants of Luba groups from Kasai who live in Katanga are now often considered ‘foreigners’ by those who claim to be the ‘original’ inhabitants of Katanga. The art works to be created are meant to bring these groups back together through a narrative that is part personal, part historical, par fictitious.

Supervisor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Petra Van Brabandt
Supervisor UA:
Prof. dr. Diana Arbaiza
More info: 
Bianca.baldi@kdg.be

Supervisor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Petra Van Brabandt
Supervisor UA :
Prof. dr. Pascal Gielen
More info:
annelys.devet@kdg.be

Supervisor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Kim Gorus 
Supervisor UA:
Prof. dr. Diana Arbaiza
More info: 
loraine.furter@kdg.be

Supervisor Sint Lucas Antwerpen :
dr. Bambi Ceuppens & dr. Ruth Loos
Supervisor UA: 
Prof. dr. Paolo Favero
More info: 
sammy.kabambibaloji@kdg.be

ROBIN VANBESIEN (2018-…)

Toward a Poetics of Close-To-Each-Other The PhD research project Ciné Place-Making explores how to work out the relationship between a moving image practice and the collective imaginaries of “place-making” by various grassroots practices, networks, and movements. Through a series of film works, multiple figures of “co-elaboration” (tools, methods, principles, and approaches) are developed and created for a screen-based (re-)assembly of various forms of place-making, with the purpose of preserving and elaborating these as unbound resources for more-than-social struggles.  

Promotor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Wesley Meuris
Promotor UA :
Prof. dr. Pascal Gielen
More info:
robin.vanbesien@kdg.be

dr. SARAH HENDRICKX (2016-2022)

The (bureau)creative Climate focuses on the Research Centre on Creative Abilities meandmywork, a center of knowledge on bureaucreativity. In order to survive within our future working environment creativity was put forward as only weapon, making the aim – to increase the personal level of creativity – profoundly popular for misuse by a capitalist system. mamw became a metaphor for a world where creativity is a pill one can simply take to become successful. The research learns from existing bureaucreative structures and visualizes its methodologies within the fictional Research Centre. 

Promotor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr.Wesley Meuris 
Promotor UA:
Prof. dr. Pascal Gielen 
Meer info: 
sarah.hendrickx@kdg.be

dr. ALI BAHARLOU (2015-2021) 

Parallel narratives, different elements and forms of representations and their effect on audience perception researches parallel narratives in film and how choice can lead to different destinies for the protagonist. The questions raised are how audience perceive these topics in parallel narratives and how filmmakers can change or manipulate the perception of choices, multiple paths and free will by diverse narrative elements, devices and different forms of representations. 

Promotor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Tom de Smedt 
Promotor UA:
Prof. dr. Philippe Meers
Meer info: 
alibaharlou@gmail.com

dr. LUDIVINE LECHAT (2015-19) 

Interactieve sprookjes onderzoekt de relatie tussen new media kunst en ziekenzorg om stress en eenzaamheid bij gehospitaliseerde kinderen tegen te gaan.

Promotor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Tom de Smedt 
Promotor UA:
Prof. dr. Koen Norga
Promotor UA/VUB:
Prof. dr. Monica Dhar
Meer info: 
ludivine.lechat@gmail.com 

dr. BOY VEREECKEN (2012-2019)

Signature Strengths revolves around risk mitigation and the desire for certainty, and how this can be related to design strategies & methodologies. The research will be demonstrated through the writing of a novel, consisting of feature writing formats. In this way, it wants to question what it means to be ‘complete’ within the production of a particular product and what the relevance is of the features accompanying that very result. 

Promotor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
Michel Van Beirendonck  
Promotor UA:
Prof. dr. Luc Pauwels
Meer info: 
mail@boyvereecken.info

dr. HASEEB AHMED (2014-2018)

The Wind Egg reaches back over 3000 years to ancient Egyptian, Greek, Indian, Chinese, and Arabic cultures. Held as fact until the 17th century it postulates that animals and people can reproduce with the wind as plants do. Vultures in particular were thought to be exclusively female and reproduce solely with the Western wind. Taking them as the starting point and using modern wind tunnel Ahmed researched the possibility of human reproduction with the wind and without men, freeing both from nature with technology. In collaboration with Zurich University of the Arts and Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics. 

Promotor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
Werner Van dermeersch
Promotor UA:
Prof. dr. Staf Van Tendeloo
Meer info: 
hwahmed@gmail.com

dr. KAREN VERMEREN (2012-2018)

Breuklijnen: Op zoek naar nieuwe artistieke representaties voor het geologisch landschap stelt de traditionele opvattingen van landschapsschilderkunst ter discussie. Het zoekt naar nieuwe representaties van het geologisch landschap in tweedimensionale in situ installaties. Het focust in het bijzonder op de beweging van breuklijnen en gletsjers. Het onderzoek werd uitgevoerd in samenwerking met verschillende onderzoekers verbonden aan de Universiteit van Antwerpen (Prof. dr. Ivan Nijs, onderzoeksgroep Plant and Vegetatie Ecologie, en Prof. em. dr. Louis Beyens, Onderzoeksgroep Ecosysteembeheer) en Sint Lucas Antwerpen (Horizontal Drawing, onder leiding van Arpaïs Du Bois). 

Promotor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
dr. Sofie Verdoodt 
Promotor UA:
Prof. dr. Ivan Nijs
Meer info:
Karen.Vermeren@kdg.be

dr. WESLEY MEURIS (2010-2017)

Exhibiting Knowledge onderzocht de correlatie tussen kennis (weten) en kunst. Hoe kan een artistiek werk hiermee omspringen? Kan wetenschap een medium worden? Hoe wordt kennis/kunst geconserveerd? Hoe wordt kunst geconsumeerd, hoe gaat het artistieke beeld hiermee om? Hoe beschouwt architectuur (ruimte) zich als dirigent in waardeoordelen van kennis? Laat wetenschap het toe zich te laten deconstrueren door een artistiek beeld?

Promotor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
Werner Van Dermeersch
Promotor UA:
Prof. dr. Herwig Leirs
Meer info :
wesley.meuris@kdg.be

dr. FREDERIK DE BLESER (2011-2016)

De impact van generatieve software op grafisch ontwerp onderzocht wat de impact is van generatieve software op grafisch ontwerp en kunst, en hoe een dergelijke aanpak verschilt van klassieke digitale gereedschappen zoals Adobe Photoshop. Uit het onderzoek kunnen we de reikwijdte van generatieve vormgevingstools begrijpen en mee de toekomst bepalen voor de digitale gereedschappen die vormgevers dagelijks gebruiken.

Promotor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
Lucas Nijs 
Promotor UA:
Prof. dr. Serge Demeyer
Meer info: 
frederik.debleser@kdg.be

dr. STEVE VAN DEN BOSCH (2010-2016)

Het kunstwerk als productief verdwijnpunt onderzocht hoe het conflict tussen het tekstuele en het nulpunt van het kunstwerk productief kan functioneren. Deze vraag werd vanuit kunsthistorisch en filosofisch perspectief onderzocht om binnen de hedendaagse artistieke praktijk nieuwe parameters te ontwikkelen. 

Promotor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
Mark Luyten  
Promotor UA:
Prof. dr. Arthur Cools
Meer info:
Steve.vandenbosh@kdg.be

dr. TOM DE SMEDT (2008-2012)

Modeling Creativity: Case Studies in Python focust met behulp van technieken uit de artificiële intelligentie naar computermodellen van creativiteit. Uit het proefschrift kunnen we besluiten dat bewuste zelfreflectie vooralsnog mensen van machines onderscheidt op het vlak van creativiteit. Het leidde verder tot de ontwikkeling van twee open source programma’s voor de Python-programmeertaal: NOGL, een ontwikkelingsplatform voor eenvoudige computerspellen, en Pattern, een gebruiksvriendelijk programmeerpakket voor natuurlijke taalverwerking. Het onderzoek werd gefinancierd door UA IOF.  

Promotor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
Lucas Nijs 
Promotor UA:
Prof. dr. Walter Daelemans
Meer info:
tom.desmedt@kdg.be

dr. DIRK VAN DER EECKEN (2005-2008)

De kunst van het onzichtbare: Tekeningen en betekenis van nanostructuren werd gerealiseerd met de steun van een UA BOF-project voor onderzoek in de Kunsten. Dit doctoraatswerk wil aantonen dat deze kunst en wetenschap complementair zijn en dat de fascinerende wereld van atomen zowel de wetenschapper als de kunstenaar kan boeien.  

Promotor Sint Lucas Antwerpen:
Werner Van dermeersch  
Promotor UA:
Prof. dr. Staf Van Tendeloo
Meer info: 
dirkvandereecken@skynet.be