The Critical VisitorThe Critical Visitor

Het Nieuwe Instituut is a partner within the NWO The Critical Visitor project that investigates how heritage institutions can bring about new forms of inclusiveness and accessibility through their organisation, collections and exhibition policy. The five-year research project is being conducted by a consortium of fifteen cultural and scientific institutions.

This event is a celebratory opening of The Critical Visitor: Intersectional Approaches to Rethinking and Retooling Inclusion and Accessibility in Heritage Spaces. The research team consisting of Eliza Steinbock (Leiden University), Hester Dibbits (Reinwardt Academy, AHK and Erasmus University Rotterdam), Dirk van den Heuvel (Jaap Bakema Study Centre, TU Delft, Het Nieuwe Instituut), and two PhDs will present the five sub-projects, including a series of field laboratories, archive interactions with artists and a salon series to involve professionals and the public in the project.

In public interview sessions the fifteen scientific, public and private partners will give short introductions on their relationship to and history of working with intersectionality theory or methods regarding previous or current inclusion and accessibility initiatives. They will explain their planned role in The Critical Visitor project. The afternoon will close with festive drinks and appetizers in which partners and audience can get to know each other better.

We would like to thank the LDE Centre for Global Heritage and Development for supporting the event.

Smart Culture - Art and Culture focuses on research within the fields of art, culture, heritage and media in relation to the creative industries. The aim is to make connections between concrete innovative arts and cultural practices and more comprehensive scientific and social issues.

Het Nieuwe Instituut, Van Abbemuseum, University of Amsterdam, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Amsterdam School of the Arts, Nynke Hieke Feenstra, Research Centre for Material Culture, IHLIA LGBT+ Heritage, Atria, izi.travel; additional consortium participants: the Amsterdam Museum, Studio i Platform for inclusive culture, Imagine-IC; together with the applicants: Leiden University, Reinwardt Academy Amsterdam and Delft University of Technology.