Three winners of this year’s thesis prize

On November 26th, the winners of the Thesis Prize for students of the arts Zuyd were announced during an interesting and festive afternoon in Maastricht. The winners of the Thesis Prize study year 2018/2019 are (in no particular order):

Kevin Strüder – Anomie

The jury welcomed the artistic research through visual research of Keven Strüder’s book: “Kevin’s book is a consequent and driven exploration that starts from an obsession with the author’s mother and that combines multi-lingual texts and self-made images. We liked its loose feel, its abundance of questions and its urgency for the author.”

Omid Kheirabadi – Imaging the Space

The jury said about Omid’s thesis: “This is an extremely well researched thesis in which contextualization through an impressive amount of relevant architectural and photographical sources abound. The thesis explores the different relationships between architecture and photography and questions what it means for architecture to be designed for photographical representation.”

Lindsay Zwaan – Leuk gedaan hoor, maar wat mot ik ermee? Met jouw privé?

The thesis of Lindsay Zwaan received the following acclaim: “Lindsay wrote a refreshingly blunt, authentic and readable text addressing the ways in which she explores the differences between the private and the personal, between the real and the fake, between what can and should be shared (in theatre) and what can or should not. The jury liked her use of the form of crossing out parts of her text providing an insight in her unfolding thought process.”

The jury consisted of: Jasper Coppes, Anne Geene, Marcel van der Klink, Peter Missotten, Arjan de Nooy en Ruth Benschop. The complete jury report can be downloaded at the website of Scriptiekunst: www.scriptiekunst.org.

The winners received an iPad from the hands of lectors Ruth Benschop, Peter Missotten, and dean of Performing Arts Zuyd Mare de Groot – who started the ceremony by giving the students some food for thought from the poem ‘Mens durf te leven’ by Dirk Witte (1917).

Before the celebration, two inspiring workshops took place. Marcel van der Klink (lector ‘Professionalising Education’ at Zuyd Hogeschool) explored the (hidden) value of the thesis with teachers who supervise theses from the different art academies. Teachers shared their experiences in supervising, evaluating theses and the role of different criteria, and how supervising situations differ. Jasper Coppes (artist and writer based in Amsterdam) facilitated a Socratic discussion with students about the creative process of writing a thesis, and how to probe a research question. The workshops were attended by some twenty participants.

About the Thesis Prize

The thesis prize was founded by the research centres AOK and TDA (Zuyd University of Applied Sciences) to encourage students to make theses (and/or documentations of artistic processes) that do justice to their own artistic practice. Too often, reflection within arts education falls back on semi scientific ideals of validity and objectivity. This removes critical reflexivity from artistic practice. The research centres TDA and AOK support theses, documentations, reflection and research within arts education that are relevant to artistic practice.

See for more information: www.scriptiekunst.org.