The Willem de Kooning Research Award was established by the Willem de Kooning Foundation in 2015 to emphasize the central role of artistic and design research within the newly introduced curriculum. The Willem de Kooning Research Awards are not prizes for just theses or research documents but for projects merging theory and practice where art or design work is a vital part of the research. The Awards are granted to Bachelor and Master graduation projects that combine theoretical and field research with artistic research and which provide new insights to broader audiences of experts and the public at large. Valuing art and design research, the Willem de Kooning Academy grants three awards for Bachelor graduates and one award for a Master graduate.
Next to the prize money of € 2000,-, the Master winning project will also be honoured with a publication. This publication is not a conventional research book or catalogue, but an experimental publication to be developed within WdKA’s Hybrid Publishing Practices. It can take any form that is best suited to each project: electronic and print, performative, presentational.
The nominees for the Master Research Award are:
Master Media Design (Lens-Based & Experimental Publishing): Julia Kul, "The Ministry of Anomie"
Master Interior Architecture: Research + Design, MIARD: Merle Flügge, "The Schizophrenic Interior and the Aesthetics of the Imaginary" (winner)
Master Education in Arts: Shailoh Phillips, "Some Troubles with Making Tentacular Pedagogy in the Age of Entanglement: A Toolkit for Bouwkeet”
Master Fine Art: Eothen Stearn, "Panharmonicon".
The winner will be announced on July the 13th.
