On April 1, the Community Art Lab hosted a special meeting for researchers and funds. Over the past few years, several Dutch researchers have investigated the effects of community art projects. The work of Sandra Trienekens and of the Community Art Lab itself are examples, but also the ad-hoc evaluations of Wil Oud of the Kohnstamm Institute of the University of Amsterdam and of Peter Brouwer of Holland’s largest research institute, TNO.

Aim
The event will be held in Fort Blauwkapel, on the eastern edge of the city. Some twenty researchers will participate as well as ten representatives of such large funds as Stichting Doen, Oranjefonds and the VSB fund. Also, some local cultural affairs officials and art journalists will be present. The explicit aim of this day is to frankly exchange methodologies with an eye to strengthening research in future. Critical reflection on community art research is still in its infancy in The Netherlands, as opposed to the Anglosaxon world, where a serious ongoing debate has evolved in periodicals like Research in Drama Education, the International Journal of Cultural Policy and the Community Development Journal.

Petra Kuppers and Neil Marcus
Special guests are researcher and community dance choreographer Petra Kuppers and her partner Neil Marcus, who will offer an interactive workshop to our participants.

CAL hopes to organize such meetings with researchers and funds on an annual basis, same as the separate meetings it has started to organize for artists/practitioners.