Beautiful Countryside: An Odyssey - footpaths towards a future in times of climate change  

Prof. Dr. Zef Hemel has a focus on what he sees as the core of urban and regional planning: economy, ecology, democracy, art and imagination. He is searching for a new kind of open planning – a planning which can easily adjust to permanently changing circumstances and benefits from unexpected opportunities. Recently, professor Hemel has been hiking through our northern provinces, conducting interdisciplinary research in which history and local culture and design play a connecting role. In this lecture, Professor Hemel will take this northern landscape of the Netherlands - with its rich history of habitation - as a starting point for how to prepare for a future in times of climate change. “It is an unknown future that we can get to grips with through deliberate delay, with footpaths as the dominant infrastructure.”

From 2012 till 2022, Zef Hemel was Professor on Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Amsterdam, during which he set up the first Urban Studies summer programme with our office (2013)! He currently holds the Abe Bonnema Chair at Delft Technical University and Groningen University. 

Location: REC C0.01 
16:15 - Walk-in.  
16:30 - 17:30 Lecture. 
17:30 - 17:45 Q&A and moving to Crea Café for drinks

From Van Gogh to Mondrian and De Stijl: Highlights from the Kröller-Müller Collection

Dr. Marek Wieczorek has long been a member of our summer school community, bringing a group of students from the University of Washington every year to study Dutch art. He is an expert on abstraction, the avant-garde, and contemporary art. As a seasoned Kröller-Müller Museum enthousiast, he will present highlights of the collection, including breakthrough works by Dutch pioneer of abstraction Piet Mondrian and his avant-garde movement De Stijl. The Kröller-Müller Museum and large sculpture garden, located in the beautiful national park the Hoge Veluwe, also houses the second largest collection of works by Vincent van Gogh. 

Location: REC C0.01 
16:15 - Walk-in.  
16:30 - 17:30 Lecture. 
17:30 - 17:45 Q&A and moving to Crea Café for drinks

Occulture in Contemporary Art

Fifteen years ago, Dr. Marco Pasi began to take note of the conspicuous presence of esoteric motifs in contemporary art. After initially thinking it was only a passing trend, he realised it was something more significant. While the influence of alternative spirituality on modern art (i.e., roughly until the end of the Second World War) had already been the object of serious scholarly research at least since the 1960s, it became clear to Dr. Pasi that both scholars of esotericism and art specialists were not yet paying enough attention to the role of esotericism in contemporary art. Meanwhile, concepts such as “occulture” have been proposed to indicate the presence of esoteric motifs in popular culture. In this lecture, Dr. Pasi will present his findings and reflections on occulture in contemporary art, which is important to understand the role that esotericism plays in our societies today. Contemporary art possesses considerable social capital, and looking at its relation to esotericism can give us a measure of the continuing relevance of esotericism as a social and cultural phenomenon in our times.

Dr. Marco Pasi is is Associate Professor in History of Hermetic philosophy and related currents at the University of Amsterdam. He is academic director for both our winter programme Introduction to Western Esotericism and our summer programme Arcane Worlds: New Frontiers in the Study of Esotericism. 

Location: REC C0.01 
16:15 - Walk-in.  
16:30 - 17:30 Lecture. 
17:30 - 17:45 Q&A and moving to Crea Café for drinks