The Faculty of Arts has started a long-term collaboration with Besiendershuis, the iconic building on the river Waal, which focuses on developing cultural residencies and presenting public-oriented artistic programmes for the benefit of the city. In the coming years, we will organise Arts meet Science projects together around pressing societal themes, opening up our research to the city through art and imagination.
The first theme to be researched is the impact of slavery and the colonial past on contemporary society in general and on Nijmegen in particular. The first project in that context involves a residency by South African interdisciplinary Professor of Visual Arts Kathryn Smith. She was a guest at the Besiendershuis for a week in April to work on the portrait of an enslaved man who, according to a death certificate in the Nijmegen Archives, died in 1814 at the age of 19 and lived in a house on the Grote Markt. The portrait will be unveiled on 30 June during a Keti Koti commemoration at the Nijmegen Gemeentehuis.
More information on this project can be found here:
