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Author: Eveline de Jonge

Dear reader,

You are probably working in the field of social art and design, or are at least interested in that field. If I’m right, you are exactly the type of person I want to reach. If I'm wrong, that's too bad, but please feel free to continue reading (or leaving this page) anyway.

I’m in the middle of a research (title: 'Dat kun je toch niet maken?') that focuses on artists who need dialogue with others to create their work. That comes down to a broad range of artists, with very varying practices. It probably includes everyone who writes about his or her project for this magazine. What these artists also have in common is that they all move outside of the art world, where so to say everything is possible, and move directly in to the lives of others, where different (social) rules apply. I’m curious on how artists reflect on their role towards the people they go into dialogue with and how they deal with ethical dilemmas they will most likely come across. How do they for example deal with expectations, promises and lies and trust issues? To investigate these dilemma’s I go into dialogue with socially driven artists and designers myself. Therefore my research is also up for discussion. I’m not an art critic or researcher, I also go into dialogue as an artist.

With this research I want to give readers insight in the value patterns of different artists. I do not intend to give clear-cut solutions, but to instead give a better insight of what kind of ethical dilemmas you can come across in this field and show different ways of dealing with them. I think that’s important, because most of the times the discussions or presentations about social art and design come down to how the projects are developed and what the outcome or results are. I’m looking for everything in between or behind those things. I think that when you get more insight in how you deal with dilemmas concerning the relationship with people you are involving in your projects, you will gain a lot of knowledge that will help improve your work from the inside out. I also strongly believe that we can learn from each other’s experiences. By offering you, as a potential reader, these value patterns in the form of conversations, I hope you will start asking yourself questions about what these kind of dilemmas mean in your practice.

So far I talked to two artists, Bart Lodewijks and Sabrina Lindemann. You can read about the conversations we had on my website by clicking on the title: 'Dat kun je toch niet maken?' The texts of the conversations I had so far are only in dutch but soon hopefully also in english. I’m aware of the fact that this social field is an international one; hence I’m writing this explanatory text in english. However, I didn’t have the skills or financial means to translate the conversations myself yet. During the graduation event of the Willem de Kooning Academy, july 8-10, I will continue the project by going into dialogue with several graduates.

Thank you for reading. If you would like to talk to me about my research, or want to share your experiences in the social field, please don’t hesitate to get into contact by sending an e-mail to eveline_dejonge@hotmail.com.

Kind regards,

Eveline de Jonge