Making Matters Symposium 2020: Collective material practices in critical times

The Making Matters Symposium 2020 brings together international representatives of collective material practices, who experiment with their material manifestations to critique and reimagine the world(s) we inhabit.

Making Matters Symposium 2020

Recent years have seen the emergence of a new kind of collective material practices, that transgress the classical opposition between theory and practice, or thinking and making. These practices actively engage with our catastrophic times and generate collaborations that connect cultural, technological and more-than-human concerns. They show a potential to develop a comprehensive approach to art, science and technology, driven by the necessity to fundamentally reimagine the relationship of humans to the world.

In an attempt to map such practices the workgroup Material Practices (formerly known as Critical Making) organises Making Matters, the successor of the symposium in 2019 in West, Den Haag. For this edition, practitioners from various backgrounds and disciplines such as artistic research, publishing, sculpture, business and performance will share their work to help us experience the entanglement of thinking and making, and the critical potential that this entails.

Through online workshops and presentations, contributors want to invite a broad audience of makers, artists, activists, teachers, theorists, students, designers, etherpads and other non-humans, to engage with diverse subjects such as alternative economies, feral ecologies, shared authorship, xeno-biologies, pedagogies, publishing infrastructures and radical collectivities.

Programme and tickets

This symposium is organised in collaboration with the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. From 19 to 21 November, daily presentations, workshops and clinics will be held online. 

Waag, partner of STARTS Prize, worked on the programme and is responsible for the Aliens in Green workshop, held on Friday and Saturday from 10:00-12:00 hrs. In this workshop they explore toxic substances in our homes, our food and on our bodies and the mental, physical and sexual changes they can effectuate. They will also talk about the work of Paul Preciado, known for changing his sex as a political performance through self-experiment with a kind of testosterone.

Part of the programme is free of charge, participation in the workshops costs €2,50.