For the past two years, SJDA has developed a social justice approach to the arts, aimed at transformation in arts education and the world at large. The work they do spans from working with dance students in training skills in providing inclusive spaces; understanding black and migrant barbershops as places of wisdom; founding a protest choir, learning about the potential of singing bodies coming together; developing a module for inclusive teaching; and understanding gentrification from a migrant community perspective.
SJDA stands for the Social Justice & Diversity in the Arts Lectorate, a research group at the Amsterdam University of the Arts, founded in August 2022. During this evening, the research group looks back on the work they have done in the past two years. A publication reflecting on SJDA’s work will also be launched.
With contributions by researchers: Aminata Cairo, Gabriela Acosta Camacho, Tayfun Balçik, Camiël Kesser, Paulina Trèjo Mendez, Rosa te Velde.
Keynote lecture by prof. Rolando Vázquez.
The Social Justice and Diversity in the Arts research group aims to contribute to knowledge development around social justice within artistic practice, education and research, both within the AHK and beyond.
Tuning in! is a research project that investigates the possibilities of the emergence of an 'embodied community' in an amateur choir that sings resistance songs at Aslan Muziekschool in Amsterdam Nieuw-West. What are the ways to connect to struggles here and elsewhere through singing resistance songs together? How does an amateur choir (of activists, students, parents, artists, teachers) become a community? What (embodied) skills can we use and develop through music-making that can help us create individual and communal transformation?
