“When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

— Audre Lorde (a self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”)

The Fine Arts Department provides a truly diverse, inclusive and imaginative context for emerging artists. Believing that the necessary space for artistic development is created through the grace of discussion, doubt, anarchism, conflict, freedom and the ability to play and fail, we dispense with all façades. The department seeks and nurtures new perspectives and practices, and therefore welcomes diverse voices, bodies and minds. Respect, reciprocity, care and social integrity are values we promote.

As a permanent department at the Sandberg Instituut, Fine Arts is fully committed to strong visual presentations of artistic experimentation and research. We offer dedicated time, space and social structures for each artist to develop their own practices in relation to fellow students, the larger field of art and the greater world, and enable the expression of intentional positions in society. We emphasise building new and other ways of knowing and learning and new bodies of knowledge that incorporate increased sensitivity and understanding of the historical origins and persistent legacies of existing knowledges, fostering greater critical awareness regarding the European discourse and its appropriative tendencies. Through an active consideration of new educational modalities, the department continues to ask itself how art can best engage with the urgent social questions of our time. The Fine Arts Department offers informal conversations with established artists and curators, encounters with unexpected cultural icons, research trips, workshops, lectures, group visits to exhibitions, and exchanges with a range of arts organisations and initiatives in the Netherlands and abroad. Together with the team, each new group of students helps build their own ideal department, one in which they can grow as independent artists, both through the development of their own work and through their relationships within the Sandberg community and beyond.