About Erik Rietveld

Erik Rietveld is a Socrates Professor at the University of Twente and Professor in Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam UMC, Department of Psychiatry / Philosophy). Earlier he was a Fellow in Philosophy at Harvard University. He works on the philosophy of skilled action, change-ability, and ecological psychology. Rietveld has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant and VENI, VIDI and VICI grants by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Together with his brother Ronald Rietveld he founded the multidisciplinary collective for visual art, experimental architecture and philosophy RAAAF in 2006. RAAAF’s artworks have received numerous awards and have been exhibited widely at international museums and biennales for contemporary art. They were responsible for Vacant NL, the successful Dutch contribution to the Venice Architecture Biennale 2010. Ronald and Erik Rietveld are life members of the Society of Arts of The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

About Ronald Rietveld

Ronald Rietveld graduated in 2004 cum laude at the Amsterdam Academy of Arts. His working period during Prix de Rome 2006 at the Rijksakademie of Visual Arts in Amsterdam was the early beginning of RAAAF. After winning the golden medal he founded the multidisciplinary studio together with his brother and Socrates Professor in Philosophy Erik Rietveld.

Ronald & Erik work at the intersection of visual art, experimental architecture and the philosophy of embodied cognition. “We make seemingly impossible site-specific interventions in the living environment based on an urge to explore and reflect on what is possible in contemporary life.” Through multidisciplinary research with scientists and craftsmen, RAAAF’s real-life thinking models link local qualities with the larger societal context.

A striking example of this is the cut-through monument ‘Bunker 599’, which unorthodoxly questions the Dutch and UNESCO policies on cultural heritage. Another example is the installation ‘Vacant NL’, the Dutch contribution to the Venice Biennale 2010, in which the potential of 10.000 governmentally-owned vacant buildings was shown.

Their work has been published world-wide and exhibited at leading contemporary art- and architecture biennales such as those of São Paulo, Istanbul, Chicago and Venice. Musea that have shown their work include Garage Museum of Contemporary Art Moscow, National Museum Oslo, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Kunsthal Rotterdam, and Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art Amsterdam.

With RAAAF Rietveld has won several awards, including the Prix de Rome 2006 and the European Prize of Architecture 2017 (Philippe Rotthier). He was awarded the the Project Grant for Artists in 2014 and a Stipend for Established Artists 2016 by Mondriaan Fund for Visual Arts. In 2013 he earned the title of New Radical. Recently RAAAF was nominated for the Amsterdam Art Prize 2022. The various juries emphasize the ability of Ronald and Erik to cross and stretch the disciplinary borders of visual art, architecture and philosophy.

Ronald and Erik are members of the Society of the Arts at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

About the Lecture Series of the Centre for Urban Mental Health

The Centre for Urban Mental Health is organizing a series of lectures to highlight expertise and current thinking on complexity science and urban mental health.

At the Centre for Urban Mental Health, we aim to unravel new pathways to improve urban mental health that takes into account the complexities and dynamics of mental health problems and mental health disorders in an urban environment.

Location

Institute for Advanced Study
Oude Turfmarkt 147
1012GC Amsterdam