Fictional Call for Applications at Hieronymus Bosch Studio

Essay by cultural producer Jeannette Petrik

The essay is a fictional call for applications for a non-existing internship opportunity with a critical thinker, maker and squatter whose practice certainly doesn’t fit into conventional formats of living and working. Readers are invited to imagine their own suitability for a placement such as the one described below, as they are subtly confronted with the ambitions and challenges of a life dedicated to cultural production on the fringes of society.

Background

Applications are invited for a placement with Hieronymus Bosch, freelance writer, researcher, community organiser and maker, with a focus on themes such as everyday politics, situationist actions, dialogical design, DIY culture and critical thinking. The placement can be situated between an internship and a non-didactic educational program of individual tuition.

The placement will facilitate the successful applicant in exploring modes of living and creative expression with an experimental attitude. Emerging as a skilled amateur, the intern will explore notions of independence, inter-dependence, self-empowerment and self-directed exploration within a complex network of realities.

Hieronymus Bosch partners with people at all levels focusing on the critical reflection on culture and society, radical education and collective initiatives as three main areas of interest. These three main areas are implemented through the following strategies:

Critical Reflection on Culture and Society

Interested in culture at the fringes and outside of what’s considered ‘the mainstream’, the practice of Hieronymus Bosch focuses on the analysis of socio-cultural phenomena with the help of methodologies stemming from contextual design practices. Bosch considers an analytical and critical creative practice as an opportunity for public empowerment and skill sharing, and as a tool for everyday political engagement. Bosch is dedicated to the facilitation of events of doubt in dialogue with his surrounding environment.

Radical Education

Hieronymus Bosch is engaged in a non-didactic educational practice which places dialogue and conversation at its centre. As a basis for the collective generation of knowledge, he experiments with non- or ‘lesser-hierarchical’ formats in order to facilitate informal situations of exchange, curious exploration and confrontation. His ambition is to generally work on a contextually specific and analytical, non-universal and situationist basis.

Collective Initiatives

Hieronymus Bosch engages in various self-directed and often self-initiated projects which focus on social responsibility and placemaking. As member of a community of artists and squatters, he has gained ample experience in supporting the development of a general sense of solidarity and team-building as well as the strengthening of trust in individual and collective abilities and decision making processes as the production of Everyday politics.

The Placement

The focus of the placement will include:

• Personal development and skill sharing
• Exploring performative expressions of subjective convictions and implied complexities
• Reflective and critical creative output
• Inclusion and collective decision making
• Resilience-building

Duties and Responsibilities

The intern’s duties and responsibilities will be established collaboratively, based on the selection of focus and upon need of the studio. More importantly though, an essential part of the placement consists of a reflective practice, which the intern is free to choose the form and method of.

It is an advantage if the applicant shares interest in skills such as writing, dialogue, publishing, handmade printing, bookbinding, graphic design, event organisation, photography, woodwork, metalwork, bicycle mechanics, sound, performance, acrobatics or related subjects as this will grant opportunities for skill sharing within the studio. Nevertheless, if the intern puts forward other creative interests, the placement will benefit from the trans-disciplinary exchange.

Competencies

• Strong sense for collaborative work, communication and interpersonal skills
• Keen attention to detail
• Open and flexible mindset
• Playful, yet disciplined attitude
• Curious, yet confident approach
• Interest to develop an individual living/working practice

Education and Skills

• Self-directed learning and various DIY experience
• Communication skills, ideally connected to some expertise in the field of non-violent communication after M. B. Rosenberg
• Fluent ability to express thoughts and emotions through a creative medium of choice
• Some expertise in semiotics or similar fields of study as the ability to analytically grasp material culture forms the basis for a critical examination of socio-cultural phenomena

Experience

No particular professional experience is required.

If the presented profile doesn’t seem to fit the individual applicant but the ambition to collaborate on the proposed engagement persists nevertheless, the establishing of respective skills can be facilitated, where possible.

Benefits

This is not an unpaid internship. The candidate may acquire compensation through barter, the use of facilities or skill sharing. The details of monetary or non-monetary compensation are to be discussed.

For the duration of the placement, a housing option on the premises of the workplace will be provided. This is to ensure that the intern can create a close bond with the lived experience of work and to, therefore, allow for the reflection upon activities and thoughts to be of intense and authentic nature.

Applications

In preparation, applicants are encouraged to reflect upon the video work by Superflex ‘The Working Life’ in order to challenge common work arrangements and modes of structuring life. In this regard, a familiarity with the oeuvre of artists Marie Cool and Fabio Balducci will establish an appropriate basis for the reflection upon the notions of working and living. Further, applicants are assumed to be familiar with the concept of ‘Universal Basic Income’, which imagines possibilities for the creation of spaces to act ‘freely’ as a result of an increasing integration of machine-production and the idea of a resulting liberation of workers.

A reading of Hakim Bey’s text ‘Temporary Autonomous Zone’ and Hermann Hesse’s ‘Siddhartha’ is essential and will be presupposed. Equally, a familiarity with performative choreographic as well as written works by Tino Sehgal is essential to be established in preparation for the placement.

Please include a letter of interest and a sample of work produced to introduce personal modes of reflecting on socio-cultural complexity as well as laying open individual notions of criticality.

Applications are welcome on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

About producer Jeannette Petrik

Jeannette Petrik is a cultural producer with a background in design and research. She is interested in culture at the fringes or outside of what’s considered ‘the mainstream’ and its position in contrast to popular culture. She chooses to actively engage in projects that she understands as radical, honest and critical.