From November to December 2019, anthropologist and curator Vyjayanthi V. Rao is the Reinwardt Academy’s Artist in Residence (AiR). She studies interfaces between urban planning, design, art, violence and structures in contemporary cities. Rao's AiR programme consists of three projects that focus on the question: what can ethnographic research and curatorial practice learn from each other?

Anthropologist and curator Vyjayanthi V. Rao studies interfaces between urban planning, design, art, violence and structures in contemporary cities. Her research combines ethnographic fieldwork with mapping, filming and other forms of visual research. Rao divides her residency at the Reinwardt Academy into three projects. The first is an ethnographic research programme. Together with the Indian artist Sudarshan Shetty, she investigates the interaction between major social issues and individual artistic projects. The focus is on two neighbourhoods in development: the Marineterrein and Amsterdam-Zuidoost. In these neighbourhoods they visit a large number of artists and institutions, such as the CBK Zuidoost and Imagine IC.

Masterclasses on art, design and urbanism
The second part consists of three masterclasses on the relationship between art, design and urbanism. She looks at ways in which changes take place in the city and how city dwellers navigate through them. She specifically investigates how artists get inspiration from urban environments and how artistic interventions can transform places.

The third part of Rao’s stay is a collaboration with interested students and colleagues from the AHK. Together with them she designs and curates a project that brings together ethnography and issues about an urban future. Inspired by questions about socializing, inclusion and speculation in a changing urban context, we look at what can be learned from a cross-cultural dialogue.

More information and register
Read more about the AiR-programme and find out how to register for the masterclasses here.