Across the Board is looking to bring together 20 ambitious professionals from the fields of art, politics, and business. Artists, art professionals, architects and designers as well as entrepreneurs, policy-makers and diplomats are all invited to apply.

About Across the Board

Across the Board is a long-term platform for professional development through cross-disciplinary exchange. Led by visiting tutors – significant agents in the fields of art, business, and politics – a select group of promising professionals will work together to locate (and re-evaluate) the shared values between their respective domains and to confront the opposing philosophies and methodological frictions that arise through their exchange. The program, with a series of masterclasses at its core, will attempt to co-formulate a more pluralised and nuanced trajectory, to be activated within their independent domains and within the cultural field at large. Towards the long-term goal of exchange between the participants, Across the Board aims to not only fuel the foundation of connections during the program, but to also provide a lasting platform between its future alumni.

Masterclass Program

In this pilot program, you, together with the visiting lecturers and fellow participants, will jointly assess, map and learn to develop scenarios for a new cultural roadmap. Through a series of masterclasses, workshops and discussions, you will address the role of culture, as it intersects with politics and business and explore the extent to which addressing culture from a plurality of domains may enable its essential and more nuanced role in the years to come.

Taking place from September 23rd until December 2nd, the bi-weekly program offers six sessions led by this year’s roster of influential visiting tutors. Working across various sectors and occupying complementary positions, they will inform the participants’ engagement by sharing their experiences in their respective fields as embedded in broader societal perspectives. With a strong emphasis on active group participation and exchange, participants will undertake (and experiment with) the professional exercise of transcending and reconfiguring the parameters, values, and principles that separate their domains so distinctly.

Visiting Tutors 2016

  • Renilde Steeghs (Ambassador of International Cultural Cooperation for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
  • Pascal Gielen (Professor of Sociology of Art and Cultural Politics, Director of the Research Center Arts in Society at the University of Groningen)
  • Gabriel Lester (Artist and filmmaker)
  • Ron Soonieus (Managing Partner of cultural leadership firm Camunico, former Managing Director ABN AMRO Bank)
  • Wilfried Lentz (Founder and owner of gallery Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam)
  • Martijn Sanders (Chairman of the board of Holland Festival, former director of Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam)
  • Jeanne Gaakeer (Professor in Law and Literature at Erasmus University Rotterdam, currently serving as Justice at the Appellate Court of The Hague, formerly serving as (examining) Judge)
  • and more

Practical information

Dates: Friday 23 September, Friday 7 October, Friday 21 October, Friday 4 November, Friday 18 November, Friday 2 December
Time: 2 – 6 pm. End times may vary in line with the programming.
Location: Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam
Tuition Fee: € 500

How to apply?

Professionals with three to ten years of work experience are invited to apply. Send a letter of motivation (350 words maximum), along with your resume, to Docus van der Made at [email protected], with the subject line “Application Across the Board 2016”. A maximum of 20 participants, selected by a selection committee, will be admitted to the program.

Application deadline: August 20th, 2016

Witte de With is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and by the city of Rotterdam.
Across the Board is supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the Pauwhof Fund.