The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) is a research institute within the Faculty of Humanities at Leiden University, where it offers composers, performing artists, visual artists and (graphic) designers the opportunity to perform research in and through artistic practice.
ACPA also offers education in the arts for Leiden University students, and provides academic electives for students of the University of the Arts The Hague.
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New Special Interest Group (SIG): SOUND RESEARCH |
Sound artists and researchers are warmly invited to join the inaugural meeting (on-site or online) of the newly established Special Interest Group: SIG9 Sound Research.
The inaugural meeting will take place as part of the SAR conference in Porto. SIG9: Sound Research is an open, inclusive, and welcoming group for researchers who share an interest in and practice of exploring the multidimensional aspects of sound.
SIG9: Sound Research aims to connect and come together to exchange thoughts, hopes, and visions on sound research, while reflecting on its role both within and beyond the institutional framework.
The organizational team: Anthea Caddy, Marcel Cobussen, Mario de Vega, Nele Möller, Karl Salzmann and Salomé Voegelin. |
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New Album: Ordo Ritualis by ACPA PhD Maya Fridman |
Maya Fridman about Ordo Ritualis: In my life, there are rituals I read about in books, learned from someone, and created on my own. But there are also rituals in sound, sonic worlds that tell a story—about our time, about loss, about encounters with the unknown. This album, Ordo Ritualis, is a small collection of these rituals, created by incredible composers:
Missy Mazzoli, Bryce Dessner, Martijn Padding, Fjóla Evans, Kaveh Vares, and Heather Pinkham. |
States of Divergence by Sven Lütticken |
In States of Divergence, Sven Lütticken invites readers into an exploration of history as accelerating catastrophe – and of alternative, oppositional, divergent practices in life, art and revolutionary thought. Set against the backdrop of global crises, from climate change to pandemics, Lütticken dissects contemporary cultural and political practices that attempt to break free from the disastrous momentum of capitalist modernity. His journey traverses fields including art theory, philosophy, and politics, presenting a nuanced critique of the ways in which deviant temporalities and forms of life confront or adapt to catastrophe.
Through a series of essays, the book tackles issues ranging from survival to prefigurative practice, indigeneity and internationalism, and the dialectics of critique and revolution. Lütticken masterfully blends personal narrative, historical inquiry, and theoretical reflection to question what it means to live – and resist – within the contradictions of our time. States of Divergence is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how art, politics, and life intersect in an era defined by ever-deepening contradictions and conflicts.
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Image credits: Torben Körschkes. Postcards from Fata Morgana. Digital Postcard. 2024. |
Fata Morgana. An Essay Journey by ACPA PhD Torben Körschkes |
Torben Körschkes' contribution for VIS Journal entitled Fata Morgana. An Essay Journey explores the optical phenomenon of the Fata Morgana and its mythical namesake, Morgain Le Fay, as a figure of thought to explore transcultural and transgeographical relationships between landscape and identity.
Conceived as an essay journey with artistic interventions, Fata Morgana argues for rethinking imagined geographies against the territorial bigotry prevalent in Europe and the world, against essentialist ideas of singular or linear origins. |
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Eleni Kamma's presentation at West during her defense in 2021. Photo credits: Gert Jan van Rooij. |
ACPA alumna Eleni Kamma’s project in group exhibition
F**klore. Reinventing Tradition |
Eleni Kamma’s PhD research project entitled Casting Call will be showed once more a group exhibition in Abby Kortrijk, Belgium.
Casting Call (2017-ongoing) is a series of attempts, events and performances in which Eleni Kamma explores, in dialogue with local communities, the concept of ‘parrhesia’: the courage to speak your mind.
Using performative strategies and theatrical means, Kamma playfully asks serious questions about good coexistence and the role of public space and time. In an installation reminiscent of folkloric processions, this museum parade moves between a cultural allegory of contemporary Europe and an invocation of the classical rhetorical tradition of ‘speaking the truth while laughing’.
Various archetypes such as The Fool, The Animal and The Drunkard experiment in comic and caricatured ways to boldly express their opinions. In the process, they question concepts such as Democracy, Prosperity, Solidarity, Language and Migration.
Through successive collaborations in different European countries and cities, Casting Call is constantly growing with new characters, texts, props and voices. For Abby Kortrijk, Kamma added a new character (‘The Newcomer’) to the parade in collaboration with stage and costume designer Esther van de Pas.
The group exhibition runs from 29 March to 14 September 2025.
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Photo credits: Eleonora Blokland-Pulles |
Origin of Type Frameworks Course by ACPA alumnus Frank Blokland |
The Origin of Type Frameworks (OTF) Course offers an online practical and theoretical study of type design and font technology, taught by Dr. Frank E. Blokland (Leiden, 1959) and Dr. Jürgen Willrodt (Hamburg, 1952).
Together they have over 80 years of experience in the type industry.
During the online OTF Course, delivered via Zoom, letter aficionados will delve deeper into what type design and font production actually entails, by evaluating and questioning how to approach the subject theoretically and practically, also from less common points of view.
This is done by exploring and analyzing the historical, aesthetic, and technical aspects of type design and typography. The aim is a deep understanding of what exactly this comprises and a quantifiable translation of this knowledge into practical applications.
An important role is reserved for Frank’s PhD dissertation. In On the Origin of Patterning in Movable Latin Type: Renaissance Standardisation, Systematisation, and Unitisation of Textura and Roman Type he argues that Renaissance typographic patterns were partly determined by requirements for the early font production. Hence, today’s typographic conventions are not only the result of optical preferences predating movable type, but at least as much the result of standardization that eased the Renaissance font production. |
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Lustrum Concerts by the Practicum Musicae Orchestra |
Thursday 3 April // 20h00 – 22h00 // De Duif, Amsterdam
Sunday 6 April // 15h00 – 17h00 // Aalmarktzaal, Leiden
The Practicum Musicae Orchestra (PMO) is celebrating its 5th anniversary! The PMO will celebrate this anniversary with a special lustrum project.
In addition to a varied festive program, the project will traditionally contain a special element. The PMO will perform works by Claude Debussy (Petite Suite), George Enescu (Dixtuor), Tchaikovsky (Souvenir de Florence) and Jan Voříšek (Symphony in D), and there will be academic research and a lecture on how expectations influence our image of music. The Practicum Musicae Orchestra brings these disciplines together in an enchanting lustrum concert! |
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Photo credits: Federica Nardella and Salavat Aibekov |
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Whose creativity? Explorations of interspecies being and making
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By Laura Lauta van Aysma and Rachel Beckles Willson, with guest Federica Nardella |
Thursday 10 April // 19h00 – 21h00 // West, The Hague
The climate catastrophe has thrown a sharp light on our relationships with non-human animals and triggered widespread interest in transforming the way we live with these ‘kin’.
Focusing on golden eagles in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan and humpback whales in the Pacific, this event delves into how artistry and creativity shape interspecies interactions through several questions:
How can we learn to recognise, and engage with, the creative practices of non-human animals?
To what extent is such activity transformative (and for whom)?
What can we learn and how can we address climate change through our interaction with non-human animals?
What human and non-human creative practices emerge in the context of domesticated versus wild non-human lives?
Is it appropriate to talk of ‘leadership’ in interspecies performances? |
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On Pop Music and the Attention Economy
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Thursday 10 April // 19h30 – 21h30 // Lipsius 019, Leiden, and online
ACPA’s Rogier Schneemann, education coordinator, songwriter and music producer, will give a talk in the Studium Generale lecture series themed “How are we seduced?”.
Just as pop music was changed forever in the eighties by the television channel MTV, the music industry had to reinvent itself with the advent of the internet. Nowadays, young people mainly listen to music via platforms that do not have to be paid for. Individual creatives can also reach their audience directly, without the intervention of all kinds of gatekeepers.
The major music labels have to look for new revenue models, which means that they have started to focus more on our individual attention. What does this mean for popular music? How has listening via streaming services such as Spotify changed the structure of pop songs? What characteristics do all contemporary popular songs have in common? And how do they differ? In what ways does a pop song hold our attention?
The makers of pop music now seem to be freer, but at the same time the role of the Artist & Repertoire manager is becoming increasingly important - the supply of new music is very large, but which songs are worth investing in? |
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