How IXA-GO, VU Grants Office helped secure a Veni grant

Without help, art historian Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou would never have secured her NWO Veni grant, she is convinced. "This grant is very different from what I was used to until now," she says. "It is a personal grant with complete intellectual freedom in my work, which makes it very special. I have never received such a large postdoctoral fellowship before."

Mavrokordopoulou is still living and working in Aachen when we speak to her. "Originally Greek, I have studied in France and Canada, got my PhD in Paris in 2021 and now I am here as a postdoctoral fellow."Soon she will pack her bags again, this time to swap Germany for the Netherlands, where she will conduct her Veni research at VU Amsterdam. "Completely new to me there," she says. "I have already lived there for six months in 2019. Then I also got to know Katja Kwastek, the professor of modern and contemporary art who put me in touch with IXA-GO, VU Grants Office."

Archives
The research for which Mavrokordopoulou submitted a Veni application revolves around the role of the element uranium in twentieth- and twenty-first-century art. "Uranium is the core material in nuclear technology: it is used in reactors, but also in nuclear bombs," she explains. "From the late 1970s in particular, artists started agitating against the ecological consequences of the uranium mining required for this technology. This began roughly at the time of the 1979 dam breach near the US town of Church Rock, in which tonnes of nuclear waste ended up in the water on native Navajo land. This disaster is unknown to many, but the consequences were immense."

Her research aims to shed light on this side of uranium extraction. "Artists played an important role in the anti-nuclear mobilisation, including with photography and public actions. There is documentation of this in archives in places where uranium was mined, such as New Mexico, Australia and the former East Germany. Those archives I will visit."

Grant advice
Throughout the application process for her Veni grant, grant advisor Marco Last assisted her from IXA-GO, VU Grants Office. "He was extremely helpful from the first moment, without him it would never have worked out," Mavrokordopoulou says. "Such an application is a long process and he read along at every step and gave me tips. We then had many Zoom meetings."

Last helped her especially in articulating her research plans in understandable language. "I am working on a very specific topic and when you are so immersed in it, it is difficult to assess what others know about it. Marco intervened when I took something for granted and acted as a mediator between the researcher's specialised knowledge and the points that a broad panel of specialists is looking for."

Pitch
When Mavrokordopoulou was invited for an interview after submitting her application, she was assigned two coaches from IXA-GO, VU Grants Office. "I had to make a five-minute pitch online for NWO," she says. "The coaches helped me prepare. One focused mainly on how best to get my message across, the other more on my personal presentation style. In total, I had about four training sessions, sometimes individually, sometimes in a group." When she was still running into questions afterwards, she requested an additional session with one of the coaches. "That was so valuable. Giving a presentation in such a tight schedule would never have been possible for me without their help."

If you would like support with your Veni grant application, you can contact IXA-GO, VU Grants Office at: subsidiedesk@vu.nl

This interview was co-sponsored by:
Text: Erica Renckens (Tatataal)
Image: Sander van Iersel (Jester and Wylde)