Join us for the final ART SCIENCE dialogue of Realms of Reality with artist Suzanne Plomp and researchers Srdan Sremac and Elza Kuijk. Miranda van Holland will be moderating. The conversation forms part of a collaboration with 3D and will take place in the gallery.
The final ART SCIENCE dialogue of Realms of Reality will center Plomp’s work and further elaborate upon the core themes of the pieces in the exhibition: the interplay between form and function in religious altarpieces and natural structures including human and arthropod anatomy. These works take as their starting point the Spinozian notion of substantia, the idea that everything in nature is made of the same divine substance. The conversation forms part of a collaboration with 3D.
Suzanne Plomp is a Dutch artist currently living and working in the Netherlands. She holds a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. Her practice takes inspiration from the dissection of the human form to explore connections between the anatomy of humans and arthropods through pencil drawings and handwoven sculptures. From this place of curiosity and careful observation, the growth, mutation, and metamorphoses inherent to all life can be investigated and revealed in new and beautiful ways. Her works are held in the collections of the Museum Voorlinden and the Collection Jaap Sleper. Alongside her exhibition here at the ART SCIENCE Gallery, she is also currently showing work in Highlights of the Past Year at Galerie SANAA in Utrecht. Other recent exhibitions include Jubileum De Aanschouw, C3, Rotterdam, NL; The Living World Around Us, Galerie SANAA, Utrecht, NL; and Prospects – Art Rotterdam, Ahoy, Rotterdam, NL.
Srdan Sremac is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Lived Religion and Society at VU Amsterdam, where he is also the co-director of the Amsterdam Center for the Study of Lived Religion. His interdisciplinary research investigates lived religion from both a theoretical and ethnographic perspective. This work encompasses a wide range of topics, including religion and sexuality, war-related trauma, religion and extreme violence, religion and film, material culture/religion, religion and heritage, visual ethnography, and post-conflict reconciliation studies. His current work focuses on visual theses, documentary filmmaking and multimodal assessment in higher education. Most recently he published a paper in Lived Religion and Society entitled Reclaiming the Self: Dutch Queer Narratives of Trauma, Religious Exit and Empowered Sexual Agency.
Elza Kuijk is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Lived Religion and Society at VU Amsterdam. She also serves as the Director of both the Association of Administrators of Monumental Church Buildings, and the Utrecht Religious Heritage Foundation. Her dissertation, 'Tussen erfgoed en eredienst: Meervoudig gebruik van vier monumentale stadskerken' (Between heritage and worship: Multiple use of four monumental city churches) explores the conditions and evolutions of interactions between religious and secular actors in various church building environments to explore the frictions and possibilities that arise when religion, secular communities, and the arts intercalate.
