EEF VELDKAMP

Eef Veldkamp (1993) is an artist, philosopher and a lecturer at ArtEZ University of the Arts. In his work he researches the systems and structures that dictate life. “We share just one world with about 8.000.000.000 people, but I think we don’t really know how to do that.” According to Veldkamp this causes a lot of the issues that haunt our existences, but that does not strike him as odd: “we do live on one world, but not ín one world.” By intermingling artistic and philosophical research methods, he brings about textual interventions that simultaneously function as the point of departure for his artistic practice in which he develops what he terms ‘counter-systems’. These are organisations specifically erected to engage with a specific bottleneck in society, which they do through a multiplicity of forms that Veldkamp terms ‘art on batteries’—works of art that do; that materialise practices not yet manifest. The aim of his practice is therefore not merely to produce works of art in itself, but to facilitate the emergence of new practices —in an ambiguous sense of the word— by means of the structures and devices of the arts. Each organization has its own goals, approaches, programming, qualities, inabilities and expiration date that are pursued often in collaboration with other artists and thinkers. Veldkamp currently investigates our mnemonic structures for dealing with societal crisis, for which he develops a new category of souvenirs called Hyper Souvenirs (2020).

 

Veldkamp studied Fine Arts (BA, ArtEZ University of the Arts), Philosophy (PreMA, Radboud University) and Art and Politics (MA, Goldsmiths College, UoL) and a course Art as Politics (BAK Utrecht). Currently he is enrolled in MA Philosophy, Politics and Society (Radboud University). Between 2018-2020 he concluded a research project resulting in a series of thirteen essays called Notes towards engaged arts (2020-2021) for the Professorship for Art education as Critical Tactics (AeCT) that will by ArtEZ Press (2024). Amongst his recent publications are Capitalist Nihilism and the Murder of Art (2020) which he wrote with Lukas Meinser.