Content

The Minor Power play focuses on developing counter-narratives: stories that challenge and dismantle preconceptions, prejudices, one-sided histories, and beliefs. Counter-narratives are used in this context to recognize, accommodate, and listen to people whose stories have been marginalized and silenced, as well as to create new ways for them to be heard, seen, felt, and understood. Power play begins with the goal of articulating where and how power relations operate in all aspects of society, from the micro (e.g., friendship, family, bodies) to the macro (institutions and bodies of knowledge). This minor seeks to uncover and rethink the power mechanisms that regulate our human, nonhuman, digital, and territorial bodies. In doing so, we strive to articulate in subtle and strategic ways our own relationship with power to decentralize, redistribute, and destabilize the power(s) at work.

Throughout the minor, we actively evaluate, discuss, and reflect on our positions to get a deeper understanding of the conditions in which dominant tactics emerge and spread. We achieve this by critically thinking about how our vision, voice, and subjective points of view are formed. By arming ourselves with experimental storytelling, narrative techniques, and writing styles, we hope to conceive, (re)imagine, and build counter-narratives in which dissonant voices are heard and previously ignored knowledge systems are re-acknowledged and re-activated. To accomplish this, you will set your own objectives and assignments, as well as create your own working techniques based on applicable theories and analytical tools. The result could be an art or design object, a publication (such as artists' books), an interdisciplinary installation, a performance, an exhibition, or another kind of project.

Format

This program is conducted in real life (IRL) with a limited number of online sessions determined by the teaching team.

Keywords

Power Structures, Human Behaviour, Representation, Social Systems, Narratives, Future

Learning Outcomes:

•  You can work individually to create a self-developed project that questions and disrupts a dominant narrative by studying power norms, structures, and representations in a context of your choosing.
• You can use critical theoretical skills to understand, analyze, and position yourself in relation to a specific dominant narrative.
• You can create an archive based on your preferred dominant narrative and perform archival research using strategies such as analysis, argumentation, critical writing, decolonial listening, reciprocity, and narrative experimentation.
• You can work together on a public event or co-organize the final group display, making your research more accessible to a larger audience.
• You can chronicle your practice and reflect on your progress by keeping a well-organized digital journal or webpage.

What we offer

Guest Lecturers, seminars, and workshops,  workshops; interdisciplinary and experimental modes of working.

 

What we expect

This minor is intended for students who engage and position themselves critically in academic discussions, literature, and artistic practices that focus on power structures, counter-narratives, and social systems. We want students to question and critique dominant narratives, as well as society's production and reproduction regimes[JMS1] .

 

Deliverables

The assignments are research-based including:

• Writing component; in the form of a thesis, essay or piece of text.
• Artistic component; in the form of an interdisciplinary artistic project.
• Public presentations in the environment of WdKA can be part of the outcome in the artistic projects developed in this course. 

 

Learning Outcomes:

• You can work individually to create a self-developed project that questions and disrupts a dominant narrative by studying power norms, structures, and representations in a context of your choosing.
• You can use critical theoretical skills to understand, analyse, and position yourself in relation to a specific dominant narrative.
• You can create an archive based on your preferred dominant narrative and perform archival research using strategies such as analysis, argumentation, critical writing, decolonial listening, reciprocity, and narrative experimentation.
• You can work together on a public event or co-organize the final group display, making your research more accessible to a larger audience.
• You can chronicle your practice and reflect on your progress by keeping a well-organized digital journal or webpage.

This minor is open to WdKA students. Students from other institutes are required to send a portfolio and motivation. You will receive more information about this after you have registered for this minor. We advise students from other institutes to register at least one month before the deadline. The admission procedure takes at least two weeks. In case you are not accepted into the minor, you might need some time to register for another minor.

 

Deliverables

The assignments are research-based including:

• Writing component; in the form of a thesis, essay or piece of text.
• Artistic component; in the form of an interdisciplinary artistic project.
• Public presentations in the environment of WdKA can be part of the outcome in the artistic projects developed in this course. 

Are you a student from another educational institution and you want to take a minor at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, you can apply in 2 steps as follows:

1)     Register for the minor of your choice via the blue button Enroll. You can find this button at the top right of the minor's page.

Download and fill in the learning agreement

Submit this learning agreement to the Exam Board of your study programme.

Once the Board of Examiners has given its approval, please register for the minor in step 2 no later than 23 may 2025

2)    After approval, register in OSIRIS Aanmelding of Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences via the link below (create an account first).

           https://osiris.hr.nl/osiris_aanmeld_hrprd/WelkomPagina.do?proces=KOM2509&opleiding=MINOR-WDK-VT+00

Part of the registration process is to upload the following documents:

-   The learning agreement signed by you and by your institution;

-   A scan or photo of your passport or ID card;

You will receive a message from Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences whether your application has been positively assessed or not.

In OSIRIS Aanmelding, you must also upload the Evidence Paid Tuition Fee (BBC) for the academic year in which you want to follow the minor. You can request the BBC from your institution after you have signed or issued an authorization for the payment of the tuition fees for the academic year in which you want to take the minor.

You will receive a message from Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences when your application has been approved.