‘The most difficult and empowering thing as an artist is to stay honest about my work and me. And I'd like to help my students to get there too.’
Aiwen Yin was a researcher within the Cultural and Creative Industries research group from 2019 until 2020. She is currently graduation curatorial tutor at the Master Institute of Visual Cultures.
Aiwen Yin is a practicing designer, design theorist and project developer, who uses writing, speculative design and time-based art to examine the social impact of planetary communication technologies. She advocates relationship-focused design as a strategy to redesign, re-engineer and reimagine the relationship between technology and the society. Aiwen holds a BFA in Visual Communication from Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, and an MFA in Design from Sandberg Institute Amsterdam. She was a researcher in The New Normal in Strelka Institute, Moscow in 2017, a fellow in Art Center South Florida, Miami in 2017, and a resident in ZK/U Berlin in 2019. Aiwen is the recipient of INFORM prize for Conceptual Design in 2019.
Aiwen currently works at the Master Institute of Visual Cultures in Den Bosch. She connects her theoretical research Urbanising the digital at Caradt with the development of MIVC’s digital presentation platform for graduates in COVID-19 time. She coaches the graduates to professionalise their studio practice, especially in a digital-first environment. Aiwen’s work has been discussed and shown at renowned venues such as Shanghai Biennale 2020, re:publica, Transmediale, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Art Basel Miami, among others.
Aiwen specialises in turning criticism and theory into design practice, devising new design strategies with institutional instruments that respond to the ever-shifting techno-political environment. With her keen focus on interpersonal relationships as (de)institutional design practice, she explores new ways of artistic intervention and maintenance through the lens of feminism, queer activism, postcolonialism and Marxism.
Urbanizing the Digital (2019 – 2020)
This research project aims at developing a new design approach to the digital domain. Urbanising the Digital is a design proposition for our digital environment. It intends to empower a new generation of digital designers to build their professional practice through a comprehensive understanding of the ethical and societal ramifications of digital technology.
Publications
Yin, A. (2021) On Post-Temporariness, Making and Breaking, Caradt Online Journal, vol 2.
Research Group: Cultural and Creative Industries
The research group Cultural and Creative Industries investigates the role of artists and designers as creative innovators and drivers of social and economic change. Affiliated researchers analyse the cultural and creative industries from a critical point of view and examine the conditions under which timely forms of aesthetic expression and social connectedness can actually take place within the precarious reality of this field. What economic models are required by artists and designers to create a meaningful practice within the aesthetic, social, and economic intentions of the cultural and creative industries? What skills sets are required for those artists and designers who don’t just want to follow movements, but actually shape novel social and economic models of the future?
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‘Our research group investigates the role artists, designers and cultural producers in general can play in developing the aesthetics and poetics of a desirable future.’
Sebastian Olma 
‘‘How will our graduates make a living without selling their soul?’’
Sepp Eckenhaussen
‘In social and cultural research there is increasing importance in research methodologies and devices that cut across fields and disciplines, becoming transdisciplinary.’
Jess Henderson
‘As a result of my current research, I ask the students the questions “what is your work” and “what works for you.’
Rob Leijdekkers
‘How can we disrupt the notion of being human while staying true to being humane?’
Wander Eikelboom
‘How do we live together, how do we work together? How do we give shape and form to ‘being together’ in the broadest sense?’
bas van den hurk
‘Disrupting our contemporary society can be a serious design goal.’
Eke Rebergen
‘Interested in human behaviour as the basics underlying the way we design and innovate our society and economy.’
Marianne van Bommel
‘Within my practice I create spaces for introspection while exploring ethical dilemmas. ’
Renée van Oploo
‘Well beyond their common characterisation as problem-solvers, designers have a role to play in materialising public engagement with collective concern’
Laurens Kolks
‘Performance is about engaging with versions of the self, stretching the gaze to see what others see when they look at you.’
Philippine Hoegen
‘Consumers are creatures of habit. If we want them to break routine and live sustainably, we have to do more than just offer sustainable alternatives. ’
Estelle Nieuwenkamp
‘To be able to research something thoroughly, you have to deeply engage, not just look at it from the outside.’
Bart Stuart
‘Doing research connects my practice with teaching; it strengthens and brings them closer together.’
Martine Stig