‘In social and cultural research there is increasing importance in research methodologies and devices that cut across fields and disciplines, becoming transdisciplinary.’
As a researcher at Caradt, Jess explores mental health in the creative sectors. Her work investigates burnout and depression, using artistic methods to make emotions visible and influence artistic practices.
Jess Henderson is a transdisciplinary researcher within Caradt’s Cultural and Creative Industries research group. She takes mental health within the creative industries, arts, and cultural sector as a focal point.
Her research project with Caradt asks: What are the social causes of the proliferation of phenomena such as burnout, anxiety, and depression within the arts and creative industries, and what is the potential in artistic aestheticisations of such findings?
The project uses artistic research methods and interventions as well as engaging in transdisciplinary research-driven practices and artistic production. The latter is where the aestheticisation comes in – seeking to experiment with what potential is held in making feelings visible, exploring different ways and mediums of doing this, and creating space to for practice-based research.
Alongside her position at Caradt, Jess has an independent cultural research and artistic practice, regularly collaborates with the Institute of Network Cultures and mentors at Zurich University of the Arts, and has worked in the creative industries for over a decade. She is the author of Offline Matters: The Less-Digital Guide to Creative Work
(Amsterdam: BIS Publishers, 2021) and is working on a new book forthcoming in 2025. See more of her work here.
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
‘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
‘Within my practice I create spaces for introspection while exploring ethical dilemmas. ’
Renée van Oploo