Next steps for creating a safe working environment

Following the article by the Dutch newspaper NRC, published on 31 October 2020, reporting on very serious allegations with regard to Julian Andeweg, an artist in residence of the Rijksakademie during the period 2015–2016, we would like to again express our deep compassion to the people who came forward to the newspaper, and inform you about the actions the Rijksakademie has taken so far.

The reports caused tremendous distress within our community of residents, alumni, staff and close relations, as well as in the art field at large. As an international professional environment for artistic development, where 45 artists work, the wellbeing and safety of our residents is of the utmost importance to us. We immediately engaged external specialists in the issues presented by this case to aid an investigation into Andeweg’s period at the Rijksakademie, and to review our working culture more broadly. We have started an inquiry with his contemporaries. The investigation is still ongoing.

We also started conversations with our current artists in residence, our advisors and some of our alumni to discuss and review our culture of working and engaging with each other in order to ensure a safe working environment going forward.

We encourage any former resident who experienced any form of discrimination, sexual harassment, aggression or any other serious offences to come forward. Every report will be treated extremely confidentially and you can count on our support in taking the next steps. Contact can be made by emailing to the director of the Rijksakademie at directie@rijksakademie.nl. Our confidential councilor, Sarita Bajnath, can be contacted at socratisch.nl@gmail.com if you would like to disclose something confidentially and anonymously, which means that anything shared in this manner will not be included in the investigation.

We are fully committed to building up a sound and effective structure for the future. With the help of external experts, we are analysing and improving our internal procedures to ensure that the Rijksakademie is the safe place that we all want it to be.

Directors' team Rijksakademie
Emily Pethick
Martijntje Hallmann
Susan Gloudemans