Tech Fellows 2022

The programme has been developed with the aim to preserve and further develop traditional/analogue disciplines in combination with new techniques and working methods. We want to stimulate new research in the field of materials, techniques and crafts and the relationship between these and new technologies. The three selected tech fellows follow a learning process in the workshop as a specialist in training, with the technical specialist as their mentor. Next to that, they will conduct their own independent research on materials, technique or craft. The programme runs from February till December 2022. Two more editions of the programme are planned, at least until 2024.

Benedetta Pompili (Pesaro, Italy) is an interdisciplinary designer based in Amsterdam. A dedication to earthwork ethics and local narratives distinct her practice. She focuses on learning making processes, rethinking them for sustainability aims and magnifying overlooked viewpoints. Her work aims to inspire and motivate by challenging tradition, encouraging to change habits by introducing playful and transdisciplinary perspectives.

In 2018, she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design and Ceramics from ISIA Faenza, where she started discovering the fundaments of the design discipline. Urging to approach crafts through a maker lens, in 2019 she applied for the Social Design Master course at Design Academy Eindhoven in The Netherlands, where she graduated in 2021. She is an alumna of sunday morning EKWC (European Ceramic Work Center).

Giulia Principe (Napoli, Italy) is a visual artist based in Amsterdam. She studied filmmaking at the London Film Academy and Interactive Animation at SAE Institute Amsterdam. Her work focuses on the relationship between analog and digital art and how to limit the environmental impact of creative media techniques.

Niels de Bakker (the Netherlands) is an artist-inventor, who creates installations in the field of sound, image and machines. He studied Sonology at the Royal Conservatoire, before receiving a masters diploma from the ArtScience Interfaculty in The Hague in 2021. He focuses on researching different techniques of image creation. This research concerns the history and evolution of techniques used in display apparatuses, for instance machines as the Nipkow disc or the Talaria projector. The technical evolution of these machines is not only the starting point of his work, it is also the process of how the work is made. By starting as an experiment and then moving these technical objects towards perfection, the work arises.