Tina Lenz

With focus on imaginative ethnography I love to invite people into collective artistic research. In 1999 I completed my master’s degree at Sandberg Instituut. In 2009 I participated in a premaster in anthropology at the Vrije Universiteit, followed by an Erasmus exchange at the University of KU Leuven. In 2017 I completed a master’s degree in Art Education at the Amsterdam University of the Arts. As freelance culture expert I’m coaching master students Advanced Concept Design at TU Delft and teach as guest-lecturer at Design Academy Eindhoven. I organize fieldwork based on culture sensitive design and conduct action research together with students, residents and other participants. My activities are grounded on the following principles of design anthropology: local participation, collaboration, forward-looking, performative, iterative, transdisciplinar, transformation and unfolding of possibilities.

In 2018 together with filmmaker Magda Augusteijn we initiated Moving Moengo a design research for residents of Moengo in collaboration with students of art academy Nola Hatterman Paramaribo with a contribution from Creative Industries Fund NL. In 2019 we were artist-in-residence at Werkplaats Molenwijk Framer Framed and realized with support of Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst the exhibition Van Amulet to Artefact. In 2020 the artistic research Ritueel Opened was set up with fieldwork at Drieslag shopping center on behalf of Bureau Ruimtekoers. Together with Yosser Dekker, artistic director Bureau Ruimtekoers, the spring festival Norooz was launched with support from the Fund for Cultural Participation. In 2021 invited by TAAK and the NDSM Foundation I created together with local communities visual stories for an installation with visions of the future at NDSM in Amsterdam North. The exploratory study Radical Imagination was carried out till June 2022 on behalf of the VriendenLoterij Fonds, part of the DOEN Foundation. In addition to conversations, observations, making vignettes and applying active methods, participants shared their perceptions by responding to the question: what impression has participation in social art practice left on you? Invited by curator Theo Tegelears I organised emphatic fieldwork for RAUM creative placemaking together with students of Social Geography & Urban Planning University Utrecht. With emotion cards we evoked dialogue with residents & commuters of Leidsche Rijn. Together with social designer Madelinde Hageman we develop a participatory study from 2023 till 2025 mapping emotional capital. Participants will collectively express personal perceptions of poverty and wealth through reflective imagination. People from different layers of society actively will be involved into the artistic process. With Mark Fischer and team Buro Mix a new festival (or movement) is being organized in Groningen where participatory art & social design come together with residents. Blikopener, the ‘festival of (im)possibilities’ will take place on May 30, 31 and June 1 in the old Sugar Factory. As a guest curator, I help put together the program and, as a guest teacher Off Course Minerva, I will involve students in the studios + co-creation processes of the Blikopener festival.