Antwerp Cultural Heritage Sciences

Last week, the third annual workshop took place of the 'Heritage Practice Communities in a Digitized World' Scientific Research Network, led by ARCHES, took place hosted by Swansea University in Wales. The workshop focused on ongoing and developing research around Heritage Practice Communities, with special attention to the work of early career researchers. Taking part from ARCHES were Sofie De Ruysser, Nikolai Debono, Katelijne Nolet, Suzie Thomas and June Zhang. June also gave a wonderful public lecture as part of the programme, hosted by Urban HQ in central Swansea. We were joined by scholars from six different research groups across Flanders and Europe, as well as local heritage volunteers from nearby Port Talbot. We had a truly enriching workshop, and extend our thanks to all the participants and especially our Swansea colleague Dr Hilary Orange for such fantastic organisation.

On Tuesday 2 and Wednesday 3 June, ARCHES member Suzie Thomas took part in the third annual European Public Finds Recording Network (EPFRN) conference and business meeting, which this year was co-organised with the Portable Antiquities Scheme and the British Museum. The conference day was sponsored and hosted by the Society of Antiquaries of London, who provided the beautiful venue of Burlington House. The business meeting took place at the British Museum. Suzie is a founding member of EPFRN, a network which has enabled research collaborations and sharing of good practice around managing and recording archaeological finds made by the public (especially metal-detectorists), and has led to better understanding the heritage and social values around public interactions with archaeological objects. The EPFRN currently includes members from some 14 European countries.

Last week, ARCHES member Moniek Driesse travelled to Trondheim for a gathering, hosted by NTNU, with researchers and practitioners from architecture, urban planning, geography, design, psychology, disaster studies, heritage, and engineering. What brought them together was a shared set of concerns: to speculate, and to question practices that concentrate power, silence other knowledges, and reduce the world to what institutions can manage. Together with Mrudhula Koshy and Bruna Rohling, Moniek co-facilitated the workshop "Knots that Knot Knots": an experimental hour of movement and more-than-human storytelling.

This gathering was part of the collective book "Futures We Can Still Choose", still taking shape, which is transdisciplinary, decolonial, and speculative in its ambitions. It works across spatial scales, from the everyday to the long term, with an ethics of care and relationality. Including heritage as a living site where dominant stories can be questioned and other ways of knowing can surface.

Moniek contributes to a chapter that asks what happens when we read the inherited grammars of universal global urban policy against their own grain, through more-than-human, pluriversal, and feminist-speculative lenses. We argue that the words we inherit for thinking about cities, heritage, risk, and resilience are not neutral tools — they can be sedimentations of particular worldviews, distributing agency to some and not others. So, in this chapter, we purposefully misread them. We knot and interweave them differently, to let other worlds in.

We will share more as the book finds its shape.

Call for PhD Position:
The Department of Heritage in the Faculty of Design Sciences is looking for a full-time (100%) doctoral scholarship holder in the field of Built Heritage Studies. For more information, please visit the link below 👇：

Doctoral scholarship holder built heritage studies | University of Antwerp YUFE vacancies

Exciting news! We're thrilled to share that Moniek Driesse has been awarded an FWO Postdoctoral Fellowship, extending her stay at ARCHES through 2029.

Her project, ELEMENTAL, explores subterranean waterways in southeast Mexico as living, memory-bearing infrastructures under pressure from the Maya Train megaproject. Working at the crossroads of critical heritage studies, environmental humanities, and practice-based research, Moniek will develop 'elemental heritage' as both a conceptual lens and methodological framework — in close collaboration with local communities, underwater archaeologists, artists, and environmental rights advocates. (Photo: Valentina Cucchiara)

Please note that this lecture has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused, especially to those who were planning to attend.

Last week, ARCHES member Gerrit Verhoeven was present at the ICA workshop "Archives and Tourism" at Lloret de Mar. He presented a paper on "Chipping beauty. Hotel China in the archives of the Brussels porcelain manufacture Demeuldre-Coché (ca. 1890-1940)". With participants from Spain, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, and many other European countries, it was a resounding success. More information on the papers and the programme can be found on: https://www.arxiusiturisme.org/en

On Wednesday, 20 May, ARCHES member Suzie Thomas is presenting alongside Prof Laura McAtackney (University College Cork) in the 'Forgetting, Disappearance, and Material Loss' workshop at the Center for Theoretical Study, Charles University, Prague. The event takes place through the 'The Land Gone Wild' transdisciplinary project

The Land Gone Wild. Archaeological and Transdisciplinary Research on Resilience Strategies in the 20th Century - ARUP Title Code of the project Provider Solution period Primary researcher Researcher from the IAP The Land Gone Wild. Archaeological and Transdisciplinary Research on Resilience Strategies in the 20th Century CZ.02.01.01/00/23_025/0008705 Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports 2025-2028 IAP Mgr. Jan Ha...

Today, students in Prof. Marc Jacobs' Heritage: Critical Studies course gathered in the corridors of Blindestraat 9 for a poster presentation session that felt less like a conference and more like a living, breathing provocation. The theme: "Invisible" actants and infrastructure in heritage work — a dialogue with Denis & Pontille's The Care of Things (2025) and the foundational thinking of Susan Star. The corridor itself became the argument. Not a lecture hall, not a seminar room, but a transitional space, full of things that usually go unnoticed: a return box of the library, Stone Cairns in the Italian Alps, a coordinator of the Church, a security service of the museum, and more. Proud of this cohort. The thinking was sharp, the conversations were real, and the corridors have never been so theoretically loaded.

For centuries, women artists in the Low Countries helped shape artistic culture — yet many of their names and stories remain underrepresented in art history. What happens when we place them back at the centre of the conversation?👩🏻‍🎨👩🏼‍🎨👩🏿‍🎨

On 21–22 May 2026, ARCHES, in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent (MSK), invites researchers, museum professionals, and art market experts to a two-day symposium accompanying the exhibition Unforgettable: Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600–1750.

A special highlight is the session dedicated to artistic technique, featuring new research on the working methods and material practices of celebrated painters Rachel Ruysch, Judith Leyster, and Maria van Oosterwyck. Their works continue to inspire not only art historians, but also ongoing technical and conservation research. 🔬🎨

The symposium further explores the artistic presence, careers, and networks of women artists working across painting, sculpture, printmaking, tapestry, paper-cutting, and more. Through lectures, discussion, and a guided exhibition visit, participants will examine themes of identity, choices, networks, legacy, and technique.
We look forward to two inspiring days of scholarship, exchange, and rediscovery — because some stories deserve to be unforgettable.
For more information and tickets, see: https://www.mskgent.be/en/program/symposium