New Forum+ issue out — and a new role

A couple of weeks ago, on Friday 18 October, the new issue of Forum+ has been launched publicly in Antwerp. As always, the issue can be accessed via the Forum+ website, in full open access. The public launch happened during the yearly ARTICULATE festival in the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp, with wonderful presentation on a number of the authors involved in the issue: Henny Dörr (who wrote the editorial on slowing down), Frederik De Bleser (co-author of “I’m sorry I made you feel that way.“), Linde Ex (“Hoe benader en benut je bescheiden landschappen? Methodes uit het artistieke onderzoeksproject Land-shapes, Sooth-scapes“), Kristof Timmerman (“Ruimte voor transdisciplinariteit. Een plek voor niet-artistieke onderzoekers binnen het ecosysteem van een kunsthogeschool“) and Veerle Spronck (author of “Situeren, sensitiveren, speculeren.“). Interestingly, a new thematic strand seems to emerge around transdisciplinarity, with related contributions, by Veerle Spronck, Kristof Timmerman, and the collaborative article by Frederik de Bleser, Martina Menegon and Lieven Menschaert.

There was another exciting announcement to make: From January next year, I will take up the role of co-Editor-in-Chief at Forum+, next to my beloved colleague Nele Wynants, who has worked as Editor-in-Chief for the last ten years. Nele and I have known each other since the 2014 Avignon festival, at the time both of us were members of the IFTR research group Intermediality in Theatre & Performance, and I was still in my early PhD years.

This change also brings back memories of my work at Forum+ up to this moment; as, for example, the unforgettable experience of being guest-editor for the Issue on research methods in the arts, and the canonising article “Pathways to a Fertile Valley. On methods and methodologies in artistic research” in the same issue, written together with my long-term colleague and DocARTES-friend Joost Vanmaele. Let’s see what the future brings: I am immensely looking forward to this new role within the journal, and to working together even closer with Nele.