Study profile

Common Domain comprises fifteen practice-based courses focused on material exploration, experimentation and hands-on research. Each course is grounded in a single material or technique: clay, metal, wood, stone lithography, film, scent, sound, code and many others.

In each semester you register for one course and develop a new skill, learning in interdisciplinary groups while developing your own projects. The main aim of the programme is straightforward: the course should carry you beyond the discipline you came here to study.

Some of the courses take place in the workshops, with the materials to hand: making, failing, adjusting, and discovering what a substance will and will not permit. Others explore the creative process beyond the workshop, gathering material outside the academy.

Common Domain is a compulsory component for every second-year bachelor student, with allocated credits and assessments. Assessment is pass/fail.

See the courses on offer in 2026/27

Common Domain is part of Commons

Commons is the shared component of the bachelor curriculum: a two-year trajectory, followed by every student in the academy, in which the boundaries between disciplines become a subject of study rather than a given condition. Photographers work alongside textile designers, fine artists alongside interaction designers. Your own department and your own discipline remain the centre of your education, but Commons is where you learn to situate them among others.

Commons is a required component of the bachelor programme in both the first and the second year. It is not an elective.

Why we teach this

Contemporary artistic practice is rarely a solitary undertaking. Our graduates enter collectives, commissions, institutions and interdisciplinary teams, where the capacity to work generously and precisely with others determines as much as individual talent does. Commons offers a space in which to develop that capacity deliberately, among peers whose methods, vocabularies and assumptions differ from your own.

Practical info

All Commons classes take place on Wednesdays. Alongside the contact hours, you are expected to work independently on your assignments and your own projects.

Common Ground 6 EC · Common Domain 10 EC · both pass/fail

Attendance of 80% is required in order to enter the assessments.

Questions?

Contact

For questions about Common Domain you can write to commons@kabk.nl