Like most, we are pretty glad that 2020 is over but, despite its challenges, as we look back on the events and activities of last year, it was actually very generative for the KABK Lectorate Design.

Ten amazing researchers presented their projects in an innovative online format and invited us into their studios via Zoom, we managed to install an exhibition in the KABK building and organise a socially distanced exhibition opening in the KABK building and a silent listening walk in The Hague, to publish a book, and establish new forms of reaching out, connecting and staying in touch. Best of all, we welcomed the artist and curator Martha Jager as our new coordinator!

• The Design Lectorate Launched its KABK Art & Design Research Practices initiative, with Walking as a Research Method as the first edition, comprised of: an exhibition in Prinsessegracht corridor at KABK and with it a reactivation of Kabinets as a research display space; a launch event with Interior Architecture & Furniture Design students, featuring speakers from art, photography and music, a listening walk in The Hague; the editing, design and publication of a book with work and reflections by students and tutors and online launch event, with more events to come, including a radio broadcast, a video, and an online event at Korzo.

• Fault Lines: KABK Research Symposium 2020, took place online this year. We decided to make a virtue of the situation and do something we’ve always wanted to doto, which is to visit one anothers’ studios or sites of research practice. So, usingZoom as our magic carpet, we visited 10 studios in one day, accompanied by urban psychologist Adeola Enigbokan from Mexico City and software artist and writer Marloes de Valk from Rotterdam as our special guest critics. Additionally the KABK and Leiden University alum Vera van de Seyp designed a custom website to showcase the researchers’ projects-in-progress. We were gratified when, at the end of the intense, but enriching day, one of our researchers commented, “this has been the most joyful, fun and rich research experience I ever had!”

• The KABK Design Lectorate has an Instagram account! We launched with a ‘Meet the Researchers’ campaign where we introduced each of the 10 members of the 2020 Research Groups. Please follow us to find out more! @kabklectoratedesign

• The Design Lectorate was a member of a successful application for SIA funding for the development a Research School platform to connect research activity at KABK, KC and ACPA; through this we were able to issue a call for participants in a new interdisciplinary research group, run jointly with KC and ACPA, which begins this year.

• Alice Twemlow, Design Lector, was the featured guest in an online conversation about design in post-normal times with the director of National Museums of Scotland, for a new public program funded by Embassy of The Netherlands in the UK.

•The Design Lectorate has continued to teach research methods for Masters Industrial Design and Masters Photography & Society in person and online. Alice gave a talk with Bart Vissers at the ELIA conference on the integration of research in KABK workshops. She has started supervision for funded post-doc, Janice McNab, and is guiding Tatjana Macic in a KABK-supported year-long PhD application trajectory. She continued teaching and external examining for: PhD Artistic Research at Vilnius Academy of the Arts; Out of Fashion, Milan; Graphic Design MA, Central St Martins; and Visual Culture BA, National College of Art, Dublin.

• In her role as Associate Professor in the Academy for Creative and Performing Arts at Leiden University, Alice Twemlow has led workshops on methods, dissertation structure, and documentation for PhDArts collegia, and co-supervises two PhD candidates. Her research is featured as an example of societal impact on the ACPA website.

• Alice has written reviews and articles for Design Issues journal, MacGuffin Magazine, and the introduction for a Bloomsbury reissuing of Design Noir by Dunne & Raby.

• DL is a co-applicant in two funding applications, one in NWA Route Kunst with KC and Maastricht University/MERIAM, with a work package on repair and expertise; and one in KIEM GoCI with HvA and Maastricht University, focusing on data feminism and climate imaginaries.

• Design Lectorate is a member of the steering committee of Kunst Onderzoek platform and is working to develop a conference on the labour of artistic research.