Wednesday 5 November 2025 - Saturday 8 November 2025
Address
Leiden Art Hub
Papegaaisbolwerk 20
Leiden
Judith van IJken, Wie is het?, 2025
ACPA cordially invites you to the public defense of the doctoral research project entitled The Situative Portrait by visual artist Judith van IJken. On 5 November at 10.30, Van IJken will present her artistic work for the doctoral examination committee in the exhibition The Situative Portrait. Later that day, at 14.30, she will publicly defend her dissertation in the Academy Building at Leiden University.
What do we actually see in a photographic portrait? While it is widely understood that portraits are not truthful representations of a person, this insight is often suspended when looking at one. The long history of photography as a means of identification may play a role in this suspension of disbelief. Portraits are still easily taken as reflections of reality, and the fact that they are social constructions tends to disappear from view.
This research project begins with the social situation in which a portrait is made. Photographer, sitter, and anticipated spectators – physically absent yet influential – each play a role in this process. Through an interplay between practice and theory, Van IJken explores what these three participants want and do. From this emerges the concept of the situative portrait: an approach to portrait photography that emphasizes the context of creation and the network of actions and interactions from which the image arises.
The Situative Portrait is about the interpretation of photographic portraits – what can and cannot be seen in them. In an age of AI and surveillance, where faces are reduced to data, the situative portrait is an exercise in resistance, a reminder that critical engagement with images is essential.
Event schedule
5 November at 10.30
Leiden Art Hub
Papegaaisbolwerk 20, Leiden
5 November at 14.30
Great Auditorium
Academy Building, Leiden
University Rapenburg 73, Leiden
Exhibition: The Situative Portrait
6 – 8 November
Opening hours: 13.00 – 17.00
Leiden Art Hub
Papegaaisbolwerk 20, Leiden
Supervisors
Prof. Dr. Janneke Wesseling Professor Emeritus in Practice and Theory of Research in the Visual Arts, Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, Leiden University
Prof. Dr. Bart Verschaffel Professor Emeritus at the Department of Architecture & Urban Planning, Ghent University
Dr. Florian Cramer reader in 21st Century Visual Culture / Autonomous Practices, Willem de Kooning Academy
