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Listening to Workshops

A conversation with Mathild Clerc

In this conversation, we talk with Mathild Clerc, an alum of both Gerrit Rietveld Academie and Sandberg Instituut, and a workshop specialist in the Fashion Department. Mathild shares insights from her time studying and working at the school and reflects on the often-overlooked but essential role of the workshops (werkplaatsen).

The conversation covers how policy, time pressure, and a general drive for productivity can limit experimentation and access, particularly for master’s students. However, when examined more closely, the workshops seem also to succeed in sustaining spaces for mutual care and informal learning, where knowledge circulates in unpredictable ways, through proximity, trust, and time spent with materials and machines.

In collaboration with Dariya Trubina (alum of the TXT department, GRA), Mathild initiated a series of informal conversations with workshop specialists to highlight the kinds of knowledge, relationships, and forms of learning that emerge within these spaces—often quietly, through doing, observing, asking, and helping. Mathild and Dariya will soon publish the workshop conversations as a small-format interview series.

Mark Redele

Hi Mathild! Could you introduce yourself?

Mathild Clerc

I recently graduated from Sandberg, and before that, from Rietveld. For the past three years, I’ve been working in the fashion department and workshop. Over the last two years, I’ve also been working on a research project with Dariya Trubina, a former TXT student at the Rietveld. Together, we wanted to explore the current role of the workshops within the Rietveld and create more space for what’s already happening there.

The research was mostly discussion-based. We visited six different workshops, and in each one, we centered our conversations on a single tool, machine, or technique. We’ll be publishing a small, simple mini-publication in a couple of months. We’re really excited to share it.

As you can tell, I’ve inhabited many different perspectives within the school, as both a worker and a student. Over the years, I’ve come across a lot of technical issues, but also political ones, which, I must say, I find really interesting.

Do you mean political issues related to the workshops specifically, or more generally?

I mean also in relation to the workshops. The new policy doesn’t only affect the workshops, of course, but the school decided to reduce the contract hours for workshop specialists. And there’s no minimum set. So, for example, in my case, and in many others, we’re only contracted for two days per month. A few others are in the same situation.

You are also teaching at the moment, right?

I am. I’ve been running workshops as a workshop specialist.

Could you tell us a bit about what motivated you to start the interview series with the workshop specialists?

For us, the workshops are really the core of the school and its education, though they often don’t get the space or attention they deserve. The workshops are where students from different departments meet and where collaboration begins, around a book, a specific type of clay, a good question, or simply by helping one another, both formally and informally. For me, these spaces are truly the heart of the school. It’s where I learned the most, technically, socially, and yet I feel this part of the education isn’t treated with enough importance.This is why we started the interview series. When we began the project, we sent an email to the student council saying, “Hey, we want to do something to bring more attention to the workshops.” Slowly, by spending time with the people in the workshops, it became clear that interviews were the medium that made the most sense for us. It was really about being there, just hanging out in the workshops, talking. We’d sit around, doing things, watching, and listening to what was happening.

You asked me earlier, “Can you think of a time when a workshop experience went beyond just learning a skill or completing a project, when it changed how you or others approached making, thinking, or collaborating?” For me, that’s happening all the time in the workshops. It’s just that there aren’t always people around to witness it, except those who work there and spend a lot of time in those spaces.

That’s why we decided to do these interviews. We became witnesses to this constant mode of knowledge sharing, experimentation, and care, for the materials, the machines, and the people. We were really trying to find a way to witness, archive, and share that.

Do you think this dynamic needs to be consistently facilitated or encouraged in the workshop, say, by the workshop specialist? Or is it more of an inherent quality of the workshop itself, something that emerges naturally without intentional facilitation?

I don’t think it necessarily needs to be actively facilitated. However, some of the new rules being introduced at the school seem to hinder this process. For example, you wrote to me, “Workshops are often seen as spaces for making.” I actually wondered who would say that, because I completely disagree.

The school is a very generous space in the sense that we’re not expected to produce things for commercial purposes or to build a business. There’s time to experiment, and many students take advantage of that. But there’s a system in place, already a few years old, that requires booking appointments with the workshops. This means you have to know what you’re going to do in advance. In my opinion, these rules don’t encourage experimentation.

It’s not always a problem, having to book. During busy periods, like right before assessments, when workshops get crowded, these rules make sense. But for most of the year there is space in the workshops for open-ended experimentation. That kind of trial and error is always welcome in many workshops.

There’s definitely something that pushes everyone toward production, but that extends far beyond this school. We’re all influenced by this very productivist society. The first thing you said to me today, Mark, was, “I’m very busy.” That’s usually the first thing people say when we talk.

I really enjoy just sitting in the workshop space and being there for students who might need help. Often students come rushing in wanting to do something specific, but then you find out they’ve never even used a sewing machine, and they say they only have an hour to do it. So I tell them, “Sorry, this isn’t going to work. Let’s try to figure out something else.”

This presumption of the workshop as a place that people use to make something really quickly is true for some workshops but not for others. It also depends on how accessible the machines are.

There’s a clear difference between bachelor’s and master’s students. Students in the master’s programs tend to see the workshops more as a production space in my experience.

Anja Groten

This might also be because bachelor education focuses more on acquiring basic skills. When entering the master’s, there tends to be a false assumption that you already know how to make things, as if the master’s is a time to merely give meaning to the work, intellectualize it. The duration of the master’s is short and more research-driven, so students sometimes see the workshops as a service to translate their intellectual work, using them to materialize their ideas.

I also get the sense that many master’s students view their studies as incredibly precious and often don’t allow themselves to experiment freely in the workshops. They’re perhaps more focused on accelerating their work using the tools available.

During my master’s at Sandberg there was no introduction to the workshops. I ended up giving my classmates a tour, showing them around in the workshops. I also noticed that many students seemed a bit shy about entering the workshops, which surprised me at first. I didn’t expect that from master’s students. But having studied at the Rietveld, I know the Sandberg is often seen as a strange, separate place. This applies both to students and workshop specialists.

At Sandberg, you study for two years, starting in October and finishing by May, so you’re there for only 12–14 months total. Few students actually have, or take the time to experiment in the workshops. It’s a missed opportunity that there’s no basic introduction to the workshops. I’m not sure how it is in other Sandberg departments.

They’ve started doing introductions to the workshops at the beginning of the academic year, but it’s just a brief, general tour. Last year, I taught a class with my students, in which I wanted to center on workshop-based learning. Part of the class involved inviting the “Coordinator of Matter,” Niels Albers, who supports this process on the master’s side. I asked him to share more about the social and material aspects of the workshops, such as who works there, how to approach them, and what their practices are outside the school.

I asked the students to adopt a workshop for a period of time and report back to their peers about what it’s like to work there, the possibilities, materials, and techniques. This class was meant to help them overcome the shyness you mentioned, which can be a real barrier. Many think they need a plan or a product in mind before they can go to the workshop; otherwise, they feel there’s no reason to be there. They don’t want to waste anyone’s time. It’s not always out of bad intentions; they just often come with the wrong expectations or too late in the process.

I agree that time is really important. Truly familiarizing yourself with a workshop and treating it as a familiar space takes time and adjustment. In the master’s program, there often isn’t enough space or time for that process.

Something as simple as spending a whole day at the start of the school year at Sandberg, visiting each workshop, could make a big difference. Workshop specialists usually have time at this time of year and are happy to show what’s happening. This kind of introduction would easily fit into the curriculum, and help students who are shy or unsure about what to expect. They’d get to see the people who work there, learn a bit about the processes, see the machines, and check out examples from the archive. It would cost very little compared to the benefits it could bring. It could also help strengthen the fragile bond between Rietveld and Sandberg.

Do you sometimes think of workshop specialists as a kind of authority? For me, that authority is still very present in the workshops, and I wonder if we sometimes forget that many students are specialists too. They could also function as specialists within the workshops, if their knowledge were more welcomed.

I think they’re already very welcome.

But maybe the students don’t always feel that, or they don’t feel encouraged to step into that role in the workshop—thinking, “I bring certain material knowledge, and there’s space for that here.”

Look at the bookbinding workshop: Gersande, who is working there now, was one of my classmates and spent so much time in that workshop as a student that, after graduating, she was offered a job there. When the workshop was busy, Ott and Miguel even sent people to Gersande for support. The same happened with other former students. Cesar, for example, who now works in the printing workshop in the basement, and Vic, who works in the silkscreen workshop.

These are all former students who spent a lot of time in the workshops. The sharing of expertise between staff and students can happen quite naturally. There are limitations, though, in places with dangerous machines, such as the wood and metal workshops, where delegation is trickier because of safety measures.

How do you see danger as a paradigm that separates, say, professional knowledge from naive knowledge?

What do you mean by naive knowledge?

I’m not sure what else to call it. I guess by “naive knowledge” I mean the knowledge a student brings, as opposed to the expertise held by the workshop specialist. It seems that “danger” is often the reason these kinds of knowledge are kept separate. Only the workshop specialist is allowed to work with certain machines or has to demonstrate how to use them. Do you have any thoughts on this?

As a student, I was able to do a lot of work on my own because I already had experience with woodwork. For example, I took a class on traditional French carpentry where we used a circular saw, a machine that weighs about 10 kilos and has a 30-centimeter blade. It’s definitely dangerous, and for many people, it was their first time using it.

We had two teachers and ten students. I was amazed at how they demonstrated the machine, then simply asked, “Do you feel okay working with it?” If you said yes, they would leave you to work on your own.

One of the teachers was a woman, a carpenter specializing in traditional French carpentry, who even started a school to teach women this craft. She has an interesting approach to education and group learning. At the end of the course, I told her how much I appreciated the way she introduced the dangerous machine. She admitted it was tough for her too, saying, “It’s fucking scary” to just let people handle it.

But working with a potentially dangerous tool really depends on the person. For some, having someone beside them is helpful; for others, it’s stressful to feel someone breathing down their neck. In my experience, when workshop specialists enforce certain rules, whether legal or safety-related, it acts as a kind of paralanguage we can all understand and discuss. It’s also a way to reclaim authority. I now realize there are other stressful moments in a workshop. Maybe someone is overwhelmed or struggling to handle many things at once. These rules become a way to negotiate how things get done.

You are right, it really depends on the person. That’s why having a personal connection to a workshop or a workshop specialist is so important. It helps you discover where there’s room to relax or stretch the rules, kind of easing the authority in a way.

Exactly. Knowing each other really helps to avoid seeing the workshop purely as a production space. Today, many people came in saying, “I want to do this. Tell me how.” Sometimes, I don’t mind just giving a straightforward answer and letting them get on with it. But other times, I say, “Okay, just try it yourself a bit and see what you can figure out.”

Would you like to tell us about one or two of the interviews you conducted with the workshops?

One of the conversations in the weaving workshop really stuck with me. Maybe because I used to be a student at TXT and already knew the three people we were going to talk to fairly well. The conversation centered on a meeting that had taken place ten years earlier. Each of the three shared their own version of what happened. We ended up speaking to them individually. Here’s what happened:Back then, they were discussing the possibility of buying a domestic DACA Jacquard loom for the textile department—a huge investment of around €40,000. That’s a significant sum, especially for a small department. In the end, they decided against it. This part of the publication therefore focuses on a loom that isn’t in the workshop but which, in our view, reveals far more about the workshop than any of the looms they actually have.It was Gene and Severin who took part in this conversation as well as Joost who wasn’t even working at the workshop when the decision was made. There were different reasons why they didn’t want to purchase the machine. Cost was obviously a major factor, but space was tight too. Bringing in a large Jacquard loom would mean letting go of other looms, and they didn’t want to sacrifice existing equipment.

Time and maintenance were concerns as well. A complex machine would demand more care, and Severin didn’t want to become a “slave to the machine.”

The Jacquard loom is flashy and exciting; if they bought one, people would line up year-round to create something cool on it. But that’s not the way they wanted to work.

Severin knows all the machines currently in the workshop. All the looms are “open” in the sense that a newcomer can tinker, pull a string, or touch something and eventually understand how it works, or at least where the problem is. The Jacquard loom, on the other hand, is a black box, an extremely complicated machine.

They also felt that the Netherlands no longer has a textile industry, so investing in an industrial-style Jacquard loom at an art school didn’t make much sense. They questioned how they wanted to relate to industry and what’s important when working in the textile workshop. It’s essential to take the time to understand the machine, both for specialists and students alike, and that’simpossible with the Jacquard.

Setting up a simple loom can take weeks. A Jacquard could take even longer before it’s running. They estimated only three to five people would use it in a whole year, which wasn’t appealing. So, they decided against buying the loom.

Across the corridor, in the letterpress workshop, there’s a big machine, an old offset press. Do you know why it’s there? Because someone offered it for free. The previous workshop specialist accepted it and removing it would have been too costly. When Joost took over the workshop, they wondered why such a huge, barely-used press was there instead of four or five smaller machines. But they kept it, invested time in learning it, and now some amazing projects come out of that press. It’s fascinating to witness these different approaches.

It’s really interesting what you’re describing about the Jacquard loom and the offset machine, machines that seem free but actually cost us a huge amount of labour. It reminds me of the discussions around the open source software community. There is a book edited by Femke Snelting for Constant, Association for Art and Media, which is called Conversations: the best, biggest thing that Free Software has to offer. The conversations in that book feel closely related to your point about using conversation as a way to explore complex systems.

The Jacquard loom’s complexity exceeds the resources we have, our time, our people, our capacity to make sense of it. If we cannot understand it, tweak it, question it, or work through its problems with students, then what can we really learn from it? We are, after all, an educational institution. Learning is our purpose. If a machine’s inner workings remain opaque, why invite it into our space?

And yet it is tempting. We tell ourselves we must prepare students for industry, so we make these choices quickly. And later on we find ourselves having built dependencies that we cannot easily escape.

Studying is such a crucial moment, not just a phase where students obtain knowledge, but where they actually start building relationships with tools and techniques. If we only teach them how to use Adobe Creative Suite, they obviously become dependent on expensive proprietary, closed software. They end up locked into this system, the software, because a whole economy is built around closed and proprietary tools.

These tools seem free or cheap while you’re at university, but it’s eighty euros a month after you graduate. And with that comes the pressure to earn enough just to keep using what you were taught to use. It becomes a productivity nightmare, and we’re responsible for it.

All because of one decision, maybe just the choice to explore one particular machine.

We often talk about postcapitalism in a theoretical way, but there’s no school that actually prepares us for it. How are we supposed to operate in a world without Photoshop, or within an entirely different economic system?

I’ve worked in various art school contexts, including those that lean toward a neoliberal makerspace model, focused on fast prototyping and an instrumental, productivity-driven idea of “makability.” In contrast, the workshops at the Rietveld take a much more critical approach in my view. There’s more time and attention given to reflection, they’re slower. But they don’t call it “critical making.” They simply resist that stressed, efficiency-driven mode of working, almost as a matter of deep conviction. There are no hackathons at Rietveld. To me, these workshops are genuinely critical spaces for making, even if they don’t use that language.

I think that point captures something essential about how knowledge in a workshop can easily become centralized, not only through machines that act like black boxes but also through the people who operate them with such depth and experience. It’s fragile, because when a person moves on, what happens to their knowledge? Watching a workshop specialist step into a role and grow into it is beautiful, but it also reveals how much this relies on proximity, relationships, and time. Anyway, that’s probably another conversation altogether.

Thank you so much for being here with us today, Mathild, it’s really exciting. It’s not the first time I’ve heard this story, but it still fascinates me. I’m really looking forward to reading the publication.

Thank you, Mark and Anja. See you soon.