Stichting Ammodo, For arts, architecture and science

The Opera Forward Festival (OFF) is an annual festival for new contemporary opera productions. The festival presents opera as a relevant and forward-thinking artform to a wide audience.

operaballet.nl

Pictured: Animal Farm by Alexander Raskatov at Opera Forward Festival 2023.

Ammodo supports the creation of the new production The Balancing Act by choreographer Ann Van den Broek, in which she explores the relationship between the interests of the individual versus the community.

The performance is set to premiere in October 2023.

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In 2023, De Ateliers opens Woonhuis, a new experimental exhibition space for both current participants and alumni to present their work.

De Ateliers will also commission site-specific works and there will be readings, screenings and events.

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Pictured: work by Sam Marshall Lockyer at Offspring 2022. Foto: Gert Jan van Rooij

Tazuko van Berkel researches self-image, humanity, and worldview in classical Greek society and in particular how the advent of the money economy affected the Greek idea of friendship.

She is currently focusing her research on how the economic domain was defined in antiquity, not only by scholars, but also in the everyday views of citizens.

Van Berkel’s research invites critical reflection on economic thinking in our own time.

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Merel Keijzer researches how learning a new language contributes to healthy ageing. To do so, she uses innovative and multidisciplinary research methods and works closely with neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists.

Keijzer has shown that people who are multilingual, and who still actively used their languages, generally showed better cognitive functioning. In particular, frequent switching between different languages seems to be able to compensate for ageing processes in the brain, such as mild memory loss.

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Daniël Lakens studies how scientists conduct research, with the aim of increasing the reliability and efficiency of social science research.

He played an important role in investigating the global ‘replication crisis’ in psychology, and thanks to his empirical and theoretical analyses, scientific awareness of ‘publication bias’ and ‘p-hacking’ has grown considerably in recent years.

Over the past decade, Lakens has become one of the leading scientists in meta-science in the Netherlands and abroad.

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Centraal Museum organises the first museological solo exhibition of the French artist Pauline Curnier Jardin in The Netherlands. The museum invited her to produce new work. Her new installation, called Adoration, will be presented alongside four existing works in a solo exhibition of the same name.

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Pictured: Adoration, Pauline Curnier Jardin, 2022

Every other year in the summer, The Dutch National Opera & Ballet organizes the Choreographic Academy: a period of three weeks in which young talented choreographers collaborate with the dancers of the Junior Company.

The Choreographic Academy aims to be a place for research and experiment. A final result in the form of a finished choreography is not a requirement, but it happens regularly.

operaballet.nl

Pictured: New Moves, 2022 (Photo: Khayla Fitzpatrick)

Ammodo supports the creation of three new productions by choreographer Arno Schuitemaker: Remembering the Future (2023), The Day Before (2024) and Correspondences (2025).

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Pictured: O S C A R, Arno Schuitemaker, 2021 (Photo: Bart Grietens)

Festival d’Avignon is an annual theatre festival for new French and international productions. In editions 2023 and 2024, Ammodo supports the creation of two new (co-)productions per year.

In 2023, these are Welfare by Julie Deliquet and Antigone in the Amazon by Milo Rau. In 2024, they will be Mothers – A Song For The Wartime by Marta Górnicka and second production (to be determined).

festival-avignon.com

Tatiana Filatova researches the complex dynamics between socio-economic systems and climate change, seeking, among other things, to predict societies’ responses to different climate scenarios.

A distinctive feature of her research is the use of existing knowledge from the social sciences to enrich traditional climate models. For example, using computer simulations Filatova has shown that gradual poverty traps and ghettos may arise in climate-sensitive areas, including in rich countries.

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Jingyuan Fu studies the gut microbiome in relation to disease and health, focusing in particular on complex diseases such as obesity and cardiovascular disease.

She impressively demonstrated, for example, that the gut microbiome can be manipulated by both dietary interventions and certain drugs. This makes the microbiome an important starting point for disease prevention and treatment.

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Anja Spang studies the special role that various micro-organisms such as archaea have played in major evolutionary changes, including the origin of eukaryotes to which humans belong. She has discovered an impressive number of new archaea variants in recent years and has found revolutionary evidence in support of the hypothesis that eukaryotic organisms (such as humans) once evolved from a symbiosis between archaea and bacteria.

What makes Spang’s research especially relevant at present is that archaea also influence the climate. Exactly what their role there is is a question that Spang plans to focus on in the near future.

ammodo-science-award.org

Since 2015, the Eye Art & Film Prize is awarded annually to an artist working on the border between art and film. The winner receives a monetary prize to create new work and will be part of an exhibition at Eye.

Previous winners were Hito Steyerl (2015), Ben Rivers (2016), Wang Bing (2017), Francis Alÿs (2018), Meriem Bennani (2019), Kahlil Joseph (2020), Karrabing Film Collective (2021) and Saodat Ismailova (2022).

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Pictured: Bibi Seshanbe, Saodat Ismailova (winnaar Eye Art & Film Prize 2022), installation at Documenta 15, 2022

The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet is a talent development programme for young dancers. Since its establishment in 2013, it has garnered a reputation for fostering promising new talents.

Every season, the Junior Company tours the nation with its own programme of repertoire choreographies as well as new creations. Many former participants have gone on to be selected for the Dutch National Ballet.

From season 2023/2024 onwards, the Junior Company expands its activities with the production of a new performance at Studio Broekman. Sedrig Verwoert is the first choreographer to be selected for this commission piece.

operaballet.nl

Afgebeeld: In the Future, Hans van Manen, Shooting Stars tour 2022 (Photo: Altin Kaftira)

De Ateliers annually invites twenty talented artists for a two-year residence in which to develop their artistic practice under the best possible circumstances.

In 2020, De Ateliers launched a new Production Fund with support from Ammodo, which artists in residence may use to finance their practice. The fund promotes artistic experiment and gives the artists freedom to develop new ideas.

de-ateliers.nl

Pictured: work by Tash Keddy at Offspring 2022. Foto: Gert Jan van Rooij

My Oma is a group exhibition around the symbolic figure of the grandmother and investigates themes such as mobility, affection and conflict.

The exhibition combines existing works and new commissions by various artists with connections to the Global South and marks the end of the six year directorship of curator Sofia Hernández Chong Cuy.

kunstinstituutmelly.nl

Pictured: Kenyalang Circus, Marcos Kueh, 2022

Stan Brouns is engaged in fundamental research into the age-old battle between microbes and viruses. In particular, he studies the so-called CRISPR-Cas defence mechanisms that bacteria deploy to arm themselves against viruses.

Thanks to Brouns’ research we now know that bacteria possess a smart, adaptive immune system that can remember and render invaders harmless.

In addition, Brouns is leading an innovative study of bacteriophages, the natural enemies of bacteria, as a possible alternative to antibiotics.

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Hugo Snippert uses microscopy and molecular genetics to unravel how it is that there is a huge diversity of tumour cells and what the consequences of this are.

He was one of the first researchers to apply microscopy to organoids – mini-organs grown in the lab – enabling biological processes in living cells to be studied in detail.

He recently succeeded in using organoid technology to track how a colon tumour responds to combined drug treatment. This knowledge helps towards the tailoring of individual cancer therapies.

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SPRING Performing Arts Festival in Utrecht presents contemporary international performances at the crossroads of dance and theatre. Every year, the festival also produces new work by young and more established creators from over the globe.

Ammodo supports the production of new performances for editions 2024-2026.

springutrecht.nl

Pictured: Narcosexuals, Dries Verhoeven, SPRING 2022

Angela (A Strange Loop) is an interdisciplinary theatre project by Susanne Kennedy about the human relation to illness and death.

The piece combines high tech, philosophy, pop culture and literature as it follows a woman named Angela from birth until death and beyond.

Pictured: Three Sisters, Susanne Kennedy, 2020