Dr Jeroen Lutters – Founder of Art-Based Learning and Initiator of Art-PC

Jeroen Lutters served as Lector of Art Education as Critical Tactics (AeCT) at ArtEZ University of the Arts until 2026. Earlier in his career, he was rector of the Vrije Hogeschool in Driebergen, Lector in Art and Cultural Education at Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, and worked in various university contexts. He completed his PhD at University of Amsterdam under the supervision of Mieke Bal (ASCA), whose narratological approach had a significant influence on his work.

Lutters is the founder of Art-Based Learning (ABL), an approach in which the artwork is treated as an interlocutor and as a source for thinking and learning. He has published extensively on the subject, including In the Shadow of the Work of Art: Art-Based Learning in Practice, as well as other publications on art, learning and creative thinking.

From his professorship at ArtEZ, Lutters initiated the RAAK-PRO project Art-Based Learning in Palliative Care (Art-PC) and developed it together with partners from art education, research and palliative care. His work on Art-Based Learning continues to provide an important foundation for the ongoing research within Art-PC.

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Dr John Johnston – Project Leader

John Johnston is Lector and UNESCO Chairholder in Issues-Based Arts Education at ArtEZ University of the Arts. He leads the UNESCO Chair Centre for Arts and Learning (UCAL), an international research and learning network in which artists, educators, researchers and communities collaborate around social and cultural issues. His research focuses on practice-based and socially engaged arts education and on how artistic and educational practices can contribute to dialogue, social cohesionand societal change.

Johnston completed his PhD at the University of Sunderland, researching the relationship between artistic thinking, intuition and conflict transformation. He has worked extensively in conflict and post-conflict contexts, including Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Rwanda, Israel-Palestine, Lebanon and Zambia where he developed artistic projects with communities effected by HIV Aids. His work in Zambia with the incurably ill provides a strong foundation for his new role as project leader of Art-PC.

At ArtEZ, he previously led the International Master Artisteducator (iMAE) and played an important role in developing the concept of the artisteducator as a professional who connects artistic practice, education and social engagement.

Issues-Based Arts Education (IBAE) is central to his current work. Rather than starting primarily from predetermined educational content, this approach takes as its point of departure the people, place and social context in which arts education takes place. In this way, art and learning are connected to concrete questions and experiences within society.

From this perspective, Art-PC connects closely with Johnston’s work. The project brings art and artseducation into a context in which existential and social questions become particularly tangible: palliative care. Here, Art-Based Learning is explored notonly as an arts educational method, but as a practice in which art, learning,care and meaning-making intersect. In doing so, Art-PC also addresses a broader question at the heart of Issues-Based Arts Education: what can arts education mean when it engages with real situations and questions in people’s lives?

Following Jeroen Lutters departure, Johnston formally took over the leadership of Art-PC. As Project Leader, he holds overall responsibility for the project and for its further substantive and institutional development within ArtEZ and the wider research network.

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Dr Emiel Copini – Project and Research Coordinator

Emiel Copini is a researcher,educator and curriculum developer at ArtEZ University of the Arts. Within Art-PC, he coordinates the day-to-day substantive and organisational development of the project. He is also involved in the development of the practice-oriented handbook on Art-Based Learning in palliative care and serves as co-supervisor within the doctoral research connected to the project.

In his research and educational work, Copini explores how arts education can connect with people’s livedexperiences and with wider social and institutional contexts. His PhD research at the University of Groningen (2019) examined young people’s cultural awareness and its significance for interdisciplinary arts and cultural education. Since then, his work has included socially engaged arts education, the development of the artisteducator as a hybrid artistic-educational professional, and forms of education that connect artistic practice, socialengagement and pedagogy.

Copini previously led the International Master Artist Educator (iMAE) and currently develops the Minor Artisteducator in Film. He also conducts national research into the development and sustainable integration of film education within Dutch education and contributes to curriculum development in this field. His work therefore moves between research, educational development and practice, and between formal education and the wider social contexts in which arts education can operate.

Within Art-PC, these strands come together in the question of what happens when art and arts education entera context not traditionally associated with arts education: palliative care. His interest in site-specific, socially engaged and issues-based forms of arts education connects closely with the international work of UCAL and Issues-BasedArts Education. Copini has a particular interest in how such practices can connect with formal education, professional development and sustainable institutional embedding.

‍Véronique Steenmetser – Management assistent

Véronique has worked for the Arnhem School of the Arts since 1993, where she began her career at the European Dance Development Centre (EDDC). After EDDC's merger with the Dance Academy, she held the role of faculty secretary and later project assistant at ArtEZ Theater & Dance. Since 2012, she has been management assistant for the ArtEZ Professorship of Art Education as Critical Tactics (AeCT) and ArtEZ Studium Generale. In 2023, she expanded her work to include support for the Director of ArtEZ Research Centre. Véronique manages agendas, supports various projects and maintains close contact with the members of the lectorate's knowledge network. She prepares meetings, gatherings and events, such as lectures and book launches. In addition, together with her colleagues, she takes care of the communication and PR of the departments as web editor. Thanks to her language skills, she corrects and edits various texts. She obtained the Cambridge Certificate for Advanced English and the Cambridge Certificate for Proficiency in English at Radboud University Nijmegen.

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