About me

Hello! I’m Ties (he/him & pronounced ’tease’), pleased to meet you!

I work as a professor in artistic research (‘lector’ in Dutch) at the research center What Art Knows, Maastricht Institute of Arts, Zuyd Hogeschool (a University of Applied Sciences), in Maastricht, the Netherlands. I’m trained in different disciplines (health sciences, cultural studies, science & technology studies, philosophy), and I have worked in different fields (from academia to community arts and art festivals).

I am interested in ethics and art – more specifically: how art comes to matter in society, and how ethics is involved in artistic practices. The role and place of ethics – what to do and how to live – in our contemporary (Western, affluent) society has changed. Ethical deliberation is no longer limited to academia, special committees, or religious fora (if it ever was). In a society in which we face multiple crises, and where (technological) change is permanent, we desperately need the arts. Its imagination, its critique, its ability to urge us to imagine that ‘it could be otherwise’.

Ties van de Werff (Jonathan Vos Photography)

At the research center What Art Knows, we develop cutting edge artistic research – both in theory and in practice – to empower art students for their contributing role in our current society. At the interdisciplinary arts bachelor iArts (also at the Maastricht Institute of Arts) I teach and develop educational modules around artistic research and artistic engagement.

Next to my academic work, I like to play bass in the lo-fi garage band WE ARE JOINERS. I live in Eindhoven with my partner and two kids.

For a more detailed CV, please check my LinkedIn profile.