Research practice by MA students 

From making glaze out of restaurant waste to researching how dead materials can reflect life, KABK’s master’s students are reimagining what artistic research can be. KABK offers seven master’s programmes, most of them two-year trajectories (with Type and Media as a one-year programme), taught by active practitioners in the cultural field in small, research-driven settings. Below, current students share about what they are working on.

Zizi Mitrou, student Master Industrial Design: “My research question is "How can we build a glaze archive by re-using ingredients sourced locally from restaurants in the Netherlands?" Working with restaurants in The Hague and Leiden, I collect materials such as bones, wine bottles, and shells, which I turn into ash using a kiln. Combined with clay, these materials become ceramic glazes. By focusing on local sourcing, I aim to minimize material transport and demonstrate how design can emerge from what is around us.”

Tash Harris, student Master Non Linear Narrative: “I have been writing my thesis on the colonial roots of America’s industrialised food system. My research explores the ethics around seed patenting and how industrial agriculture shapes our relationship with nature. Alongside writing, I interview farmers, seed scientists, and indigenous growers, work with archival material, and experiment with ways of presenting research. Using audio and photography as my main media, I am also exploring video and desktop documentary as non-linear form that combines journalistic and artistic approaches.” 

Tom van den Berg, student Master ArtScience: “I have a background in neuroscience and a master’s in clinical psychology. These fields inform my artistic practice. My projects begin with writing. I’m interested in how lifeless materials can reflect life, becoming metaphors for sincerity and shame. I am currently developing a performance about a house, combining theatre, sound, and visual art. Furthermore, using my background in science, I am experimenting with EEG (medical research that examines electrical brain activity) and trying to transform measurement into music.” 

Elena Krukonyte, student Master Photography and Society: “I have been researching Lithuanian visual culture. My research question is: How did commercial imagery introduced by the West shape Lithuanian society’s perception of reality during the early independence period? I am analysing TV series and advertisements from magazines, tracing how Western cultural influences were idealised. I search for narratives and archetypes to reflect on. I also take self-portraits next to buildings in my hometown, Vilnius, to which I am emotionally connected, which now stand abandoned. These remnants represent the "Western dream", revealing how the promises made often failed.” 

Elisavet Anesti, student Master Interior Architecture: “My research focuses on the coastline of the Greek island of Lesvos, a landscape charged by multiple memories of migration and practices of othering. I explore how people who have lived or passed through Lesvos remember specific coastal places and how these memories reveal layers of social, political and spatial meaning. Through literature research, interviews and on-site observation, I collect stories, aiming to map the diverse ways in which the coast becomes a threshold, a space of transition and meeting. 

Priyageetha Dia, student Master Artistic Research: “I am currently developing kokki, a solo exhibition at The Ryder Projects in Madrid, centred on a two-channel video installation that examines the entanglement of the body with industrial systems of production. Situated within a former meat-processing factory, the work draws on the Tamil ritual practice of kavadi attam alongside theories of plasticity to construct a speculative, entity-like form that emerges within a machinic landscape. The project interrogates the convergences of labour, sacrifice, and the mechanisation of flesh, foregrounding the ways in which bodies are disciplined within industrial regimes.

Applying to one of the master's programmes
The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK) welcomes students to discover its international learning environment through the last series of online Q&As and portfolio advice sessions.

Applications for the academic year 2026–27 are due March 2, 2026. Applications received after March 2 may be considered only if places remain. Apply here

More inspiration
Browse the online graduation catalogue and save the date for the Graduation Show 2026: July 2–7