Art-Science-Society Lab
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At the intersection of art, science, and society, we transform research into lived experience. Through immersive and embodied practices, we activate the triangle between these domains — creating spaces where artistic experimentation, scientific inquiry, and societal engagement meet.
Here, urgent questions are not only analysed but felt, performed, and collectively explored. By cultivating transdisciplinary exchange and knowledge co-creation, we engage both mind and heart — opening new ways of seeing, thinking, and relating.
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Embodied Knowledge & Arts-Based Methodology
Our work is grounded in Arts-Based Research, Arts-Based Reflection, and Arts-Based Presentation. From this foundation, we develop transdisciplinary programmes, masterclasses, tailor-made coaching, and innovative assessment methods within higher education and research contexts.
Through immersive, embodied, and experiential learning practices, we investigate how art can move beneath the surface and reveal dimensions of knowledge that remain inaccessible to conventional research tools. In doing so, we foster knowledge co-creation across art, science, and society — activating the transformative exchange at the heart of our mission.
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Artistic Leadership & Methodological Innovation
The Academy is initiated and led by Dagmar Slagmolen, artistic director of Via Berlin. As a theatre maker, performer, and writer, she is an expert in emotionally embodying complex societal themes and translating them into powerful artistic experiences. Building on this artistic practice, she has specialised in Arts-Based Research as a methodology for uncovering hidden stories, emotions, and underlying motivations. Her expertise lies in guiding others to access what often remains unspoken — and in transforming these insights into embodied, resonant forms that can move and engage broad audiences.
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From Classroom to Collective Impact
In 2024, she was invited to design and lead her own English-language Honours course for students from all faculties of the University of Amsterdam (UvA), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), and Amsterdam University College. This resulted in the course Creating Connections through Arts-Based Research, which she will teach in 2025, 2026, and 2027.
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A Transdisciplinary & European Network
We collaborate nationally and internationally with universities and art academies, including the University of Amsterdam, Radboud University, the University of Hull (UK), and ArtEZ University of the Arts.
At European level, we participate in transnational research consortia, including the Horizon Europe project MEN4DEM, working with partners across multiple countries.
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From Research to Resonance
In close collaboration with researchers, educators, and social partners, we translate research processes and outcomes into impactful artistic forms that strengthen societal engagement and contribute to impact-driven research. We teach across faculties, supervise students at BA, MA, and PhD level, mentor individual artists and researchers, and design adaptable modules that enable educators to integrate arts-based and embodied methodologies within their own curricula.
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Transdisciplinary Collaborations
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European Research Project MEN4DEM – Masculinities for the Future of European Democracy (2025–2027)
Via Berlin is a partner in the Horizon Europe–funded research project Masculinities for the Future of European Democracy, initiated by Professor Liza Mügge (University of Amsterdam). This international consortium brings together academic institutions, gender justice organisations, and artistic collaborators to examine how ideas and practices of masculinity shape democratic cultures across Europe.
The project aims to co-create embodied and evidence-based knowledge and develop artistic and societal interventions that challenge anti-democratic masculinities and promote more inclusive, equitable models of masculinity — strengthening democratic resilience across the continent.
Within this framework, Via Berlin contributes through immersive artistic interventions, collaborating with participants across Europe and translating research insights into performative and participatory formats that strengthen the connection between art, science, and society.
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Immersive Narratives & Democratic Resilience
In collaboration with political Professor Matthijs Rooduijn and the interdisciplinary Hot Politics Lab (University of Amsterdam), Via Berlin developed the immersive research performances Acts of Citizenship (2022) and When Did You Leave? (2025). These works combine music theatre with live scientific inquiry into themes such as citizenship, persuasion, and socio-political dynamics, reflecting the Lab’s focus on the emotional and cognitive dimensions of politics.
From 2027 to 2030, we will be partnering again with the Hot Politics Lab and Professor Rooduijn on a new research programme funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant:
Can Immersive Narrative Interventions Strengthen Support for Liberal Democracy?.
This project investigates whether immersive narrative formats — including performances, LARP, boardgames, and audio/visual installations — can engage citizens more deeply than conventional communication and strengthen support for core liberal-democratic principles.
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Interdisciplinary Social Sciences (BA Programme)
Since 2018, Via Berlin has designed and led an annual practicum month for approximately 200-300 BA students in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences. Developed in close collaboration with rotating societal partners, the programme connects students directly to real-world challenges and lived contexts.
Students are paired with social organisations and work on urgent societal questions through a series of intensive arts-based workshops. Guided by immersive and embodied methodologies, they gather data, conduct field research, and critically reflect on their findings.
Crucially, students are challenged to translate their research outcomes into artistic forms — performances, installations, or exhibitions — transforming analysis into experience. The programme culminates in a public symposium with guest speakers, where students present their work to commissioners, experts, and a broader audience.
In this way, academic research moves beyond the classroom and becomes shared, embodied knowledge — fostering dialogue between art, science, and society at scale.
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Honours Academy
Since February 2025, Dagmar Slagmolen has been teaching her own international Honours course in Arts-Based Research for selected honours students from the University of Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Amsterdam University College.
The course brings together students from across the world and from a wide range of faculties — from the humanities and social sciences to law, economics, and the sciences. Within this transdisciplinary setting, students explore urgent societal questions through immersive and embodied methodologies, bridging artistic practice and academic inquiry.
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Research Through Performative Practice
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Activating the Triangle: Art – Science – Society
At the heart of our mission lies the conviction that urgent societal questions cannot be addressed from a single perspective. Real transformation emerges where art, science, and society meet — not as parallel domains, but as an embodied, immersive practice of exchange. Within this triangle, knowledge is not only analysed, but felt, performed, and collectively experienced.
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For Science
Scientific research often takes place in controlled environments that cannot fully reflect the complexity of lived reality. Our performative and immersive settings create embodied research environments in which participants experience dilemmas emotionally and physically, rather than merely cognitively.
Through theatre, narratives become lived situations. Participants are drawn into shared experiences that allow researchers to observe responses within dynamic, socially charged contexts. Research shows that stories have significantly greater impact when performed rather than read or heard — making performance a powerful tool for experiential and impact-driven research.
By combining empirical methods with artistic immersion, we expand the scope of inquiry and create new forms of knowledge production. Post-performance dialogues and focus groups further enable reflection, while accessible presentations of results strengthen societal engagement. In this way, science not only generates knowledge, but connects it meaningfully to society.
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For the Arts
For the arts, collaboration with science deepens and sharpens the societal urgency of our work. It allows us to substantiate the emotional and perceptual shifts we intuitively know art can generate.
Art trains people in perspective-taking. It cultivates empathy, ambiguity tolerance, and the ability to move between viewpoints. Through Arts-Based Research, we specialise in uncovering hidden stories, underlying motivations, and unspoken emotions — and transforming them into embodied forms that resonate with wide audiences.
Measuring the effects of artistic immersion reinforces what we believe to be essential: art is not ornamental. It is a vital methodology for revealing complexity, fostering understanding, and counteracting polarisation.
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For Society
For society, the Art–Science–Society triangle creates spaces where knowledge becomes relational and participatory. Urgent themes — democracy, identity, loneliness, citizenship — move beyond abstraction and become shared human experience.
Through immersive and embodied learning practices, audiences are not passive recipients but active participants in meaning-making. Knowledge is co-created, tested within lived contexts, and returned to the public in forms that engage both mind and heart.
This is where our vision takes shape: a society in which art, science, and civic life are not separated silos, but interconnected forces — working together to open perspectives, deepen understanding, and create sustainable transformation.
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We continuously develop new ways of weaving scientific research into immersive, embodied performances that activate the transformative exchange between art, science, and society.
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Examples of research through performances
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Act of Citizenship (2022)
In June 2022, we initiated a large-scale field study in collaboration with the Departments of Political Science, Sociology, and Physiology at the University of Amsterdam, in partnership with the Hot Politics Lab.
Interwoven with the music theatre performance Acts of Citizenship, we conducted a large live scientific study in which more than 4,600 people participated in person.
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Huis G. (2023–2024)
An investigation into the role of the bystander in situations of intimate terror and domestic violence.
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Normality No More (2024–2025)
A research project exploring prejudices and societal perceptions surrounding neurodivergence.
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When Did You Leave? (2025)
A performative research trajectory examining how — and which — individuals are susceptible to manipulation through populist messaging.
More about the research design:
https://stukroodvlees.nl/radicale-onderdompeling-een-theaterexperiment-op-oerol/
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MEN4DEM – Healthy Masculinities for the Future of European Democracy (2025–2027)
A three-year Horizon Europe research project investigating the role of healthy masculinities in strengthening European democracy.
Within this trajectory, Via Berlin is developing a new theatrical installation, an interactive theatre game, and a performance.
More about the project:
https://www.men4dem.eu/
The results of all research projects can be found on the page: onderzoeksresultaten
Embodied Research in Practice
Explore here a webpage created by one of our students, Maya Nitzan. As a Master of Arts student she developed this page dedicated to arts-based research on the theme of loneliness. https://mayanitzan.wixsite.com/researchproject
For inquiries or questions about the Via Berlin Academy, please contact Dagmar Slagmolen at dagmar@viaberlin.nl.
