As of early 2025, the Willem de Kooning Academy is proud to welcome Rachel Beckles Willson into its Research Centre as a temporary research professor. With this appointment, WdKA opens the door to a new research domain: Performative Art Research, Sound, and Society: a field that touches upon urgent themes of inclusivity, ecology, degrowth, and intersectionality through sound and embodied practice.
Rachel joins us from the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts at Leiden University, where she is Professor of Intercultural Performing Arts. At the same time, she maintains ties with Codarts, bridging institutions in a way that embodies the collaborative future we envision for the arts in Rotterdam. Her role here is experimental by design: a year-long appointment to explore whether this research line can grow into a long-term pillar of our academic offering.
A Multifaceted Researcher, Musician and Maker
Rachel's background spans classical music, Latin jazz, and Middle Eastern traditions, particularly through her work with the oud, :a centuries-old instrument that she has reimagined both as a performer and a scholar. Her interest lies not only in music but in what sound can tell us about society, power structures, and marginal voices. She blends cultural politics with participatory design and artistic research, always questioning who gets to create, why, and what for. Her concern with migration offers an example: "I have worked a lot with asylum seekers and refugees through sound and music projects, but this was usually within broader (humanitarian and legal-activist) projects."
At WdKA, Rachel is laying the groundwork for a research line that connects artistic practice to the social and sonic textures of Rotterdam. “It’s about sensing the city differently,” she says, “through experiments in sound, space, and ecology - field recordings, sonic mapping, sound installations, or live happenings.”
This work brings together the personal and the political, the poetic and the pragmatic: reimagining cities not just as physical spaces, but as arenas of connection, critique, and acoustic well-being. “There’s so much focus on individual well-being through sound,” Rachel says, “but this risks abstracting and reifying sound, ignoring its complex contexts and dynamics and thus masking and extending problematic realities. I’m interested in critical, collective practices, particularly ones that create space for unheard voices.”
Towards a City That Listens
Rachel’s vision is grounded in listening, deeply and collectively. She speaks of walking through Rotterdam with others, sensing the city’s sonic vibrations in diverse ways. This could take the form of soundwalks, collaborative installations, or participatory design of new sound-making instruments, particularly with communities that have been historically marginalized and/or are neurodiverse, and also with other-than-human actors. With this approach, performativity becomes both method and metaphor: performance not just as art, but as action, as transformation.
This aligns closely with WdKA’s broader commitment to ecology and inclusivity, rethinking art education beyond its traditional boundaries. Rachel’s research is as much about the material world - where instruments come from, what and who we build them with - as it is about symbolic expression. She is currently collaborating on projects with colleague- lectors Aymeric Mansoux and Florian Cramer, including explorations in circular design for music technology.
Temporary, but Transformative
Rachel describes her temporary role as a “visiting collaborator”: offering ideas, building connections, and contributing to curriculum renewal. “What excites me most,” she says, “is how imaginative and bold some of the WdKA course titles are, and the interest in rethinking education and creative practices. I’ve never seen such a collaborative and future-facing approach to curriculum design.”
Her appointment also marks a deepening of the relationship between Codarts and WdKA, even in the absence of a formal merger. “In a dream world,” Rachel notes, “students would flow more freely between the two institutions. The city is the stage, why not make full use of its possibilities?”
Save the Date: Public Research Presentation
Rachel will share more of her ongoing work on May 22nd at 14:00 in the WdKA Research Station, as part of the Research in Perspective series. The session will trace threads from her earlier sound projects - including work with toads, whales, and underwater soundscapes - to her future explorations in Rotterdam. Students, colleagues, and the wider public are warmly invited to attend. For more information check https://research.wdka.nl/index.php/news-activities/research-in-perspective-with-rachel-beckles-willson/.
