Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Netherlands
fellow
Maria Barnas
Home institution
Rijksakademie
Country of origin (home institution)
Netherlands
Discipline(s)
Arts and arts studies
Theme(s)
Gender, Family & Youth
Inequalities, inclusion & Social Innovation
Labor, Capital & Innovation
Visual Arts
Fellowship dates
›
Biography
Maria was an Artist-in-Residence-Fellow at NIAS during 2024-2025.
Maria Barnas studied at the Rietveld Academy and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.
She has published three novels. Her poetry debut Twee zonnen (2003) was awarded the C. Buddingh' Prize and in 2009 she received the J.C. Bloem Prize for Er staat een stad op. In 2005 Binnenzee was published, a walk in poetry form. In 2013 her third poetry collection Jaja de oerknal followed, awarded the Anna Bijns Prize and nominated for the VSB Poetry Prize. Her most recent collection of poems is Diamant zonder r (2022), published by Van Oorschot Publishers.
In poems, sculptures and films, Maria Barnas explores concrete aspects of language and how language influences what we see. Perception is always central to her work. Song for three rooms, shown by the Kröller-Müller Museum in 2018, is an installation with glass objects and sound, based on the idea of formulating and perceiving as an elongated and fragmented exploration. Stuttering, then flowing again, Maria Barnas makes TR-EYE-ING sound: a single word that covers three spaces.
Things I Should Have Said (2021) is a series of porcelain objects that were created by Barnas speaking with clay in her mouth. The unspeakable and the difficult to pronounce takes shape in this way.
Barnas worked as writer in residence at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht and in 2012 published there about Cees Braakman (1917-1995), Pastoe's furniture designer and her collection of his furniture.
On 18 November 2017, her wall poem Flower Outside was unveiled at the Natural History Museum Maastricht with translations in 25 languages on the website 'Dichter in Beeld'.
Maria Barnas, from 2007 to 2010 columnist for the Cultural Supplement of NRC Handelsblad, is a poetry contributor to NRC Handelsblad.
Maria Barnas is editor of literary magazine De Gids and an advisor at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam.
On 1 April 2016 she was appointed a member of the Society of Arts.
On 14 January 2022, she was appointed city poet of the municipality of Alkmaar[8][9] until 1 November 2023.
Research Project
Dust and Paint
Research question: How do acts of cleaning or erasure relate to art making?
Maria Barnas’ research involves giving a voice to cleaner-assistants of the artist Jo Baer. Jo has had cleaners in different stages of her career, in different countries. These were mostly young women artists. Sometimes these women were allowed to help paint her works. Maria aims to speak to them about what they remember of their encounters with Jo. Questions about their own life and work will seep through, touching upon questions about what it is to make art, what it is to leave traces; but also about what it is to clean, erase and be erased in art history.
Barnas will research what ‘cleaning’ means and how it can be understood in the realm of visual art. Can female resistance against erasure be understood as an artform?
Research Interests:
art; women; labor; care; gender; representation; cleaning