Brainwave #4 Worlding beyond Wording
by Julia Stoll
- Date
- 27 November 2025
- Time
- 16:30 -18:30
- Location
- BG 3
- Room
- VOX-POP
Verbal language shapes how we connect, but it can also limit who is heard and how we understand one another. This programme looks at what lies beyond those limits: the silences, gestures, textures, and sensory interactions that don’t fit neatly into words. By focusing on these forms of communication, we question normative ideas of understanding and open space for different ways of relating and making meaning—both inside and outside the university. Join us to explore these alternative modes of connecting, creating, and communicating.
Through hands-on exercises, you will experiment with texture, movement, and touch to see how material interaction can influence interpretation. The session offers a concrete, guided experience: making, handling, and responding to fabric-based forms, and reflecting on how these non-verbal methods can shape how we understand expression and communication.
Practical information
16.30 - 16.45 Introduction by Julia Stoll
16.45 - 17.00 Screening of Thank You for Calling by Vera Lelie and Kwint Jongerius
17.00 - 17.30 Artist talk with Vera Lelie
17.30 - 17.45 Break and Roaming
17.45 - 18.15 Artist Talk by Renske Tiemersma
18.15 - 18.30 Q&A
Participation is free of charge, but we kindly ask you to register in advance.
For whom: All body-minds and neuro-types are warmly invited to join.
Julia Stoll is an artistic researcher and cultural worker, currently studying in the UvA’s Art and Performance Research master, where she combines artistic practice with theoretical inquiry. Her research interests span across a variety of subjects: from environmental philosophy and experimental field research, to neurodiversity studies and embodied forms of knowledge—all connected by a commitment to exploring how art can shift the ways we sense and know the world. Beyond hr studies, she moves between many roles: drawing artist, sculptor, performer, organiser, tailor, walking companion, bookbinder, and most importantly, collaborator—an extra pair of hands feeling out new grounds alongside those who inspire and support me. In the near future, she hopes to become further interwoven into the tapestry of artistic research in Amsterdam, contributing to spaces of care, collaboration, and experimentation.
Guest speakers
Vera Lelie is a researcher and designer whose work moves between fashion, space, and psychology. A 2023 graduate of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie’s Fashion Department, she explores how garments and environments intersect, beginning from sensory experience and the desire to quiet overstimulation. Her graduation project The Waiting Room reimagined the archetypal waiting space as one of empathy and reflection, later shown during Museumnacht at Mediamatic alongside her short film Met wie spreek ik (Thank You for Calling). Currently working with Costumes Collected and as a costume designer for film and theatre, Vera continues to explore how garments shape the spaces we inhabit and our sense of belonging.
Renske Tiermesma is a 24-year-old visual artist from Utrecht -- an idealist and proudly neurodivergent creator. Her neurodiversity shapes the way she experiences the world, with all its intensity, challenges, and beauty, which she channels into her art. As a former student autism ambassador at HKU, she learned the power of speaking openly about neurodiversity, and her work continues to spark conversation and connection, inviting others to see the world through different eyes.
