Apophatic Art Practice and Research

Connecting with the ineffable in times of flattening

Project / Editorial Team
  • Merel Visse
  • William Franke
  • Ryan Woodring
  • Béatrice Machet
  • Sarah Travis
  • Enaiê Azambuja
  • Sarah Tarkany
  • Peter Kline
  • Kythe Heller
  • Cailtin Gilson
  • Chelle Stearns

Accommodations

For overnight accommodations, we recommend the following hotels conveniently located near Drew’s campus. Students are responsible for finding their own housing and travel.

We have a special Drew rate for students at Simply Sonesta Suites in Morris Plains, NJ. To explore pricing and options for living at this off-campus location please contact the reservation department at 1.800.SONESTA (1.800.766.3782) and request the Drew University rate at time of booking to ensure that the proper pricing is provided to them.

Other options (closer to campus) are:

Meals

During the intensive, Drew provides one dinner on Saturday at the Commons.

On campus, The Commons is a traditional all-you-care-to-enjoy dining program providing fresh, made-to-order, restaurant-style meals, a dedicated vegetarian selection, and exhibition cooking.

Just up the street from campus is the hometown of Madison. Some of our favorite places to eat are:

  • Sunday Motor Co.
    • Good coffee/tea + breakfast and lunch. Vegan + GF friendly options.
  • Rose City Wurst Co.
    • Nice lil hotdog stand. Vegetarian friendly.
  • Baba’s Bakery
    • Cute oldschool Italian-American bakery.
  • Bakehouse by Joe Murphy
    • Wide range of pastries. GF friendly options.
  • The Baker
    • New bakery specializing in sourdough breads and treats.
  • Halal Cantina
    • New Mexican restaurant. Vegan + GF friendly options.
  • Shanghai Jazz
    • A cozy jazz bar serving upscale Asian fusion food. More of a dinner, drinks place. Vegan + GF friendly options.
  • Biladi Grill
    • Great Egyptian food. Vegan + GF friendly options.

As well as:

  • 54 Main Bar & Grill
  • Blue Wazabi
  • Chipotle
  • Crowley’s Cupcakes
  • GK’s Red Dog Tavern at The Madison Hotel
  • Nautilus Diner
  • Palm Thai
  • Bottle Hill Tavern
  • Rod’s Steak & Seafood Grille at The Madison Hotel
  • Romanelli’s Pizza
  • Takuma Japanese Restaurant
  • Waverly Restaurant

Partner Links

Extended Bibliography

References

  • Arteaga, Alex, Emma Cocker, and Nicole Wendel. ‘Ecologies in Action: An Emergent Framework for Thinking Aesthetic Thinking through Aesthetic Research Practices.’ Journal for Artistic Research, no. 38, 2026. https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/3935614/3956695.
  • Arteaga, Alex, Emma Cocker, Nicole Wendel, and Sabine Zahn. ‘Thinking Aesthetic Thinking through Aesthetic Research Practices — Archive.’ Research Catalogue, 2025. https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2774151/2774156.
  • Bolt, Barbara. ‘Artistic Research: A Performative Paradigm?’ PARSE Journal, no. 3, 2016, pp. 129–142.
  • Borgdorff, Henk. ‘The Production of Knowledge in Artistic Research.’ The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts, edited by Michael Biggs and Henrik Karlsson, Routledge, 2011, pp. 44–63.
  • Bresler, Liora. ‘Toward Connectedness: Aesthetically Based Research.’ Studies in Art Education, vol. 48, no. 1, 2006, pp. 52–69.
  • Dumit, Joseph. Picturing Personhood: Brain Scans and Biomedical Identity. Princeton University Press, 2004.
  • Franke, William. On What Cannot Be Said: Apophatic Discourses in Philosophy, Religion, Literature, and the Arts. 2 vols., University of Notre Dame Press, 2007.
  • Haarmann, Anke. ‘The Reflective Methodology of Artistic Spatial Research.’ Handbook of Qualitative and Visual Methods in Spatial Research, edited by Anna Juliane Heinrich, Séverine Marguin, Angela Million and Jörg Stollmann, transcript Verlag, 2023, pp. 55ff.
  • Hübner, Falk. Method, Methodology and Research Design in Artistic Research: Between Solid Routes and Emergent Pathways. Routledge, 2024.
  • Jullien, François. The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China. Zone Books, 1995.
  • Jullien, François. In Praise of Blandness: Proceeding from Chinese Thought and Aesthetics. Zone Books, 2004.
  • Lazard, Carolyn. ‘Health and the Mundane: Carolyn Lazard on the Malleable Body.’ Walker Sightlines, 1 Oct. 2019.
  • Millikan, Ruth Garrett. Beyond Concepts: Unicepts, Language, and Natural Information. Oxford University Press, 2017.
  • Padfield, Deborah. ‘“Representing” the Pain of Others.’ Health, vol. 15, no. 3, 2011, pp. 241–257.
  • Shklovsky, Viktor. ‘Art as Technique.’ Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays, edited by Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis, University of Nebraska Press, 1965.
  • Todres, Les, and Elena van Wijngaarden et al., on evidence grounded in process and meaning. 
  • Visse, Merel. ‘Sometimes, Indirect Is More Direct: An Aesthetic–Apophatic Phenomenological Approach to Self-Reflexivity in Qualitative Inquiry.’ Qualitative Psychology, vol. 11, no. 1, 2024, pp. 110–126.
  • Visse, Merel, and William Franke. ‘Apophatic Creative Critique.’ Forthcoming, 2026.
  • Visse, Merel, and Ryan Woodring. ‘Mutable Data: Artistic Apophatic Research.’ Workshop, International Forum on Artistic Research, University of Galway, 26 June 2024.
  • Woodring, Ryan. Soft Data/Base. With project research and support from Avianna Miller and Camille Schiralli, 2025. softdatabase.art.