We spoke to the director of CREA, Dennis van Galen about the role arts and culture should be playing in our student lives and about the importance of a diverse and inclusive cultural hub on campus. So, what can and should you be getting involved in this year at CREA?

CREA is the cultural centre for both the UvA and HvA at the heart of the Roeterseiland campus, the institution has been standing for over half a century and for this reason it is critical to the development of not only arts and culture, but also to the social cohesion of the various campuses throughout Amsterdam.

In conversation with director Dennis van Galen, he expressed his inherent belief in the capacity of arts and culture to both bring students together and shape our ways of thinking. His passionate belief in the ability of cultural experiences to positively benefit our academic experience shapes one of CREA’s main goals, namely to “have as many students as possible be […] in contact with arts and culture”. He drew on his own experience with a medical student who credited van Galen’s theatre program with his ability to improve as a doctor. Moments like these are why he believes that which we experience as a performer, a musician, a creator of some kind or even a spectator, has a positive impact on what we carry into our education or career.

Speaking to political science student Stefana, she expressed how in engaging with a cultural experience outside of her daily academic life, through her African dance class, she was able to tap into an ability to trust her natural impulses that allow her to follow her interests without focusing on what she feels others want from her. Ultimately, this has improved her creativity in approaching and exploring topics.

It is clear that for van Galen and for CREA, bringing arts and culture to as many students as possible as often as possible, is central to their cause. It hopes to do so through a diverse and inclusive range of over 600 courses available to students, staff and even the Amsterdam community. More recent additions to the program include the likes of artist collective ‘United Painting’, formerly ‘Favela Painting’. This collective offers a course in ‘visual interventions’, conceiving art in terms of space, how to interrupt it, use it and work with it to express your own artistic and political voice. The program symbolises a gradual introduction of music and art from across the spectrum, bringing in cultural influences from urban spaces across the world.

In keeping with CREA’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, van Galen makes sure that CREA is student friendly by offering a fifty percent discount. He even shared that those concerned with finances are encouraged to get in touch.

So, you are invited to engage with your artistic self, get involved in campus culture and see where it can take you. Whether you are looking to try something totally new, perhaps pick back up an old hobby or build on what you already know, there is an opportunity waiting for you at CREA.