Marjan Unger Lecture 2026: Craftsmanship in times of AI with Eva van Kempen and Maikel Kuijpers

You are not supposed to think. There are other people paid for thinking around here, the American mechanical engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor supposedly said, pushing for scientific management of craftwork in factories for the sake of efficiency. A development that happened around the turn of the 20th century and that is largely responsible for devaluing handwork and deskilling people. Ever since, knowledge work is perceived as superior over handwork. 

Will AI change this? AI exposes how much of our daily economic tasks are dependent on mechanistic rather than mindful reasoning. It devaluates knowledge work and this throws up an interesting question. What’s the role of craft in the 21st century and in the context of AI?

Through the example of filigree we’ll explore what craftsmanship has to offer. Craft is a way of learning about a real material world. It is fundamentally dependent on embodied cognition and relies on intelligent hands. Not only does this stand in clear opposition to AI, it also speaks to different values: sufficiency, care, and wellbeing.  

We’ll tackle these topics from two contrasting perspectives: what making jewelry means to an individual maker and a community, and what making things offers in the grand scheme of human history.


About the speakers:

Eva van Kempen is an Amsterdam-based goldsmith and researcher with 26 years of experience in the craft. Since 2010, she has specialised in filigree, dedicating her practice to the study, preservation, and renewal of this ancient wire technique. She graduated with an MA from the Sandberg Institute (Gerrit Rietveld Academie) in 2020. She is the founder of The Filigree Embassy and author of a safeguarding strategy for filigree as intangible cultural heritage, published in the Journal of Jewellery Research. In 2026, she received the Ambassador of Filigree Award from the Carlo Bosio Filigree Museum in Campo Ligure, Italy.

Maikel Kuijpers is Assistant Professor in Archaeology at Leiden University. His research focusses on our handling of materials and how people have developed skills and knowledge about materials throughout the centuries. He teaches material histories, archaeological theory, prehistoric Europe, and science communication. Maikel holds a PhD from Cambridge University. He is the author of Bronze Age Metalworking in the Netherlands (2008) and An Archaeology of Skill (2018) and numerous academic articles . His work on prehistoric money was featured in the New York Times and BBC radio. He has written for The Correspondent and The Conversation.  In 2019 Kuijpers released the short-documentary film The Future is Handmade. In March 2027, his first mainstream book is published with Penguin Press: Everything Is Material. A Tangible History of Humankind.



Price: €17,50.
Students €7,50 (student ID required)
Location: Auditorium Rijksmuseum
The lecture will be held in English
Ticket sale will start on 4 September

Programme:
19:00 h: Walk-in.
19:30 h: Start Lecture.
20:30 h: Drinks.
22:00 h: End

Following the lecture, drinks will be served in the Foyer.  


The biannual Marjan Unger Lecture is made possible by the Emmel Fonds / Rijksmuseum Fonds.
  The museum is wheelchair accessible. If you require any additional support to participate, such as a sign language interpreter or other assistance, please email evenementen@rijksmuseum.nl