Erik Viskil is academic director of ACPA and Professor of Research and Discourse in Artistic Practice at Leiden University. He studied Museology in Leiden and Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory, and Rhetoric in Amsterdam. Since receiving his PhD in 1994, he has worked primarily as an independent researcher, writer, and adviser to cultural institutions. In this role, he served the interest of a wide variety of institutions and universities, especially in the field of art and design. These include art and design schools (Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Sandberg Instituut, Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, ArtEZ Arnhem, Amsterdam University of the Arts, Design Academy Eindhoven – DAE), museums and platforms (Stedelijk Museum, De Appel), and scientific organizations (Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, The Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research NWO).
Erik was executive board member and director of education at Rietveld and chaired the examination board of DAE. His interest in writing as a medium and an attitude in the visual arts lies at the basis of the department of Image & Language at Rietveld Academy, which he founded in 2002, and has led to film programmes, lecture series, seminars, and articles on themes ranging from the depiction of political violence to the camera as an instrument of thought and the film essay as an auto-ethnographic research tool. He lectures film theory at the master departments of DAE, and research and discourse at PhDArts.