Mission & Vision
A Home for Eccentric Makers with Social Imagination
PXL-MAD School of Arts is a vibrant meeting place for artists, designers, researchers, and thinkers who want to understand, question, and transform the world. From Hasselt—our home base—we look at society and the international art world with an open and engaged perspective. Our campus is an inspiring living and working environment where tradition and innovation meet, where students and teachers collaborate in trust, and where there is space for experimentation, reflection, and social imagination.
Mission
We offer academic education and research in the visual arts (Bachelor, Master, Educational Master, and Postgraduate). Starting from a critical awareness of the past, we help shape the artistic and societal practices of today and tomorrow.
Our programmes stimulate in-depth exploration within specific media, foster artistic research, and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration. We educate artists, designers, and researchers who engage with a complex and ever-changing society—not only responding to social challenges but actively helping to shape them.
PXL-MAD regards artistic practices as powerful tools for social reflection, inclusion, sustainability, and transformation.
Vision
Home
PXL-MAD is a warm, open, and engaged community. Our campus is a breeding ground where young and experienced artists, designers, and researchers inspire and challenge one another. We cultivate a strong feedback culture and create learning environments that combine safety with critical depth. Hasselt is our home city, but our horizon is global. We are locally rooted and globally oriented, with a clear commitment to social relevance and justice.
Eccentric
We embrace our position outside the centre. Being eccentric means thinking freely, daring to be different, and celebrating individuality. Our students and teachers add an extra dimension—eXcentric—to PXL’s X-Factor model (passion, entrepreneurship, collaboration, multidisciplinarity, and sustainability).
We nurture the development of a critical and socially engaged artistic voice. Students are encouraged to create for society, not merely for the market — guided by artistic urgency, solidarity, and imaginative power.
Archipelago
PXL-MAD functions like an archipelago: each studio and discipline is a unique island, firmly connected to the others. We respect the specific character of each domain while encouraging interdisciplinarity and cross-pollination. Theory, artistic research, and practice are closely intertwined. These bridges foster a dynamic learning environment where art and design engage directly with societal questions, opening up space for new perspectives and critical artistic responses.
World
Our gaze is directed outward, toward the world. Through international collaborations, guest lectures, symposia, Erasmus exchanges, and our international Master in Visual Arts, we bring the world into our school—and send our students out into it. We challenge them to contribute to urgent global issues such as diversity, inclusion, climate, and social justice through their artistic practice.
We believe that art and design do not stand on the sidelines but are active agents of social change.