Annemarie Piscaer is a designer, researcher, and educator fascinated by dust— tiny particles that float invisibly in the air, forming ever-changing clouds. She views these particles, which have existed for eons, as fundamental building blocks of life, including our own. Dust, and by extension air pollution, represents a tangible consequence of daily human choices. Through her work, she explores the systems driving these choices, using materials and craftsmanship to unravel and understand them.
She holds a BA from the Design Academy Eindhoven and an MA in Education in Arts from the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam. Her MA research, As a Designer I’m an Expert, I’m an Amateur, investigated real-life learning networks such as City Labs, focusing on the shifting professional and amateur roles designers inhabit, and on how situated knowledge and pedagogy are embedded in design practices.
Annemarie is a PhD candidate in the Doctoral Program at KU Leuven, LUCA School of Arts Genk, Unfolding Ecologies research department, supervised by Dr. Vrancken, Dr. Claes, and Dr. van Dartel. Her research is funded through JUST ART: Creating Common Grounds for Climate Justice Through Artistic Research, a project supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). Her research Aerial and Airing, a Situated Design Approach: Mapping Environmental Data through Material will address the complex issue of mapping environmental data, particularly through the lens of ‘Air’. The research focus on materiality, challenges conventional approaches to data representation and will integrate principles of situated knowledges and pedagogy into design practices. This situated approach is crucial in moving beyond traditional, hierarchical, and often detached methods of data visualization towards more inclusive and participatory frameworks.
Currently, she teaches at St. Joost School of Art & Design, Avans Creative Innovation, where she co-developed the minor Material Ecologies. In st. Joost she serves as a researcher at Caradt (Centre of Applied Research for Art, Design and Technology), involved in the Situated Art, Design and Technology research group. Her past work includes research with the Biobased Art and Design group, focusing on more-than-human learning environments in design education, The Garden that Sees, Smells, and Hears (2022-24).
Annemarie lectured at the Design Academy Eindhoven (2018–2023) and Artemis Academy (2014–2016), and has been a visiting lecturer at institutions including the Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam, the Summer School Design Campus (Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden), the LT Ranch Summer School (Lithuania), and the Summer School at the Institute of Creativity and Innovation (ICI), Xiamen University China.
She has served as an external commission member for the Creative Industries Fund NL (Open Call City Lab 2018-2019) and the Crafts Council NL (2025-2026), and is currently a member of the supervisory board of the EKWC, the international post-academic research center for ceramics.
She is co-founder of Lab AIR (until 2025), together with Iris de Kievith, a design collective dedicated to exploring air-related issues. Their first project, Smogware (2017-2025), involved creating ceramic tableware colored by air pollution.
In 2015-20 Annemarie was member of the City Lab Air Quality (Stadslab Luchtkwaliteit in Dutch). A group of committed citizens engaging with the air quality in Rotterdam, that experimented with spatial designs and shared knowledge. The City Lab was winner of the Job Dura prize 2018.
Previously she was an Industrial Textile Designer at Desso (2011-14) and had her internship (2003) at Trend Forecasting Agency Studio Edelkoort Paris.