L'Utopia presente – UNIDEE Residency Module

“L’Utopia presente, un invito a celebrare l’abbondanza del presente e a pensare insieme il futuro delle residenze” is the residency module I curated for UNIDEE, the educational programme of Cittadellarte, Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella, Italy, from 17 to 20 October.

Invited to conceive a thematic gathering for a selected group of Italian residency organizations, I proposed exploring the utopian nature of residencies with the help of concepts, values, and practices borrowed from the world of ecology and care. The conversations that sparked during these intensive stays revolved around three key themes: rooting oneself in a territory, building alliances and economies, and transforming narratives and imaginaries. (You can access the final document here, language ITA).

Invited residency professionals and organizations: Pasquale Campanella, Associazione Vincenzo de Luca, Latronico (PZ); Lisa Mazza, BAU Institute for contemporary arts and ecology, Bolzano; Emilio Fantini, Fondazione Lac o Le Mon, San Cesario di Lecce (LE); Giorgio Mega, Fondazione Studio Rizoma, Palermo; Lucia Giardino e Federico Bacci, Guilmi Art Project, Guilmi (CH); Serena Olcuire, Liminaria, San Martino Valle Caudina (AV); Imma Tralli e Roberto Pontecorvo, Marea Art Project, Praiano (SA); Paolo Mele, Ramdom, Castrignano de Greci (LE); Juan Sandoval e Annalisa Zegna, UNIDEE Residency Programs, Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte, Biella.

Made possible thanks to: Unidee – Cittadellarte, in collaboration with STARE, Associazione delle Residenze Artistiche italiane.

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Curator’s statement (in ITA): “Alla base di questo invito c’è un modo di intendere la residenza come un ecosistema sensibile, dove si praticano già i futuri che desideriamo. Il titolo, solo apparentemente un ossimoro, nasce dal riconoscere la natura utopica, di alterità, che caratterizza le residenze sin dalla loro genealogia e che, come suggerito all’inizio del testo, continua ad esistere in vario modo anche nelle residenze come organizzazioni e istituzioni di oggi. Invece che pensare all’utopia come luogo immaginato o di là da venire, con questo seminario desideriamo spostare l’attenzione sul presente delle residenze che, seppure imperfetto, è già espressione di una relazione diversa con il mondo.

Pensare a una residenza come ecosistema vuol dire riconoscere che la realtà è fatta di interdipendenza tra specie diverse, accomunate dalla loro reciproca vulnerabilità; vuol dire che la pratica in residenza è sempre un fare-con altri, umani e non; un fare che accoglie la complessità e la responsabilità. Implica anche l’apertura a un posizionarsi continuo rispetto a squilibri, privilegi e ingiustizie esistenti, consapevoli del rischio di ripetere comportamenti tossici. La residenza diventa allora una struttura di supporto che tiene conto della vita in tutte le sue forme.

A partire da queste considerazioni, l’invito di questo seminario è quello di esplorare insieme il fare utopico delle residenze con l’aiuto di concetti, valori e pratiche presi in prestito dal mondo dell’ecologia e della cura.” (A.Serino)

Notes by A.Serino

Mescolanza (mixture), a card collection to connect words, places and species

Mescolanza (books, set of cards, reading activities), 2022

Mescolanza, or mixture in English, is what happens when things are brought together.

For Emanuele Coccia the world is the space of a universal mixture; a space in which each thing is contained whilst also containing other things, and where the act of breathing is what shows our ‘reciprocal imbrication’, or interdependency.

After six weeks spent alongside oaks, weeds, rabbits, birds of paradise, several books and human guests, Mescolanza makes this place appear in motion, like a dance, where a set of specific words emerge and invite you to connect stories of trees with cosmologies, and cosmologies with geese and so on; eventually culminating in the reality that is the Amstelpark together with you and your experience there.

Mescolanza is a selection of books and set of cards displayed at the Orangerie, and also an invitation to read together in the park on Saturday 2nd July (‘Duck and Goose Politics’, with Ege Kökel) and on Sunday 3rd July (‘Oryngham’). Both events take place at 4pm.

Mescolanza was developed for the School for MultiSpecies Knowledges, a project initiated by Irina Shapiro (Open Set) and Alice Smits (zone2source).

You can read more about the project in the conversation between Angela Serino and Irina Shapiro, here.

Credits: photos by Balans LaB

“What is Magical is Hidden too”, workshop with ARRC Art Residency Research Collective

“What is Magical is Hidden too: an Exploration of Zone 00’, workshop for “Towards perma-cultural institutions. Exercises in collective thinking”, Curating for Advanced Practices, curated by Aneta Rostkowska, Nada Schroer and Julia Haarmann, Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen, Schöppingen, Germany. Co-curated with ARRC Art Residency Research Collective.

All pictures by: Camillo Pachón – Stiftung Künstlerdorf

Configurations of Time, time and residencies

The video “Configurations of time” is an adaptation of the lecture I delivered at the Saari Summer Assembly (Finland) in August 2021. 

A premise of the presentation was the need to question a certain regimented notion of time as something both homogeneous and universal. This is expressed as a single, unidirectional timeline wherein a residency is usually seen as an orderly sequence of events. The residency starts; it is followed by a public presentation (in the form of an event or open studio); then the residency ends, and a final report is subsequently submitted to funding bodies. This approach often comes with strong expectations that participants will show, ‘here’ and ‘now’, what the experience of hosting an artist has brought to the place and to her practice. In this context, to search for alternative ways of understanding time can become a way to follow different tempos, or to give value to things that are currently unnoticed. Lastly, understanding time differently broadens the cast of actors involved in a residency programme: it raises the prospect of making space for human and more-than-human voices. 

This video can be seen both as a speculative storytelling for a generic public and as an invitation for self-reflection for a specialized public.

Watch video on Vimeo (password protected).

Configurations of Time, Angela Serino, 2021 (video still)

(Dys)Functional Propositions, Bodies at Work in Belgrade

"Dysfunctional Propositions" by Bodies at Work (Maja Bekan and Angela Serino)

April 3 - 17, 2017 

Remont, Belgrade (Serbia)

A series of fictional conversations and actions by Bodies at Work (Maja Bekan & Angela Serino) with contributions by artists Marianne Flotron, Pilvi Takala, Harun Farocki and Bureau of Melodramatic Research among others.

Bodies at Work is a collaborative research project by Maja Bekan and Angela Serino examining and giving a voice to what kind(s) of “work” it is that art and cultural workers do. What is their relationship to time and space, how and for whom they work, how they balance their private, social and professional life, and what are the advantages and pitfalls of such circumstances. 

Involving various collaborations, Bodies at Work unfolds through small-scale performances, lectures, conversations and printed materials.

Bodies at Work was previously hosted by Institute for Provocation, Beijing (with support from Mondriaan Fonds) and BAR project, Barcelona. This is its third installment, and was made possible by the generous support of Stroom Den Haag.

(Dys)functional Propositions: Bodies at Work in Belgrade, 2017, installation view

Next to a large installation made of several printed matters produced over time through the project, and a new reading performance by M.Bekan and A.Serino, (Dys)functional Propositions: Bodies at Work in Belgrade presented a film screening, with the following film and video works:

"A New Product" by Harun Farocki, 2012 (36 min), "Work" by Marianne Flotron, 2011 (44 min), "The Trainee" by Pilvi Takala, 2008 (13 min), "Protect Your Heart at Work" by Bureau of Melodramatic Research, 2012 (28 min), "New Professionals of the Nation" by Maja Bekan, 2013 (6 min), "In Praise of Laziness" by Mounira Al Solh and Rumiko Hagiwara, 2015 (56 min) , "Golden Party” by Maja Bekan, 2012 (120 min), "Internship in Private" by Saskia Holmkvists, 2007 (90 min).

(Dys)functional Propositions: Bodies at Work in Belgrade, 2017, poster

International Meeting of Residencies: "Residencies as Learning Environments"

Dates: June 29 - June 30, 2015

Place: Open Care, Frigoriferi Milanesi, Milano

Participants: Mark Vennegoor (Res Artis, Amsterdam), Michele Trimarchi, (Professor of Economic Analysis of Law and Cultural Economics, Rome); Marie Fol (Dutch Culture | TransArtists, Amsterdam), Gaetano Carboni (Pollinaria, Italy), Vytautas Michelkevicius (NIDA Art Colony, Vilnius), Emilio Fantin (Free Home University, Lecce), Amanda Abi Khalil (TAP Temporary Art Platform, Beirut); Bayan Al Barak Kanoo (Al Riwaq Art Space, Bahrain); Giuseppe Moscatello (Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah); Sara el Adl (Townhouse Gallery, Cairo); Farid Abdullayev (Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku).

The Meeting was created by FARE as part of AIR – artinresidence’s project, the Italian network of artist residencies (www.artinresidence.it). It was curated by Angela Serino, who also moderated the two day sessions. 

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Several definitions and perspectives have been used in the last few years to describe the value of artists’ residencies and to identify heir specific function in the attempt to understand where they stand as new institutions in the art field. For some, residencies are "forums of affinities" that bring together like-minded people in specific places imbued with history; for others, residencies are spaces that provide artists with facilities to carry out ambitious and innovative works that would not be realized otherwise. For others still, residencies are spaces that favor intangible production and open research processes and collaboration, with results that are only visible over time.

Considering this kaleidoscopic range of valuable possibilities, the International Meeting proposes yet another perspective. We would like to look at residencies as learning environments, places for collective and personal self-development that are complementary to the existing educational paths available for artists (i.e. Bachelor, Masters and PhD programs for the Arts), and to the educational programs offered by museums and art institutions.

We believe that the interruption of one’s daily routines, the variation of the perception of time, the focused moments shared by artists and professionals with their peers in a specific place, and the encounter with a new culture function as catalyst for processes of self-transformation, knowledge acquisition and circulation. The result of such processes is the production of a knowledge that is ‘unframed’, informal and uncertified. More particularly, the residency becomes an occasion for learning (or unlearning) ways of making and thinking for the resident artist, as well as for those who have contact with the artist during his stay (i.e. local artists, collaborators and other professionals, specialized and general public that take part in the activities developed by the resident artist).

We will talk about whether and how this occurs with directors and curators of residency programs coming from Italy, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Lebanon, Bahrain, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, and Azerbaijan.

Guests are invited to present and discuss their ideas of education and the production of knowledge through specific projects and programs of their organization, highlighting the function that each specific project has in its regional context.

The results of the International Meeting were published in the booklet "Residencies as Learning Environments". The booklet was conceived and edited by Angela Serino in collaboration with Marianna Maruyama, designed by suqrepubliq.it, and published by FARE.

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Links:

Download here the Press Kit of the International Meeting >

Read "Residencies as Learning Environments" (Booklet) >
Download "Residencies as Learning Environments" (Booklet) >

Read more about AIR – artinresidence >

Read more about FARE >

You are never not supposed to be working

Dates: June 26 - June 28, 2014

Places: Hangar and Espacio Nyam Nyam, Barcelona

Artists and participants: Maja Bekan, Harun Farocki, Marianne Flotron, Claudia Pages Rabal and Anna Pahissa (múltiplos)

Credits image: “Weekend art: hallelujah the hill”, 1996-2000 Aleksandar Battista Ilic (in collaboration with Ivana Keser & Tomislav Gotovac).

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"You are never not supposed to be working" is the second episode of “Bodies at Work”, an on-going project by Angela Serino and Maja Bekan. This episode was developed by Angela Serino as part of the curator-in-residency program at BAR project, Barcelona, from April till June 2014.

“You are never not supposed to be working” presents a series of artworks and interventions where pressure of mindfulness described by Sarat Maharaj is made visible and is at play in specific situations and at different places of work: from the open space offices of the glass buildings of large corporations, to the new co-working tables used by self-employed cultural workers and even in the domestic spaces of a living room turned into a temporary office. As we will see the dynamics and the reasons for instigating or implicitly expecting such presence of mind in these spaces of work are various and different, and those differences are very telling. The public presentation will be the occasion to trace and discuss them together.

“Bodies at Work” is a collaborative research project by Maja Bekan and Angela Serino examining and voicing what kind(s) of “work” it is that art and cultural workers do. What is their relationship to time and space, how and for whom they work, how they balance their private, social and professional life, and what are the advantages and pitfalls of such circumstances. It consists of small-scale performances, film screenings, lectures, conversations and printed materials. The first part of the project took place in Beijing, China in 2013 with the kind support of Mondriaan Fonds and IFP, Institute for Provocation Beijing.

Program:

Thursday 26 June, 6pm, Hangar, Barcelona.
The Ghost in the Factory

Introduction by curator Angela Serino

Act(s) on the table / Actos sobre la mesa performance by artist Claudia Pages Rabal
A table: that was once a frustrated work, that wants to become a co-working table but ends up being a pretext for an (im)possible love story among two, three, four or more characters who are busy seeking/choosing the potential of the “we” either as a disinterested common or as an advantageous new business model. This work was especially developed for “You are never not supposed to be working”.

Work, Marianne Flotron, video (2011), 44 min
The artist invited the Columbian Theater of Oppressed’s director Hector Aristizábal to work for one week in the insurance company in the Netherlands. He set up a forum theater play (a form of the Theatre of Oppressed) at the company’s premises helped by several actors and employees of the company. In the contemporary labor society where most of the subjects identify themselves over work, “Work” is emphasizing the way the capitalistic economy is forming behaviour and influencing mentality by employing knowledge of social science.

A New Product, Harun Farocki, documentary (2012), 36 min
Farocki immersed himself for one year in the world of QT, Quickborner Team, a business consultancy from Hamburg that specializes in the optimization of workspaces within the knowledge industry. He followed their meetings and their attempts to develop a new consultancy product. The result is a compelling portray of how design of human labour and spaces for human labour are conceived and discussed in corporate business culture. In the words of the author, “the film shows that words are not just tools, they have become an object of speculation.”

Saturday 28 June, 12am, NyamNyam, Barcelona 

Dentro y fuera. Permanecer o escapar como estrategias para la supervivencia / Staying or leaving as strategies to survive
“Dentro y fuera” is a journey through images and texts from artists’ publications compiled by curator Angela Serino and múltiplos’ founder and director Anna Pahissa to describe what happens in between the walls of a house, around a kitchen table or in a living room turned into a studio office when the anxieties and pressure of (over)productivity generated by their professions shake their life and desires and temptations to steal time, find ways of disappearing or leaving the house permanently start to appear surreptitiously in their heads.

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Links:

Read the full text here: http://barproject.net/en/author/angela-serino >

BAR project, Barcelona: http://barproject.net/ >

More info on the project "Bodies at Work" >

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Public events at Hangar, Espacio Nyam Nyam. Photo credit: Eva Carasol.

Bodies at Work, what is the future of the cultural worker?

Dates: July - December 2013

Place: IFP, Institute for Provocation Beijing, www.iprovoke.org

Project developed together with artist Maja Bekan, supported by Mondriaan Fonds.  

Credits image: "New Professionals of the Nation”, performance for Bodies at Work, Rundel Market, Beijing 2013.

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“Bodies at Work” is a collaborative research project by Maja Bekan and Angela Serino examining and voicing what kind(s) of “work” it is that art and cultural workers do. What is their relationship to time and space, how and for whom they work, how they balance their private, social and professional life, and what are the advantages and pitfalls of such circumstances. Involving various collaborations, "Bodies at Work” enfolds itself trough small-scale performances, lectures, conversations and printed materials.

The first of such events was “I Want to Retire” (May 2013, NL), followed by a six months residency at IFP, Institute for Provocation, Beijing supported by Mondriaan Fonds. At IFP, the project consisted of two primary elements. First, “The Ultimate Flexible Work Station” by Maja Bekan initially conceived for the van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven in 2011 and then adapted for Beijing. Parallel with the workstation, the project comprised a regular reading group at IFP on the topic of art and labour and a series of public activities developed in the city – such as “New Professionals of the Nation”, an intervention by the Chinese experimental singer Fenny in the Rundel Market; “Thinking of an Art Worker: what is an Artist? what is a Curator? .. and 100 other very important questions”, a two-day workshop at CAFA, Beijing Art Academy in collaboration with the educational department of CAFA Museum; “Surviving Art”, a public discussion at Homeshop, artists’ initiative in Beijing, curated by Michael Eddy.

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Links:

You can find more information on the research in Beijing on the blog of the project: www.bodiesatwork.net >

Bodies at Work presentation at IFP, collective reading, Bejing 2013

Bodies at Work, logo, Beijing 2013

noa language school

Dates: 25-26-29 June 2013

Places: Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, Goleb, Zina, Studio Amsterdam and the Japanese Restauant Hakata Senpachi.

noalanguageschool is a project developed by curator Angela Serino and artist Mounira Al Solh and supported by a research grant from the Mondriaan Fund.

Artists and participants: Mounira Al Solh, Martine Neddam, Fadi El Tofeili, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Francesco Bernardelli, Marianna Maruyama, Grupa Spomenik/The Monument Group (Jelena Petrović and Jelena Vesić), Ahmet Öğüt, Marie Frampier, Esther Kempf, Anna Dasovic and Sarah Jones, Nicoline van Harskamp.

www.noalanguageschool.org >

Credits image: Presentation at SMBA, with Angela Serino and Nicoline van Harskamp.

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noa language school is attempting to create a different approach to language education, starting from the experience of living (in)between two or more languages.

noa language school is led by artists who invite the public to learn or unlearn existing or artificial languages, as a means of exploring and creating other selves and an alternative sense of community. At noa language school you can learn to share your mother tongue with foreigners—or learn to unshare it when necessary. noa allows you to explore the use and comprehension of languages from different sides and positions. Throughout the various sessions that make up this three-day school, artists will stage expert talks to train the ear of Dutch people listening to the broken Dutch spoken by immigrants; a writer and an artist invite us to intimately learn Arabic words by describing the sounds with the help of an Italian opera singer; and Moroccan ladies will physically train us, moving our jaws to help us repeat the words they use to describe Dutch people.

noa language school Amsterdam was made possible by the financial support of Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, SMBA, Squat Deluxe.

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Here below you can read some of the comments of the participants to our activities.

“It had the sense of being something in progress and that really appealed to me, possibly because it made me feel more involved, that we were all shaping the way things went. I also thought this approach, as well as shared meals, film screenings, and a sense of play (playing with language, playing with the voice) made the whole thing relaxed and prompted conversations that began with what we had been doing (what workshops, the ways in which they were odd or a bit surreal / how they made us feel) leading to what they made us think about.” (Sarah Forrest, artist from Glasgow)

“It took me a week to sink in the experience and realize that I learned a few important things, most important probably the idea of expertise. Everybody is an expert in this field of languages and it’s a very democratic subject to bring people together.” (Nicoline van Harskamp, artist from Amsterdam)

“I was very insecure, thinking what can I teach to those artists? But the round table worked very well, they all listened to what I said with a lot of interest, and I enjoyed their stories of moving in or out in different countries. The conversation took a philosophical turn at the second half of our talk…” Kenneth Chin Sue (works as a transportation car driver in Amsterdam).

“Each of the language sessions created in its own way a collectively produced space where different tongues, hands, personalities and nationalities confronted each other, and did not pretend that there were no borders between them. This helped a more organic bridging between all those languages.” (A.M.)

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Links:

Read more on the concept here: http://www.noalanguageschool.org/more-information/ >

Download poster of the programme here >

A detailed description of each sessions, and more pictures are available on the website of the project: www.noalanguageschool.org/sessions >

Download here the now language school postcard >

noa language school invitation postcard

Public discussion at SMBA

"How to Lose Your Voice: Exercises to Achieve the Loss of Voice", language session Marianna Maruyama, Goleb

"Hafif …" language session by Fadi El Tofeili and Mounira Al Solh, studio Salve (Niek de Wit ) 

"Learning Language by Eating", language session Marianna Maruyama, Japanese Restaurant Hakata Senpachi

"Tell me a story you don’t know", Anna Dasovic and Sarah Jones, performance, SMBA. Photo credit: Melanja Palitta, Igor Sevcuk.

I Want to Retire

Dates: 18-19 May 2013

Place: Westbroekpark, Den Haag; ADA, Rotterdam.

Artists: Andrea Büttner, Harun Farocki, Romana Schmalisch and Robert Schlicht, Kymberley Ward, Želimir Žilnik

Image credit: Westbroekpark, Den Haag, photo credit: Maja Bekan

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Is art work or not work? Do we work too much because life itself has become ‘occupied’ by constant activity that makes obsolete the division between free time and work? Are we able to listen to the demands of our finite body in front of the infinite demands placed upon it? Do you also dream to retire in order to fully enjoy your life?

These are the starting questions of “I Want to Retire” a two-day public events to introduce “Bodies at Work*”, a collaborative research project by Maja Bekan and Angela Serino.

“I Want to Retire” comprised the collective action “Reading while Rowing” at Westbroekpark, Den Haag, and a film-screening at ADA, Area for Debate and Art in Rotterdam.

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Programme:

On MAY 18, 15:00h, READING while rowing (Den Haag, Westbroekpark)

We invite you to spend the afternoon together in the beautiful Rosarium part of Westbroekpark, just a few tram stops from Central Station or Holland Spoor.

In a picnic-like setting we will read and comment together excerpts of “Work”, by Norwegian philosopher Lars Svendsen and of “Don’t Smile, Organise” by British writer and philosopher Nina Power, while attempting to row in the local lake.

This reading-rowing session will be followed by Kymberley Ward’s short presentation of “It doesn’t cost”, a recent project that stemmed from Ward’s employment as a teacher of English language in a factory in Breda. Kymberley Ward is a performance artist currently enrolled in the MA Fine Arts at Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam.

Tea, coffee, orange juice and biscuits will be offered during the afternoon.

May 19,  FILM SCREENING (Rotterdam, ADA, Rotterdam)

On Sunday, after the physical and mental exercise on Saturday, we invite you to join us for an evening of film and video screening focused on different stories of workers’ life, places of work and attitudes towards one’s own occupation.

This evening we will also introduce briefly “Bodies at Work”, our collaborative project that is developed at IFP, Institute for Provocation in Beijing (China) starting from July 2013.

Film 1: Little Sisters Lunapark Ostia, Andrea Büttner, 42 min, UK, 2012

The work features a sisterhood of nuns who work in a small amusement park near Rome, and shows the artist asking the nuns questions related to value, happiness and spirituality as they ride on rollercoaster and fish for prizes. This film was presented at Documenta 13 Kassel in 2012.

Film 2: A New Product, Harun Farocki, 36 min, Germany, 2012

Over the period of one year Harun Farocki joined the meetings of the Quickborner Team, a business consultancy in Hamburg, as they developed a new consultancy product. The QT specializes in organizational building planning and property management (meaning the design of workspaces, offices and social zones). Farocki filmed the QT’s internal meetings, as well as meetings with clients. The resulting documentation/ film focuses on the practice of future forecasting in commercial consultation at a time of upheaval, wherein consultancy is itself examining the procedures of decision-making that constitute corporate branding.

Film 3: The Way Steel Was Tempered, Želimir Žilnik, 101 min, Yugoslavia, 1988

This feature film is one of the most important works by Želimir Žilnik, a Serbian film director and one of the major figures of the ‘Yugoslavian Black Wave’. It focuses on the story of Leo, a worker employed in a steel factory and follows him in his personal turmoil and the socio-political agitations that surround him, until his return to the native country with a surprising and unexpected happy-ending.

Film 4: Recitando, Romana Schmalisch and Robert Schlicht, 35 min, Germany, 2010

This film is the documentation of an encounter between workers from the Moscow paper factory “October” and two filmmakers from abroad. The paper production process which seems to be captured in documentary shots is staged for the camera by the workers, since the factory does not produce anything at the moment – and this non production is the condition for their appearance as actors in the film. Here, indeed, the workers recount and reflect upon their current situation – being filmed instead of producing paper – in a series of Brechtian chorus scenes. Punctuated by intertitles citing discussions within the Soviet film avant-garde of the 1920s, the film reflects upon the relation of cinematographic image and reality, and of artistic and industrial production. 

*“Bodies at Work” is a collaborative research project by Maja Bekan & Angela Serino examining and voicing what kind(s) of “work” it is that art and cultural workers do. What is their relationship to time and space, how and for whom they work, how they balance their private, social and professional life, and what are the advantages and pitfalls of such circumstances. Involving various collaborations, “Bodies at work” enfolds itself trough small-scale performances, lectures, conversations and printed materials.

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Links:

Download the poster here >

Read more on the Bodies at Work blog >

Kymberley Ward, presentation at Westbroekpark

 "Reading while Rowing", session at Westbroekpark

 "Reading while Rowing", session at Westbroekpark

Screening video "Little Sisters Lunapark Ostia" by Andrea Büttner, ADA Rotterdam

Our House in the Middle of the Street

“Our House in the Middle of the Street” is the title of public programme developed for Kunsthuis SYB at the Kunstvlaai

Dates: 23 November - 2 December, 2012

Place: Kunstvlaai, Festival of Independents Amsterdam

Curated by A.Serino icw Maritt Serena Kuipers.

Artists and participants: Brian Dudley Barrett, Lisa Mazza, Laura Windhager, Noa Giniger, Lea Porsager, Yael Messer, Marco Pasi, Aymeric Mansoux, Frans Willem Korsten, Italo Zuffi, Renske Janssen, Joaquín Cociña & Cristóbal León.

Credits image: “The Anatta Experiment” (2012), Lea Porsager, video still.

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“Our House in the Middle of the Street” comprises a program of lectures, artists’ presentations and collective exercises revolving around issues of hospitality, private/public dimensions, openness, collectivity and self-education as suggested by the nature of SYB’s residency program.

Designer Sandra Kassenaar and artist Niels Vis are the authors of the on-site installation: a mobile multi-panel structure inspired by the homonymous book celebrating the ten year anniversary of SYB. This structure will change and adapt to the several activities of the week.

Programme:

On Saturday 24, media theorist and artist Aymeric Mansoux discusses the complexity of concepts such as openness and free culture and their potential to build their potential to build an alternative in "a society where information, code and law are forming an increasingly powerful trinity". Following Mansoux, professor Frans Willem Korsten will present his ideas on "the minimal conditions" for collectivity together with ZIMIHC, the Utrecht based band, performing since 1983, and from which he is a member.

Is it possible to explore a different approach to art experience through collective exercises? On Wednesday 28, artist Italo Zuffi invites the visitors to build up geometric shapes by taking part in his performance “Toothpick Geometries”. Simultaneously, the details of the geometry are filmed and projected onto a screen in real time. Zuffi’s “Toothpick Geometries” reflects upon the double nature of every collaborative process, which is extremely powerful but at the same time fragile and demanding. Italo Zuffi’s ‘Toothpick Geometries' is part of “PAY ATTENTION please”, a project co-curated by Valerio Del Baglivo and Angela Serino, promoted by Kunsthuis SYB, FARE and City of Milan.

On Thursday 29, art critics and writers are all invited to attend “Seen and Unseen”, the writing workshop by Renske Janssen. For a number of years, Kunsthuis SYB has organised a programme for reviewers, whereby young writers are offered the opportunity to write a review on a regular basis, which is then published on SYB’s newsletter and website. For Kunstvlaai, SYB has invited critic, curator and writer, Renske Janssen, to give a workshop on art writing.

During the workshop, the dos and don'ts of an art review will be discussed and new reviews will be written. Participation in the workshop is free.

Finally, on Saturday December 1, the whole day will be dedicated to residency models and experiences, under the title “Living and Working Together/Nesting Togetherness”.

The main questions underpinning the talks are: Why do artists choose to do a residency? In what way does the structure of a residency differ from other existing supporting structures for artists, such as the gallery, the project space, the academy or the studio? How can a residency contribute to the development of the artists today?

‘Living and Working Together’:

Taking inspiration from his recent book ("Artists on the Edge: The Rise of Coastal Artists' Colonies, 1880-1920", 2010), art historian Brian Dudley Barrett will talk about the ideological and practical reasons that led to the development of village art colonies.

Art theorist and curators Lisa Mazza and Laura Windhager have recently graduated at the Visual Cultures Department of Goldsmiths University London with their dissertation “How to Live Together? How to Work Together? On Residencies as Sites of Community and Production”. Here at the Kunstvlaai, they will concentrate on questions of production and representation within contemporary residency programmes, as well as the reciprocity between infrastructure and artistic production in those given spaces. 

‘Nesting Togetherness’:

During her residency in 2011 in Kunsthuis SYB, artist Noa Giniger invited six fellow artists from different countries to stay with her, each for one week, for an in-situ dialogue. Giniger recently published the book “Ecstatic Streaming”, which concludes and translates “Zimmer for FAB” into a printed form. 

In the late summer of 2011, artist Lea Porsager invited seven friends to Casa Anatta at former artist colony Monte Verità in Switserland. Initially inspired by the rich and dense history of the site, the project soon became an experiment in itself. “The Anatta Experiment” is a film and an installation realised for Documenta13 this year. The film will be screened at SYB’s booth at the Kunstvlaai. 

Curator Yael Messer and philosopher Marco Pasi will comment on the works by Noa Giniger and Lea Porsager. Angela Serino will moderate the talk.

As further contribution to the Kunstvlaai, in the “Doubling Time, Cinema and Video Are” you can view the special screening of “The Apocalypse Community”(2012) by Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León; and “The Frisianl LanEscape” (2011) by Shana Moulton and Noa Giniger.

The programme of Kunsthuis SYB at the Kunstvlaai was supported by the Mondriaan Foundation, the Province of Friesland and Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.

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Links:

Download posters here >

Download the public talks' poster here >

www.kunstvlaai.nl/2012/ >

www.kunsthuissyb.nl >

Kunsthuis SYB's stand at the Kunstvlaai, by Sandra Kassenaar and Niels Vis. Photo: Niels Vis.

Kunsthuis SYB's stand at the Kunstvlaai, by Sandra Kassenaar and Niels Vis. Photo: Niels Vis.

Kunsthuis SYB's stand at the Kunstvlaai, by Sandra Kassenaar and Niels Vis. Photo: Niels Vis.

Kunsthuis SYB's stand at the Kunstvlaai, by Sandra Kassenaar and Niels Vis. Photo: Niels Vis.

PAY ATTENTION, please

Dates: 28 October 2012 - 2 January 2013

Place: Sala delle Colonne, Fabbrica del Vapore (Milan) and Kunsthuis SYB (Beetsterzwaag)

Curated by Angela Serino and Valerio Del Baglivo. A collaboration between Kunsthuis SYB (NL) and FARE Milano (IT), promoted by City of Milan.

Artists: Maja Bekan, Rory Pilgrim, Paola Anziche’, Marwa Arsanios, Valerio Rocco Orlando, Italo Zuffi.

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Is it possible to interrupt our usual routine and suspend our daily programming – however briefly – to rethink the ways and the rhythms of our ‘making’? Can art provide us the opportunity to activate a different level of attention towards ourselves and the environment around us? If any activity requires a certain degree of attention, what happens when the content of an artwork considers the aesthetic dimension of concentration itself?

Through a series of collective activities, involving both physical and mental exercises, the artists of “PAY ATTENTION, please” will generate moments of concentration that aim to encourage alternative ways of observing, experiencing and relating to our surrounding environment.

The proposed exercises will allow us to develop new abilities and skills, as well as to gain new knowledge. But they are also intended to cause shifts and deviations in the experience of each participant, helping them to focus on their relationships with other people, as well as with the familiar gestures they make every day. Transforming the creative act via group actions that also require a degree of individual concentration, “PAY ATTENTION, please” aspires to stimulate a different understanding of our everyday experiences.

”PAY ATTENTION, please” stems from a reflection on the role of residency programs as places of isolation and concentration, and it takes inspiration from the recent projects “ON Residency or an (in)visible production”, curated by A. Serino at Kunsthuis SYB, and “Decompression Summer Camp", co-curated by Valerio Del Baglivo and Radical Intention at Corniolo Art Platform in Tuscany.

The project is supported by the City of Milan, FARE and Kunsthuis SYB, and it consists of a series of public activities that take place at Sala delle Colonne, Fabbrica del Vapore (Milan) and Kunsthuis SYB (Beetsterzwaag).

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Links:

Download the detailed programme of the activities and more information on the artists here >

Download the programme flyer here >

www.kunsthuissyb.nl/ >

http://www.kunsthuissyb.nl/archief/pay-attention,-please/weblog.html >

www.farearte.org >

http://www.farearte.org/progetti/la-residenza/pay-attention-please/ >

Sala delle Colonne, Fabbrica del Vapore (Milan)

Kunsthuis SYB (Beetsterzwaag)

IT’S ALL ABOUT US, with halts, detours, new paths and many words in between

Dates: 4-8 July 2012, 

Location: Oude Kraan 26, Arnhem

Fine Art Graduation Show, Arnhem

Artists: Simone Albers, Claartje van Beuningen, Niels van Bunningen, Roos van Dijk, Beatrijs Dikker, Liedewij van Eijk, Frank van Hoorn, Malou Kwint, Myrthe van der Mark, Inge Meijer, Joost van Ophem, Roel van Putten, Rudolf Romero, Jolanda Roelofs, Anna Sinnema, Elejan van der Velde, Irene Veltkamp, Sanne Zurne’.

Curated by Angela Serino i.c.w. Suzie Hermán

Credits image: "It's All About Us", workshop session. Photo: Angela Serino

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“IT’S ALL ABOUT US…” is the result of a conversation featuring the many voices of the group of graduating students from the Fine Art academy of ArtEZ, first begun a few months ago. It’s a title that encapsulates several impressions and processes, full of nuances and complexity, developed over that period. Yet it also retains a certain tone of provocation, born out of my initial meeting with the students.

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Links:

Read the text in the exhibition’s catalogue >

Invitation and exhibition catalogue. Design by: Johannes Buch and Sander Huizings.

24HR\1W. ventiquattroreunlavoro

Presentations in my house, Amsterdam

Dates: May 24, June 28 and September 12, 2012

Credits image: "Internship in Private" (2007), Saskia Holmkvist, video still

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"Ventiquattroreunlavoro" is a formula to talk about labour: ours – the artistic, cultural one, defined as intangible and immaterial, very often simply uninterrupted – and what work is or has been for other people, both inside and outside the art and cultural sectors.

Each gathering comprises two parts:

24HR = twenty-four hours
1W = one (piece of) work

24HR: Twenty-four hours of daily life are those of the guest of the evening. Using images, texts or any other material, the guest is invited to talk about his/her workday in the style that he finds most congenial and appropriate.

1W: is one work, such as an artists’ video, a movie, a piece of a novel, or content of any form that tells real or fictional stories of other workers. This work can also describe the situations of employees outside the creative sector, and refer to a different time period other than our contemporary years.

"Ventiquattroreunlavoro" took the form of irregular gatherings in the living room of my house. It hosted: “At the daybreak of a new day”, a tale by curator Francesco Bernardelli, WERKER MAGAZINE, a publication about photography and labour initiated by Marc Roig Blesa and Rogier Delfos (27.05.2012), 'Internship in Private', a film by Saskia Holmkvist (2007) and 24HR by curator Corrado Salzano.

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Links:

There is intentionally no documentation of such gatherings, except the invitations.
You can download them here >

Invitation cards. Design by: Karen Willey

On Residency, or an (in)visible artistic production

Dates: 28 March till 8 May 2012

Place: Kunsthuis SYB, , Beetsterzwaag

Artists: Paola Anziché , Elsbeth Ciesluk, Suzie Hermán (art historian), Maria Pask, Andreas Schwab (curator Museo Casa Anatta, Monte Verita’ Ascona), and the artists’ collectives ADA from Rotterdam and The Living Room(s) from Amsterdam.

Credits image: "14 Instructions," Maria Pask, workshop session, photo: Paola Anziché

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Why do artists choose to take part in a residency? In what ways do the structure of a residency differ from other existing supporting structures for artists, such as the gallery, the project space, the academy or the studio? How can a residency contribute to the development of artists today?

The residency was mainly approached as a break from daily routine, as a prerequisite for an investigation into conditions of work and the possibilities to find a better balance between living and working.

These questions were addressed by ‘On Residency or an (in)visible artistic production’ via a series of public and semi-public activities hosted in the domestic space of Kunsthuis SYB.

The first two weekends of ‘On Residency’ were marked by the design of a conceptual and material framework developed by Paola Anziché. Inspired by the oeuvre of the Brazilian artist Lygia Clark and her idea of the collective body, Anziché created ‘Spaziando’, a large and complex net of Lycra in which, during the programme, participants could move and nest themselves.

Parallel to this, a reading group assembled at different moments in Kunsthuis SYB. The reading group consisted of the artists’ collectives ADA (Rotterdam) and The Living Room(s) (Amsterdam), and additionally the visual artist Elsbeth Ciesluk and the art historian Suzie Hermán. The reading material consisted of articles and essays addressing the ideas of laziness, exhaustion, production and labour.

Finally, the interventions by Prof. Andreas Schwab Monte and artist Maria Pask completed a special journey through the history of artists’ colonies and rural residencies from the past.

This project was made possible by the support of Mondriaanfonds, Provincie Friesland and the Italian Cultural Institute in Amsterdam.

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Links:

Download the interview with the artist Paola Anziche’ here >

You can find more information on the ‘weblog’ on Kunsthuis SYB’s website >

Download SYB newsletter >

Reading sessions and public activities at SYB with ADA, The Living Room, Maria Pask, Andreas Schwab. Photo: Paola Anziché

Reading sessions and public activities at SYB with ADA, The Living Room, Maria Pask, Andreas Schwab. Photo: Paola Anziché.

Reading sessions and public activities at SYB with ADA, The Living Room, Maria Pask, Andreas Schwab. Photo: Paola Anziché.

Reading sessions and public activities at SYB with ADA, The Living Room, Maria Pask, Andreas Schwab. Photo: Paola Anziché.

Reading sessions and public activities at SYB with ADA, The Living Room, Maria Pask, Andreas Schwab. Photo: Paola Anziché.

Reading sessions and public activities at SYB with ADA, The Living Room, Maria Pask, Andreas Schwab. Photo: Paola Anziché.

Reading sessions and public activities at SYB with ADA, The Living Room, Maria Pask, Andreas Schwab. Photo: Paola Anziché.

Reading sessions and public activities at SYB with ADA, The Living Room, Maria Pask, Andreas Schwab. Photo: Paola Anziché.

Reading sessions and public activities at SYB with ADA, The Living Room, Maria Pask, Andreas Schwab. Photo: Paola Anziché.

Reading sessions and public activities at SYB with ADA, The Living Room, Maria Pask, Andreas Schwab. Photo: Paola Anziché.

Reading sessions and public activities at SYB with ADA, The Living Room, Maria Pask, Andreas Schwab. Photo: Paola Anziché.

Reading sessions and public activities at SYB with ADA, The Living Room, Maria Pask, Andreas Schwab. Photo: Paola Anziché.

Reading sessions and public activities at SYB with ADA, The Living Room, Maria Pask, Andreas Schwab. Photo: Paola Anziché.

Kunsthuis SYB at Supermarket Art Fair

Dates: 17-19 February 2012

Place: Kulturhuset Stadsteatern, Stockholm.

Artists: Rory Pilgrim (GB), Erica van Loon (NL), Shana Moulton (US) and Noa Giniger (IS/NL)

SYB’s presentation was curated by Angela Serino, Maja Bekan and Maritt S. Kuipers (members of Kunsthuis SYB’s programming committee).

Credits image: SYB's stand at Supermarket (works by Shana Moulton and Rory Pilgrim). Photo: Maja Bekan, Maritt S. Kuipers

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Supermarket is the international art-fair in Sweden, which aims to provide a showcase for artists' initiatives from all over the world and to create opportunities for new networks in the Swedish as well as the international art scene.  

The exhibitors are generally not-for-profit exhibition spaces. In addition to the exhibition, the event includes a seminar programme, a performance art stage and a meeting programme for networking.

Kunsthuis SYB took part to the 2012 edition with works by former residents Rory Pilgrim (GB), Erica van Loon (NL), Shana Moulton (US) and Noa Giniger (IS/NL).

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Links:

http://www.kunsthuissyb.nl/archief/supermarket,-stockholm-2012.htm >

SYB's stand at Supermarket (works by Shana Moulton and Rory Pilgrim), Photo: Maja Bekan, Maritt S. Kuipers.

SYB's stand at Supermarket (works by Shana Moulton and Rory Pilgrim), Photo: Maja Bekan, Maritt S. Kuipers.

SYB's stand at Supermarket (works by Shana Moulton and Rory Pilgrim), Photo: Maja Bekan, Maritt S. Kuipers.

SYB's stand at Supermarket (works by Shana Moulton and Rory Pilgrim), Photo: Maja Bekan, Maritt S. Kuipers.

SYB's stand at Supermarket (works by Shana Moulton and Rory Pilgrim), Photo: Maja Bekan, Maritt S. Kuipers.

SYB's stand at Supermarket (works by Shana Moulton and Rory Pilgrim), Photo: Maja Bekan, Maritt S. Kuipers.

From the Start to the Beginning

Exhibition with MA students from MA AKV|St. Joost Academy

Dates: July 1-10, 2011

Place: Lokaal 01, Antwerp

Credits image: Elsbeth Ciesluk, detail of the installation (2011)

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How We Started This Beginning.
​Keys to enter the exhibition by Angela Serino

It is always an interesting and exciting challenge to organise an exhibition with a group of students from either an art academy or participants of a Masters programme. Of such invitations, what I enjoy most is that they always stimulate a curator to seek out alternative logic and explore the necessities of presenting works that often vary drastically in intentions and styles, as well as for level of maturity (precision and density of ‘artistic material’, if you will).

What typically guides me in such situations is the desire to look closer and involve other aspects of the creative process, such as what it means or implies to make art. The finished results should leave the artists with more than just the satisfaction (albeit legitimate) of showing a work in an exhibition. After all, I believe that what is at stake within these invitations is the unique possibility to accompany a group of young artists for a brief period of their artistic evolution: a path through which they are expected to gain self-awareness (to know where they stand as artists) and professionalism (being capable of carrying out practical and theoretical choices that can strengthen their works on multiple levels). In all of this, the exhibition is but a moment.

When I first visited St. Joost Academy in Den Bosch and I sat down with the seven artists participating in this show – Elsbeth, Remy, Pim, Theodora, Raphael, Tanya and Nelleke – I had precisely those thoughts in my head, but, of course, not yet a clear answer or path to follow. I was not alone though. As a means to begin a conversation ‘among strangers’ (as we then were), I had brought with me “Six Memos for the next Millennium” by Italo Calvino. He’s a writer that I not only love for his short stories, but also for his unconditional faith in the power of visual imagery – a trait he could well share with artists. In this particular book, Calvino skilfully and beautifully intertwines excerpts from classical and international literature to describe the “principles or peculiarities of literature that are very close to my heart'' and "things that only literature can give us''. Those principles are: lightness, velocity, exactitude, visibility and multiplicity. They are the things he wishes to be preserved for future generations, but at the same time they are also commentaries on his own work – keywords that help to pierce his own novels and world of writing.

Calvino’s highly personal vision of literature has not only been a great incentive for breaking the ice and conversing with the artists about “things that really matter” in their works. It has also become a conceptual and working tool around which this exhibition and its booklet were formed. After that first encounter, in fact, and drawing from its positive feedback, I invited the artists to consider further if any of those keywords or concepts would apply or resonate within their own work: if they found those principles to be important in their art practices in some way; or if they felt instinctively attracted to any concept in particular; or, on the contrary, if they would include or refer to others left out by the author.

The result of this conversation with multiple voices (Calvino’s, the artists’, mine, as well as those of the MFA tutors) is sitting now in your hands and also captured within the works and presentation of the exhibition. In fact, the whole project has become a writing exercise where the artists have woven together words, images and artworks to present their practices.

The collection of texts you find in this booklet is not direct illustrations of the writer’s own theories, but rather comments and reflections which echo from the words of Calvino – those that remained etched in the artists’ minds. Inspired by one or more of Calvino’s original principles, each artist has given their own interpretation of it, as a way to explain more about their own way of working or their personal vision as artists. It’s about what catches their attention, what moves their hands, what they see when they look, what matters most to them and how they wish to be seen by others. Together, the texts and images in the booklet enrich the works in the show by offering insight into nuances or ways of looking at their work.

You could almost view the entire project as an attempt at stimulating self-reflection, and to some extent, also an act of self-definition: a way for the artists to test themselves with a narrative that combines words and images alongside the concrete works. As such, within this booklet, these new pathways of reference are now open and offered to you, to enter the artists’ creative process, while walking through the exhibition room. Such an act can make an artist feel extremely vulnerable to external judgment of their intimate reasoning and the mechanisms of their creative process, but it also ultimately strengthens what they stand for as an artist.

Finally, I’d like to share a few words about the title. Among the list of lectures that Calvino included in his book, there are some for which he wrote only the titles (such as the sixth, “Consistency”; and the eighth, “On the beginning and the ending [of novels]”). The title of this exhibition comes precisely from an initial slip of the tongue in relation to the latter title. But unlike Calvino’s unwritten lecture, with this show we are part of a narrative without a beginning and an ending. We are celebrating a moment between the first and second years of the MFA programme; a moment where the artists prepare for a new beginning within the Masters programme; and they are about to enter a new stage in their process of becoming professional artists. From this perspective, I see this writing exercise as an empowering tool in this direction, and the show and this booklet as only the beginning of many more potential narratives.

Angela Serino (Amsterdam, June 13, 2011)

Overview catalogues at Lokaal 01.

A Second Exchange

Dates: 25-27 September 2009

Place: Bergstraat and Korsjespoortsteeg, Amsterdams Historisch Museum –Amsterdam

Artists: Laurence Aëgerter, Mounira Al Solh, Alexis Blake, Egle Budvytyte, Francesca Grilli, Achim Lengerer, Ahmet Ögüt, Niels Vis, Meiro Koizumi.

Credits image: Office at Bergstraat 16

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“A Second Exchange” is the three-day public presentation that concluded RED A.i.R. | Redlight Art Amsterdam, an artists-in-residence program in former brothels in the centre of Amsterdam. The presentation brought together the works developed by the eight resident artists during their residency and at the same time – via the two public discussions on 26 and 27 September - offered the opportunity for reflection on the role of art in processes of urban transformation.  

“A Second Exchange” takes its inspiration from the “Role Exchange”, a performance developed by the artist Marina Abramovic in 1976 in the red light district of Amsterdam in which she swapped places with a prostitute. After more than thirty years artists are behind the windows again, though in very different circumstances. While in Abramovic’s case, the project stemmed from the artist’s personal interests in the space of the brothels and the world of prostitution, this time artists are invited to occupy the vacant brothels as part of the gentrification initiated by the city planners to replace undesirable elements of the sex industry. Within these conditions, the government support of Art in Redlight Art Amsterdam inevitably raises the question of what the artists are expected to give in return. In short, what is the rate of this second exchange? 

By accepting the invitation of the Municipality to occupy the former brothels at Bergstraat and Korsjespoortsteeg, near Spuistraat and Singel, the intention of the artists and the curator was to accept the challenge to respond to those questions and to define the terms of this new exchange. The eight individual works and the content of the public talks reflect the complexity of this process. 

Laurence Aëgerter’s speculations on the possible alternative futures of her studio space are now collected into a series of photographs, posters and a database, which is a display of the leftovers from the transformations of her studio “Opening Soon/Opening Now”. In the works in progress “A Double Burger and Two Metamorphoses” and “One or Two Invasions by Higher-Income Groups”, Mounira Al Solh performs, respectively, a fictional experiment about her limits as a human being and reflects on her position as an artist taking part in the gentrification process. Alexis Blake’s “The hole is greater than the sum of its parts”, is an installation based on recent conversations Blake had with a philosopher who used rational choice and game theory to theorize Blake’s position as an artist in the residency and her choice to choose choice as her topic of inquiry. Inspired by Parkour, Egle Budvytyte's “Leap” is a fictional film on the use of architecture “to jump, to stretch, to hide”. The history of Francesca Grilli’s studio space has become the inspiration for “Bergstraat 16”, which is a funeral monument for Truus, a prostitute murdered in 1959 at this address. In “Hold on, I, too, am drifting”, actor Kevin Cregan enacts a new story written by Achim Lengerer, based on his personal annotations and found text from literary works. An incident reported in a newspaper article in Turkey provides inspiration for Ahmet Ögüt’s installation “A Love Story”, which underlines the topic of love and desperation in an alienated world of object exchange. In his new works, Niels Vis continues with the investigation of modernist architecture through a series of photographs and research material and questions the concept of transparency on an architectural, social and personal level.

RED A.i.R., artists-in-residence program in the red light disctrict, is curated by Angela Serino for Redlight Art Amsterdam, which is organized by City of Amsterdam, DeKey/Principaal, SMBA and Kunstenaars&CO.

The public talks “Redesigning the city” and “The Function of Art” are curated by Angela Serino in collaboration with Vesna Madzoski.

The project was financially supported by: City of Amsterdam, DeKey/Principaal, Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, Fonds BKVB, Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds, Amsterdam Historisch Museum, Goethe Institute, Italian Cultural Institute.

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Links:

Download the programme poster here >

Download the booklet here >

Link to SMBA >

Read more on the RED A.i.R., artists-in-residence program in the red light disctrict in the homonymous section >

Interview with artist Marina Abramovic >

“Notes on the project Redlight Art Amsterdam”, article in the special issue "Re-Making a Landscape of Prostitution: The Amsterdam Red Light District" in the journal “City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action”, 2012 >

“Living with the girls”, a booklet with excerpts from the interviews with the local residents realized by Angela Serino >

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Video documentation of the public programme:

Public program: 'A Second Exchange,' Day 1 (25 September 2009).

Public Program 'A Second Exchange,' day 2 (26 September 2009).

"Hold on, I, too, am drifting" Achim Lengerer, performance

"Leap", Egle Budvytyte, video still

Alexis Blake, session focus group at De Bouwkeet

Alexis Blake, session focus group at De Bouwkeet

"Bergstraat 16", Francesca Grilli, installation

Korsjespoortsteeg, overview

"A Love Story", Ahmet Ögüt, installation

Korsjespoortsteeg, overview

"Voting List", Ahmet Ögüt, poster

"Opening Soon, Opening Now", Laurence Aëgerter

"Leap", Egle Budvytyte, video still

"Leap", Egle Budvytyte, video still

"One or Two Invasions by Higher-Income Groups", Mounira Al Solh, installation

"Untitled (Bedroom at The Brick House by Philip Johnson 1949)", Niels Vis, photograph

"One or Two Invasions by Higher-Income Groups", Mounira Al Solh, installation

"One or Two Invasions by Higher-Income Groups", Mounira Al Solh, installation

"One or Two Invasions by Higher-Income Groups", Mounira Al Solh, installation

"One or Two Invasions by Higher-Income Groups", Mounira Al Solh, installation

"One or Two Invasions by Higher-Income Groups", Mounira Al Solh, installation

"Opening Soon, Opening Now" (Swimming Pool), Laurence Aëgerter

Public programe "Redesigning the City" with Alexis Blake, Gideon Boie (BAVO), Vinca Kruk & Gon Zifroni (Metahaven), Huib Haye van der Werf

RED A.i.R.|Redlight Art Amsterdam: record of events

from January 2009 to September 2009

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January 22, RED A.i.R. Opening

Where: Bergstraat 1,14,16 - Korsjespoortsteeg 9,11,12, 23

Alderman Carolien Gehrels, Fer Felder from De Key/Principaal and Will Codrington from Stadsdeel Centrum officially opened RED A.i.R., the artists-in-residence program developed by Angela Serino for Redlight Art Amsterdam.

From this moment Laurence Aëgerter, Mounira Al Solh, Alexis Blake, Egle Budvytyte, Francesca Grilli, Achim Lengerer, Ahmet Ögüt and Niels Vis could use the former brothels in the central area of the Bergstraat and the Korsjespoortsteeg as their studios. As participants of this residency program, the artists were invited to reflect on the context of the project, meaning both the physical space of the studios (with its stories and architecture) and the symbolic space, represented by the process of transformation of this part of the city and of the public image of Amsterdam.

Although all the artists worked towards a final presentation of their works, from April till September 2009 RED A.i.R. hosted a series of public presentations, film screenings and talks in the studio spaces of the artists, under the title Eventless Events.

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March 17, RED A.i.R. Artists' presentation at SMBA

Where: SMBA, Rozenstraat 59

This evening was the first public presentation of RED A.i.R. resident artists. Using the timeline defined by a carousel slide projector, the artists presented a compilation of found footage, recorded interviews, excerpts from documentaries and existing soundtracks to introduce their research topics and outline their plans for the residency period. Concepts of transparency and levitation, investigation of scripting processes and of political icons were some of the themes touched during the night. The presentation provided the public with an impression of the artists’ different approaches, and their difficulties in relating to a highly charged framed context.

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April 18, Eventless Event 1

Where: Korsjespoortsteeg 11 and 12

Eventless Event 1 summoned curators and artists, who had previously worked in a situation where they were expected to react to a particular environment/space/circumstance, as a way to generate a dialogue about the complexities of production within a certain framework. We started at Mounira Al Sohl's studio where Maaike Gouwenberg presented “Mostly It Happens At Night”, the project she had organized in the Bijlmer for FLAT Foundation, in collaboration with Sandra van Dongen. Artists Constant Dullaart and Maurice Bogaert, participants of “Mostly It Happens At Night” presented respectively “bijlmer.me” and “Mostly Nothing Happens at All”, the works they had developed in this occasion. The participants of the De Appel Curatorial Programme 08/09 joined this presentation with an introduction of “Weak Signals Wild Cards”, the project for which they commissioned thirteen artists and seven multidisciplinary thinkers to imagine and respond to the future of Amsterdam Noord, the ‘creative city’. 

The evening continued at Alexis Blake and Niels Vis' studio with the screening of the documentary “Grey Gardens” (1975) - a story of a mother and daughter who defied the norm by living as recluses in their dilapidated 28-room mansion. ‘Some called them crazy, while others believed them to be prophets’.

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March 20 – 21, RED A.i.R Open Studios

Where: Bergstraat 14,16 - Korsjespoortsteeg 9,11, 12 and 23

On March 20 and March 21 the resident artists of RED A.i.R., Laurence Aëgerter, Mounira Al Solh, Alexis Blake, Egle Budvytyte, Francesca Grilli, Achim Lengerer, Ahmet Ögüt and Niels Vis opened the doors of their studios to the public. For most of the local residents, this was the first time they were allowed to enter the brothel spaces they used to look at from their houses.

As a special event, Francesca Grilli and guest-artist Anna Franceschini organized the performance “Nine Lives”, in response to an historical event that occurred in Grilli’s studio space and was only discovered by chance.

“Bergstraat 16 featured in the news in May 1959, when a prostitute was murdered. The prostitute was the 45-year old Truus Krieger. That same week, another prostitute was nearly strangled in the nearby Oude Nieuwstraat. Fortunately, “Pretty Hetty” had resisted fiercely and was luckier than Truus. Truus’ murder was solved only in 1963, thanks to Ria, another prostitute. For the occasion, we invited Ria and Pretty Hetty to take possession of the Studio of Bergstraat 16”. (F. Grilli, A. Franceschini)

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May 15,16,17 and 23 Eventless Event 2

Where: Korsjespoortsteeg 12, 23

The May program of Eventless Events featured the opening of the “Public Library” by Laurence Aëgerter from 15 May till 17 May, a screening program selected by Ahmet Ögüt on 16 May and the first Salon organized by Niels Vis on 23 May.

For one weekend the former brothel at the Korsjespoortsteeg 23 was transformed into a Public Library. On the ground floor 40 meters of classified books were displayed on shelves. During opening hours a librarian was in attendance for visitors while she carried out research into methods of book classification. Several methods would be tested including famous systems of classification such as Harvard's, as well as alternative systems using principles from mathematics or game theory. On Saturday 16 May a 12-hour private reading performance took place in the Reading Room on the second floor. Aëgerter had invited 24 men and 24 women who have never previously met. Each man was asked to bring a book and to read an extract aloud from it to one of the women for fifteen minutes. “Public Library” was the first part of “Opening Soon/Opening Now”, a series of transformations of Aëgerter’s studio into spaces with different public designations.

Via those transformations, the artist researched the transitional character of her studio space, in between a brothel and a renovated house.

In the same weekend, on Saturday 16 May, Ahmet Ögüt screened a selection of videos from “Random Rules: A Channel of Artists’ Selections from You Tube”, followed by “Underground” (1976) by Emilie de Antonio, a documentary which combines interviews with and archival footage of the Weatherman, the militant faction of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) who fought the U.S. government during the 1960s and 1970s.

Eventless Event 2 continued on 23 May with “Les Salons” by Niels Vis. The first Salon kicked off with an ongoing visual dialogue between Niels Vis and Alexis Blake, which was shown in the front space of their shared studio. Via a brief verbal dialogue, they addressed an aspect of Blake's research - the rhetoric of images constructed collectively through means of focus groups. In this discussion Vis looked at the specific spatial setting of these focus groups.

“Les Salons” were developed by Vis as occasions for a public dialogue with other artists who shared similar research interests in how architecture shapes our environment, realizing specific values, dreams and desires. Similar to the turn-of-the-century Austrian salons, those meetings were intended by the artist as occasions for informal conversational exchanges for mutual enlightenment and amusement.

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June 6- 12, Eventless Event 3

Where: Korsjespoortsteeg 12 / 12-1, Korsjespoortsteeg 23

Eventless Event 3 featured the second “Salon” organized by Niels Vis, the second appointment of “Opening Soon/Opening Now” by Laurence Aëgerter and the opening of “Scriptings”, the temporary showroom by Achim Lengerer at Korsjespoortsteeg 12.

For the second “Salon” Niels Vis invited Czech artist Barbora Klímová (1977, Brno) to take part in a dialogue about “Famous Brno Villas II” (2006), her ongoing personal research project in the field of individual family housing in Brno in the Czech Republic during the period of normalization between 1968 and 1989. In this dialogue Vis contrasted Klímová's research with Dutch and western architectural experience in the same period by focusing on varying expressions of the modernist ideal of architectural transparency in villa architecture.

Following immediately that same evening, on the first floor of Korsjespoortsteeg 12 Achim Lengerer opened “Scriptings” with “Folded Matters”, a presentation by Amsterdam-based graphic designer Paul Gangloff.

“Scriptings” was a discursive platform, intended by the artist as a parallel and additional activity to the development of his work for the final presentation of RED A.i.R. Starting from May, Lengerer hosted in his studio artists, writers, graphic-designers, performers and publishers, all of whom use the formats of script and text in their production process. The presentations at Korsjespoortsteeg 12 took the format of talks, reading, display and performance.

Eventless Event 3 continued the next week with the opening of the Turkish Snack Bar, as the second public event of “Opening Soon/Opening Now”, by Laurence Aëgerter.

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June 20-21, Eventless Event 4

Where: Korsjespoortsteeg 12-1 / Bergstraat 16 / 14

Eventless Event 4 featured a film screening in two parts and a performance.

We started on Saturday at Bergstraat 16 with the performance “Who do You Think You are?” by Dafne Boggeri, whose work explores the body as a site of contested powers. Her work was in response to Francesca Grilli’s invitation to take over her studio space and developed a one-hour performance based on “The Breakfast Club”(1985). The storyline of this American teen film follows five teenagers (each a member of a different high school clique) as they spend a Saturday in detention together and come to realize that they are all deeper than their respective stereotypes. With a simple gesture of the covering of the faces of the protagonists during the development of the film, Boggeri questioned the identification process usually taking place between the viewers and the film. What if the person who speaks is deprived from his/her primary element of identity, the face?

Following immediately that same evening we moved to the living room of the guesthouse for the first part of “Secrets from the Street: No Disclosure”, a film screening curated by Francesco Bernardelli with works by Joan Jonas, Trisha Brown, Martha Rosler, Peter Hutchinson, Gabriel Lester, Mike Hoolboom, Todd Solondz and others. As Bernardelli stated: “this audio-visual exploration tackles one of the fundamental issues of today urban living: how to read embedded signs mimetically disguised as plain elements of an extensive urban fabric and at the same time to disentangle them and reinvest them with new functions and a new direction”. The filmic and video works of “Secret from the Street.” are examples of a re-invention of the urban drift. “They speak of basic personal freedom, but even more of the possibility of a constant re-imagination of our communicative tools, which are continuously being subverted and recreated according to needs and urgencies of the moment.” The film screening continued on Sunday night, from 8pm at the guesthouse.

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Film program “Secrets from the Street: No Disclosure”, curated by F. Bernardelli:

Saturday June 20.
​Bergstraat 14, from 8pm till midnight

- “Posterama” (1980) by Lous America, David Garcia, Henk Wijnen & Annie Wright, the Netherlands, sound, colour, 11:39 

- “Wild Style”(1982/83) by Charlie Ahearn USA, sound, colour, 82:00 (Excerpts)

- “Secrets from the Street: No Disclosure”(1980) by Martha Rosler USA, sound, colour, 10:45 

- “Song Delay” (1973) by Joan Jonas USA, sound, b/w, 18:35, 16 mm film on video + Midnight Movie: “The Girl from Monday” (2005) by Hal Hartley USA, sound, colour, 84:00

Sunday June 21.
Bergstraat 14, from at 8pm till midnight

- “Shorts” (1973) by Peter Hutchinson, Germany, sound, colour, 17:50 

- “Urban Surface” (2005) by Gabriel Lester, The Netherlands, sound, b/w, 10:40 

- “Horizontal Silence” (2003) by Seoungho Cho, USA, sound, b/w - colour, 8:31 

- “What I'm Looking For” (2004) by Shelly Silver, USA, sound, colour, 15:00 

- “Mapping a City of Fragments” (1997) by Chip Lord, USA, sound, colour, 9:30 

- “Public Lighting” (2004) by Mike Hoolboom, Canada, sound, colour, 76:00 +

Midnight movie: “First Episode from Storytelling”(2001) by Todd Solondz, USA, sound, colour, 90:00 

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4, 19 July, Eventless Event 5

Where: Korsjespoortsteeg 9/12

Eventless Event 5 featured two new presentations of Lengerer’s “Scriptings”.

On July 4, Lengerer invited the Austrian artist Kerstin Cmelka to present her micro dramas "Supporting movie" and "Change". The same evening Lengerer presented a rare selection of books by the French artist Guy de Cointet (1934–1983) plus the original video recordings of de Cointet’s performance work in the early eighties.

About “Microdramas”, artist Kerstin Cmelka states: “In my collection of "Microdramas" I use existing dramatic text excerpts as well as clichéd feature film scenes and theatrical shorts that already found their form, function and meaning as well as their audience to rehearse and perform them - for camera and live - with befriended amateur performers. The potential of language, gesture and mimicry in this folk play material lies in its rhythmical, bodily rehearsal and repetitive use and mediation and is reinforced and brought onto another plain of meanings and connotations through the hermetic and intimate atmosphere in which it is trained. Its format is expanded through the coexistence of privacy and the identification with the suggested characters that have to be performed.”

“Tell Me” by Guy de Cointet

“Northern California, October 1979. It’s late afternoon at Mary’s. Her house is on the bank of the Sacramento River, in that stretch of the river which is as beautiful as the Danube between Ybbs and Melk, east of Vienna. A few miles away is the town of Courtland, a Chinese settlement for many years, where the famous Dr. Sun Yat Sen lived for a time in exile. After her day’s work, Mary is home planning to spend the evening with some of her best friends: Michael, Olive, and hopefully, the elusive Mark. The way these young women behave, talking and listening to each other, how they see and perceive their surroundings interest me. One of these days, I believe, I’m going to drive up North and pay a visit to Mary" Guy de Cointet, 1979

On July 19, the forth edition of Achim Lengerer's “Scriptings” series presented Gustav Mechlenburg and Nora Sdun, editors of the Hamburg-based magazine Kultur&Gespensterand, and “The Mock and other superstitions”.

Mechlenberg and Sdun presented the first edition of Kultur&Gespensterand, dedicated to writer Hubert Fichte and discussed their independent publishing and editing practice.

When asked about how this publication can be described, the editors of this magazine (Frederik Bandel, Nora Sdun and Gustav Mechlenburg) answer: “'Drawers' always stick. Of course it isn't a literary magazine because we don't print narrative prose or poetry. We are a magazine of culture and visions. And we don't intend to give anyone who wants to read it any 'house rules'.”

 “The Mock and other superstitions” is a quarterly journal based in London and edited by Francesco Pedraglio. The magazine is a collection of written pieces rethinking the connections between art-writing and writing-as-art. It is intended as a tool to explore the relation of artists, writers and curators with the physical nature of text.

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July 18, 19 and 21, Alexis Blake, Focus groups “Perceptions of Choice”

Where: De Bouwkeet of the Stedelijk Museum, Museumplein

On July 18, 19 and 21 RED A.i.R. resident artist Alexis Blake used The Stedelijk Museum’s De Bouwkeet both as a site of research and production, a platform for dialogue and a location to stage a live art event. Using the existing elements of De Bouwkeet, she created a setting for a series of focus groups to take place. Various individuals involved in shaping thought and opinion in the city of Amsterdam were invited to participate in the research and with the assistance of moderator Stephanie H. Blake, Ph.D., Blake examined how these individuals reflected upon the notion of ‘choice’. The focus group participants were presented with historical and contemporary references — images, video clips and text — that used the rhetoric of ‘choice’ to communicate either a personal or collective set of beliefs, ideals and/or truths. Blake is in the process of editing the recorded sessions, to be included in a concluding video. 

The four focus groups were: on July 18, Governmental Affairs (professionals working in public policy and city politics); on July 20, Communications (journalists, reporters, presenters and researchers working for various Dutch newspapers, radio and TV stations and blogs); on July 21, Humanities/Social practice (theorist, professor, writer, graduate student, architect, and

professionals working in city marketing/branding and museum education) and Art (artists, curators and directors).

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August 22-23, Eventless Event 6

Where: Korsjespoortsteeg 23

After the “Public Library” and the “Turkish Snack Bar”, the last episode of “Opening Soon / Opening Now” was accessible to the public. This time the former brothel on Korsjespoortsteeg 23 became a public swimming pool. “For two days all ages are welcome to recreate in a unique swimming pool, under supervision of professional bath superintendents. The swimming pool at the ground floor is for recreation, instruction and competition according to the timetable below. Bring your swimsuit and towel and drop by for some aqua-aerobic, maternity swimming or recreational swimming”.

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September 9, Eventless Event 7

Where: Korsjespoortsteeg 12 (2-floor)

The last Eventless Event featured “Melodrama for Men #2”, a new performance developed for RED A.i.R. by the Japanese artist Meiro Koizumi.

Koizumi used this project to comment on social values, male-female relations, individual obsessions and nationalist uses of human bodies. The performance raised the question of Japanese sex slavery during World War II through the experiences of Jan Ruff O'Herne, a Dutch woman forced to become a 'comfort woman' for Japanese soldiers. From the end of the war nationalist sentiment required the denial of the existence of these women until the women themselves raised their voices in the 1990s. They declared that they had been forced into prostitution as a method of keeping the soldiers under control. For the performance Koizumi disguised himself as an androgynous creature, creating a setting for the perpetrator and the victim or for the male and the female narrative to meet, as well as for the two cultures participating in this crime.

In “Melodrama for Men#2”, Koizumi touched upon motifs of an individual’s inner turmoil, Japanese nationalist war romanticism and the uses women’s bodies were put to within the Japanese wartime social system. Koizumi exposed human nature free of imposed interpretation or direction. When nationalism is once again on the rise around the world, Koizumi felt the need to reveal the cruel value system hidden behind Japanese historical narratives and portrayed it in a theatrical work centered upon the female body. Through this performance Koizumi’s ritualistic act confronted the audience with the wartime crimes of those in power in Japan who seek to readjust historical facts as a means to obtain political power in the present day.

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September 12, RED A.i.R. and Zuidas AIR

Where: Stedelijk Museum Bouwkeet, Zuid As, Gustav Mahlerplein

RED AiR - Artists in Residence in the Red Light district and Zuidas AIR.

Angela Serino, curator of Red AiR held a conversation with Minke Horn (Vrije Ruimten Zuidas AIR) about Artists in Residence programs. “The past years Artists in Residence programs have gained popularity, and give a certain impetus to an environment. In the conversation Serino and Horn will try to find some possible answers concerning the questions of happens when an artist uses a certain place as inspiration for artworks.”

With artists Francesca Grilli (RED A.i.R.) and Justin Bennett (Vrije Ruimten Zuidas AIR).

Curator of Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, Jelle Bouwhuis moderated the conversation.

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September 25, 26, 27 “A Second Exchange”, RED A.i.R. final presentation

Where: Bergstraat 1,14 and Korsjespoortsteeg 9,11,12, 23 – Amsterdams Historisch Museum (Kalverstraat 92) – Oudezijds Achetrburgwal 78a

“A Second Exchange” was a three-day public presentation which closed RED A.i.R.| Redlight Art Amsterdam, the artists-in-residence program in former brothels in the centre of Amsterdam. The presentation brought together the works developed by eight resident artists during the past months. It was an opportunity to reflect on the role of art in the process of urban transformation in two public discussion sessions on September 26 and 27. Participating artists were Laurence Aëgerter, Mounira Al Solh, Alexis Blake, Egle Budvytyte, Francesca Grilli, Achim Lengerer, Ahmet Ögüt and Niels Vis.

Public program, 26 September: “Redesigning the City”, with Alexis Blake, Gideon Boie (BAVO), Vinca Kruk & Gon Zifroni (Metahaven), moderated by Huib Haye van der Werf.

Public program, 27 September: “The Function of Art”, with Joyce Goggin, Eva Fotiadi, Diedrich Diederichsen, moderated by Jan Hein Hoogstad.

All the events were free entrance.

These events were made possible by the generous support of the City of Amsterdam, DeKey/Principaal, Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, Fonds BKVB, Stadsdeel Amsterdam Centrum, Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds Noord-Holland, Amsterdams Historisch Museum, Goethe Institut Niederlande and the Italian Cultural Institute of Amsterdam.

Special thanks to all the resident artists and guests of our programme.

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Biographies of the guests and information on the projects

Mostly it happens at night, February 2009
’Mostly it happens at night’ is the first Flat project by guest-curator Maaike Gouwenberg, in collaboration with Sandra van Dongen. Artists participating are: Maurice Bogaert, Constant Dullaartt, Quinsy Gario, Regina Kelaita, Anne Schiffer, Pilvi Takala, Marcel van den Berg, Jonas Ohlsson and Daniele Bershan. The project is an experiment on how artists present their work in physical and virtual space with the Bijlmer as the starting point.
http://mostlyithappensatnight.blogspot.com/ >

Maaike Gouwenberg (b. 1977, The Netherlands) lives and works in Amsterdam. Maaike Gouwenberg is a freelance curator for several projects in the Netherlands and abroad. After her studies of Fine Arts in Utrecht in 2004, Gouwenberg was artistic director of the platform for emerging artists ‘Expodium’ in Utrecht. In 2006/07 she participated in the Curatorial Training Program at De Appel arts centre. She was the curator of ‘The Black Magic Woman Award’ 2007, for which artists Katarina Zdjelar, Mounira Al Solh, Monali Meher and Anne Schiffer were selected. In 2008 ‘Curator Curator’, a series of projects of emerging curators at HISK in Ghent, was initiated by herself and Maarten Vanden Eynde from ‘HYPERLINK "http://www.enoughroomforspace.org/"Enough Room for Space’. Gouwenberg is working at ‘If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution’, a rolling platform for performative arts. Next to this the experimental project ‘Mostly It Happens At Night’ took place in February 2009. On the base of this project, a new project will be shown around the theme of the relation between men and machine.

Constant Dullaart (b. 1979, Leiderdorp, The Netherlands) lives and works in Amsterdam and Berlin. Dullaart studied at Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam and was resedent at  Rijksacademie van Beeldende kunsten 2007-8. Solo exhibitions include: ‘Dolores’, Ellen De Bruijne Pojects, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2009; W139, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2006; ‘Constant Dullaart curates Constant Dullaart in 5 days’, Fast Forward Gallerie, Antwerpen, Belgium. Group exhibitions include: ‘Off The Record’, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2009; ‘Here We Are There We Go’, NIMK, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2009; ‘Contemporary Semantics Beta’, Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2009; ‘Forms of Melancholy’, Sego Art Center Utah, USA, 2009; ‘Mostly It Happens At Night’, Flatstation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2008; ‘Capricious Space’, New York, USA, 2008. Cuurently Dullaart is teacher and mentor at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, editor of Park 4DTV and of Lost & Found and advisor for the European Exchange Academy Beelitz-Berlin.
www.constantdullaart.com >

Maurice Bogaert (b. 1975, Heerlen, The Netherlands) lives and works Rotterdam. Bogaert finished the Hogeschool Katholieke Leergangen in Sittard and the Sculpture department at the Academie Beeldende Kunsten, Maastricht. Bogaert gained his MA in art from the Piet Zwart Institute in 2001. Bogaert’ s exhibition and projects include:  ‘Fantastic Borders’, Gil&Moti Homegallery, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2009; ‘BLURRR met Volksrekorders’, TENT. ,Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2009; ‘Hidrellez’, Glazenhuis, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2009, icw Marielle Videler;  ‘WISSELZONE’, ‘SIGN/Noorderstation’, Groningen, The Netherlands, 2009; ‘4th International Short Film Festival’, Detmold, Germany, 2008; ‘Live Art Zone 2#’, club NDSM, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2008’, ‘Filmfest Dresden / Volksrekorders’, Dresden, Germany, 2008; ‘Play I /Performance Lab’, Cultuurmijl, Enschede, The Netherlands, 2008; ‘Cities & Objects’, Nieuwe Vide, Haarlem, The Netherlands, 2008. Since 2006 Bogaert is lecturer of Art History at the School for Theatre Directors, Theaterschool, AHK in Amsterdam.
http://www.mauricebogaert.nl >

Weak Signals, Wild Cards (Curatorial Programme De Appel, 2008-09). ‘Weak Signals…’ was an exhibition of commissioned works, talks and performances curated by De Appel Curatorial Pgrogram of 2008/2009: Clare Butcher, Ji Yoon Yang, Lilian Engelmann, Mia Jankowicz,Christina Li, Ana Nikitović. The curators invited ten international and local artists, artist collectives, and contributors from other fields to react to the development plans for Amsterdam-Noord and to imagine a set of alternative futures.  Artists and contributors were: Young-Hae Chang, Heavy Industries (KR/USA), Heman Chong (SG), Design Negation (NL), Flying City (KR), Yvonne Dröge Wendel (NL), Famed (DE), Andreja Kulunčić (HR), Alon Levin (USA/NL), Oda Projesi (TUR), Merijn Oudenampsen (NL), Laura Oldfield Ford (UK), Maria Pask (UK/NL) and Lee Scrivner (USA/UK).
www.weaksignals.nl >

Anna Franceschini (b. 1979, Pavia, Italy) lives and works in Amsterdam. Franceschini is an independent videomaker, she got her degree in “Media Studies” with the thesis entitled “The Holy and the Image” in 2006. She is researcher in History of Italian Cinema at the IULM University, Milan, with Professor Gianni Canova. Her first experimental documentary, ‘Polistirene’ (2007 won the Avanti! Award at Bellaria Film Festival and has been selected at Locarno Film Festival. Her second documentary, Pattini D’argento (Silver Ice Skates won the Filmmaker Production award. At the moment she is working on a new documentary; ‘Casa Verdi’ (working title), in collaboration with Invinsible Film in Milano, Italy. Since 2009 Franceschini is a resident artist at Rijksacademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam.

Barbora Klímová (b. 1977, Brno, Czech Republic) lives and works in Brno. Klímová studied Fine Arts at University of Technology, Brno, and attended the HISK in Antwerp, Belgium between 2004-2006. Solo exhibitions include: ’Replaced’, Czech Center, New York, USA, 2008; ‘For those who were not born here’, Sokolska 26, Ostrava, Czech Republic, 2007 and Galerie Caesar, Olomouc Famous Brno Villas II., Galerie G99, Brno. Group exhibitions include: ‘Performing the East’, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg, Austria, 2009; ’Where to Go? Notes on Transformation after 1989’, rotor, Graz, Austria, 2009; ‘Prague Biennale 4’, Karlin Hall, Prague, Czech Republic, 2009; ‘Manifesta07’, Trentino, South Tyrol, Italy, 2008; YVAA exhibition, Magacin Gallery, Belgrade, Slovenia, 2008; ’6. Biennial of young art Zvon (Bell)’, City Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic, 2008. Upcoming shows are: ‘For those who were not born here’, "U dobrého pastýre Gallery, Brno. Czech Republic, Nov. 2009 – Jan.2010; ‘Formats of identity transformation’, Museum auf Abruf in Vienna, Oct. – Nov., 2009.
http://server.ffa.vutbr.cz/~barborak/ >

Paul Gangloff (b.1982 in Altkirch, France) lives and works in Amsterdam. Paul Gangloff studied graphic design at the ERBA in Valence, France and at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He was on of the three collaborators of the graphic design bureau OneDayNation (www.onedaynation.com). He now cooperates with artists and theorists by means of speaking, writing, reading, and designing printed matters. He currently collaborates with the Faculty of Invisibility and the Department of Reading. Paul Gangloff teaches graphic design at the preparatory course of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and at the Academy of Art & Design in Arnhem, The Netherlands.

Dafne Boggeri (b.1975, Tortona, Italy) lives and works in Milan. Boggeri studied in Genova and then at Scuola Politecnica di Design, Milan. Solo exhibitions of Boggeri include: ‘Relax, it’s only me’, with Sonja Cvitkcovic, S 1107 Alvarado St, Los Angeles, USA, 2007; ‘Hidden Line on Explicit Surface N.01’, Centre Culturel Francais de Milan, Milano, Italy, 2006; ‘Dispositif.02’, MiArt, Fiera d’Arte Contemporanea di Milano, on invitation Assab One, 2005; ‘Dafne Boggeri / Espace Experimental’, Espace Experimental de le Plateau, Paris, France, 2004. Recent group exhibitions include: ‘Looking for the Border, De Garage, Mechelen, Belgium, 2007; ‘The FM Ferry Experiment, Staten Island Ferry, New York, USA, 2007.

Francesco Bernardelli (b. 1969, Torino, Italy) lives and works in Turin. Contemporary art critic and curator, Francesco Bernardelli has been working in the framework in between visual arts, time-based media and performance, curating film and video programs and performance projects. From 1999 until 2005 he organized the video and filmic screening programs of Castello di Rivoli - Contemporary Art Musem, often in collaboration with the National Cinema Museum of Torino. In 2004-05 he co-catalogued the historical video collection of Castello di Rivoli, and in recent years he has been writing about the connection between performance, video art and moving images. His essays has been published by istitutions like MAMbo, Bologna, Papesse Contemporary art center, Siena, Castello di Rivoli, GAM-Modern Art Gallery, Torino, Stedelijk Museum, De Appel, Amsterdam. Among the recent projects, he curated “Split Subjects” De Appel, Amsterdam 2005 and “Figures of Excess” Beursschouwburg, Bruxelles, 2006. He is part of the curatorial team for Theater der Welt/Essen 2010.

Kerstin Cmelka (b. 1974, Mödling, Austria) lives and works in Berlin and Frankfurt. Cmelka studied at the Städelschule, Frankfurt. Recent performances and exhibition participations include: "Ein Traum ist alles Leben und die Träume selbst ein Traum", Kunsthalle Lingen, Germany, 2009; "Die Wahrnehmung von Ideen führt zu neuen Ideen", Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany, 2008; "Schnecke, Vogel, Katze und Qualle", Galerie Mezzanin, Austria, 2008 and 2nd Moscow Biennale for Contemporary Art, Russia, 2008.
http://www.kunstraum.net/content-en/press/exhibs/cmelka_press_information.pdf >

Guy de Cointet (1934, Paris, France – 1982, Los Angeles, USA). De Cointet moved to the states in the late 1960s, briefly becoming one of Warhol's Factory visitors in New York, before settling in Los Angeles. His work was well regarded in his lifetime, and remained influential long after his death, particularly to west coast practitioners such as Mike Kelley and Allen Ruppersberg. In the last couple of years his work was rediscovered and featured in shows and re-creations of his performances e.g. at Stuk, Leuven, Belgium; De Appel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom.

“Kultur&Gespenster”
The first edition of the quarterly magazine “Kultur&Gespenster”, (i.e., Culture and Visions) appeared in August 2006. The editors are: Jan-Frederik Bandel, Gustav Mechlenburg and Nora Sdun. When asked how this publication can be described, the team answers: " 'Drawers' always stick. Of course it isn't a literary magazine because we don't print narrative prose or poetry. We are a magazine of culture and visions. And we don't intend to give anyone who wants to read it any 'house rules' to be going on with." 

Francesco Pedraglio (b. 1981, Italy) lives and works in London. Francesco Pedraglio is an independent curator and writer based in London. From January 2007 he co-direct “FormContent”, a not-for-profit space in the east of London. FormContent’s mission is to create a platform in which to experiment with exhibitions formats and foster an active collaboration between artist and curators, while challenging their roles. In 2008, he started “The Mock and other superstitions”, a fanzine researching the relationship between art-writing and writing-as-art.

Meiro Koizumi (b. 1976, Maebashi, Gunma, Japan) lives and works in Tokyo. Koizumi studied in Amsterdam and lived in London before recently relocating to Tokyo. He obtained his BA from International Christian University, Tokyo, in 1999 and his BFA from London Institute Chelsea College of Art and Design in UK in 2002. He was a resident artist at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam in 2005-2007. Presentations of his work have been held at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau in Amsterdam, Tate Modern in London, the Govett Brewster Art Gallery in New Zealand  and more recently in a solo show at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. He is represented by Dicksmith Gallery and Annet Gelink.

Participants of Alexis Blakes’ Focus groups: Governmental Affairs: Najah Aouaki, Anne Bijlmer, Rick Jansen and Rutger Groot Wassink; Communications: Steve Korver, Ernst-Jan Pfauth, Bahram Sadeghi, Nicole Terborg, Mette te Velde and Olaf Zwetsloot; Humanities/ Social Practice: Uri Gilad, Joyce Goggin, Robert Pennekamp, Rixt Hulshoff Pol, Raoul Teulings, Mike Shulmeister and Gail Zuckerwise; Art:  Danny Andreas, Maaike Gouwenberg, Ruth Legg, Achim Lengerer Femke Lutgerink and Juha van 't Zelfde.

Guest-artist (hosted in the guest house, Bergstraat 14)

February 2009 (2 weeks):

Lize Mogel (b. in New York City, NY, USA) lives and works in New York. Mogel is an interdisciplinary artist who works with the interstices between art and cultural geography. She inserts and distributes and cartographic projects into public space and in publications. She is co-editor of the book/map collection "An Atlas of Radical Cartography" and co-curator of the exhibition "An Atlas", which is touring internationally. She also co-curated "Genius Loci", an exhibition of conceptual mappings of Los Angeles (Sci-Arc, Los Angeles, California Museum of Photography, Riverside). She has worked with groups including the Center for Land Use Interpretation and the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest. Exhibitions include the Gwangju Bienniale (South Korea,) Gallery 400 (Chicago), common room (NYC), Overgaden (Copenhagen), and “Experimental Geography” (ICI, touring). She has received grants from the Jerome Foundation, the Graham Foundation, the LEF Foundation, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Danish Arts Council for her work. During her stay, Mogel held a presentation of her recent project for the RED A.i.R. resident artists.
http://www.publicgreen.com/projects/ >
(Hosted in collaboration with CASCO,Utrecht) 

April 2009 (2 weeks):

Charlotte Moth (b. in 1978, Carshalton, Great Britain) lives and works in Paris. Moth studied in 2000 for her BA Hons Fine Art at the Kent Institute of Art and Design and later gained her M.F.A. in Canterbury at the Slade School of Art, University College, London. Among her professional activities are visiting lecturer at PTBA Fine Art, Wimbledon School of Art, London, Great Britain and visiting lecturer FT+PT BA Fine Art, University College for the creative arts at Canterbury, Great Britain. Recent exhibitions include: “Carte Blanche à Charlotte Moth”, Gallery Lucile Corty, Paris, France, 2008; “Pavillon 7”, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, 2008, and “The Unfair Fair”, Rome, Italy, 2008. Past residencies include Le Pavillon, session 07/08, Paris, and from Jan 2005 to Dec 2006, researcher in Fine Art at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. Recent awards include Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England. During her stay Moth took a series of photographs, now part of her ongoing work “Travelogue”.