AiR Platform NL publication: 'On Affecting Change Through Artist-In-Residencies'

Residencies and small organisations are microcosms. Very often, they are spaces of experimentation that give the artist in residence a moment out of time and in a new space, while being inextricably linked to new contexts, networks and environments. In December 2020 and January 2021 Kunsthuis SYB, Hotel Maria Kapel and AiR Platform NL, took time to reflect on an extraordinary year: 2020 saw the continuation of the global pandemic as well as massive Black Lives Matter protests worldwide, continued #metoo debates and myriads of other struggles for justice and equality. As small organisations, the dramatic events spurred us to ask: how can we, as residencies, as small art organizations, as artists, can affect positive change in our immediate environment and society at large? How can we, despite our differences, our temporalities, and our individual challenges, contribute to an anti-racist, feminist, caring, and sustainable future?

Through an online symposium in three parts, kindly supported by Pictoright Fonds, we invited our colleagues in the residency and broader art field to reflect together on how to create change in and through small art institutions. We have gathered their contributions, insights and suggestions for further reading in the publication On Affecting Change Through Artist-In-Residencies, edited by Mariska van der Berg and ourselves. We hope it brings together some of the voices and propositions, all based in the daily running of residencies and art spaces, to inspire and give you tools to think about organisational change.

Please find below:

• Overview of de symposium programme
• Reader (PDF)
• Publication (PDF)
• Publication (PDF) - print ready

Contact: h.vogels@dutchculture.nl

On Affecting Change Through Artist-in-Residencies, an online symposium by Hotel Maria Kapel, Kunsthuis SYB and TransArtists | AiR Platform NL, initiated and conceived by Miriam Wistreich, Josine Sibum Siderius and Heidi Vogels.

Programme and production
Heidi Vogels
Josine Sibum Siderius
Miriam Wistreich

Speakers
Clare Butcher
Thato Mogotsi
Nathalie Hartjes
Miriam Wistreich

Workshops
Ika Sienkiewizc-Novacka
Claudia Zeiske
Anika Mariam Ahmed

Artistic contributions
Sekai Makoni and G
larose larose
Harriet Rose Morley

Panelists
Danielle van Zuijlen
Esther van Rosmalen
Pauline Burmann
Koen Dijkman
Martin Born
Petra Groen
Hugo Palmar

Technical support
Robbert Former

Report and Editing
Mariska van den Berg
Heidi Vogels
Josine Sibum Siderius
Miriam Wistreich
Dicle Gülşahin

Copy editing
Iris Ferrer

Graphic Design
Kristin Metho

On Affecting Change Through Artist-in-Residencies is kindly funded by Pictoright, Kunsthuis SYB, Hotel Maria Kapel and Dutchculture | TransArtists.

Hotel Maria Kapel is an artist-in-residence and exhibition space for contemporary visual arts in the city centre of Hoorn. HMK aims to support early practice artists in the production of new work and to promote exchanges between national and international artists, cultural institutions and the public.

Kunsthuis SYB is a residency in Beetsterzwaag, in Friesland, run by Josine Sibum Siderius. At Kunsthuis SYB, contemporary artists and curators are offered a workplace in the lee of the (art) world. Residents are selected on the basis of a project proposal and invited to work and stay for six weeks. They are invited to develop their work through focused research, experiments and new collaborations.

TransArtists | AiR Platform NL, in the person of Heidi Vogels, organises together with the AiR organisations and their partners, meetings and programmes for mutual exchange of knowledge and experience; building on the outcomes of previous meetings, research and symposia such as Working on the Margins in 2018 in cooperation with Kunstloc in Tilburg