International visitor programme for curators of visual arts
The UFO visitors’ programme is organised by Flanders Art Institute and UFO, a platform of artists’ studios in Flanders and Brussels. The programme introduces international professionals to forms of support and development for (young) artists in Flanders and Brussels. The visitors’ programme aims to bring together actors in the field to exchange knowledge and experiences in order to broaden references and opportunities in an international network.
During each visitors’ programme we focus on two different members of the UFO platform: this first edition is Cas-co in Leuven and Level Five in Brussels. Together with Flanders Art Institute, these two organisations will present a dynamic programme full of visits (artists’ studios, exhibitions and organisations), exchanges and networking opportunities.
WHOM
For this programme UFO and Flanders Art Institute have invited a group of international curators.
Mikkel Elming, curator Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark
Marie de Gaulejac, curator and head residency programme Triangle, Marseille, France
Šimon Kadlčák, coordinator residency programme Brno House of Arts, Brno, Czech Republic
Johanna Markert, curator anorak, Berlin, Germany
Vasiliki Sifostratoudaki, artist, founder and curator Yellow Brick, Athens, Greece
Elfi Turpin, director Crac Alsace, Altkirch, France
See full visitor profiles below
PROGRAMME
Thursday 9 December – Leuven
12:00 Arrival in Leuven
13:00 Lunch
14:00-19:00 Programme compiled by Cas-co
14:00 Visit to the installation of Koen Kloosterhuis and Laure-Anne Jaubert’s residency at Maakleerplek
15:00 Visit to Out of Orbit, a group exhibition curated by Werktank in Batiment A
16:00 Visit to Our Startling Universe, a group exhibition curated by Cas-co, Expo Leuven and MijnLeuven
17:00 Visit to Cas-co Open Studios and preview of Tim Evers’ solo presentation
19:00 Private guided tour of the solo exhibition of Alexis Gautier in M Leuven
20:00 Networking dinner with invited guests in M Leuven
Friday 10 December – Leuven & Brussels
10:00 Visit of Cas-co artists’ studio
12:30 Lunch with the artists
14:00 Train to Brussels and check-in hotel
15:00-19:00 Guided tour to several artist-run organisations organised by Level Five: nadine, rile*, KOMPLOT, Globe Aroma
20:00 Networking dinner with guests at Globe Aroma
Saturday 11 December – Brussels
10:00 Studio visits by artists organised by Level Five
12:30 Lunch
14:00-17:00 UFO Public programme at Meyboom
For (and by) artists: sharing tools for support, development and internationalisation in a sustainable learning network
The public programme is organised by UFO organisations in collaboration with the Flanders Arts Institute. It is meant as an open discussion platform for artists and artist-focused organisations.After a keynote introduction by Danielle van Zuijlen (Kunsthal Gent, NUCLEO), our guest curators will briefly introduce themselves and explain what formats or tools they use to support artists in their daily practice. After the plenary session, we will split up into smaller groups to discuss issues concerning support, development and internationalisation for (and by) artists. Each discussion group is facilitated by a UFO organisation.
Sunday 12 December – Brussels
Free day and departure
VISITOR PROFILES
Mikkel Elming
curator Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark
I am a curator of contemporary art at Kunsthal Aarhus. I hold a master degree in Art History from Aarhus University. I have co-creator and been the director of the organizations Regelbau 411 and the Association for Contemporary Art. Regelbau 411 is an international art centre for sound, light and video art in two WWII bunkers in rural Denmark. The Association for Contemporary Art is an open voluntary organization with over 130 members that serves as an experimental and project-driven platform for young artists and curators. Among my interest are collaborative creation, experimentation, site specificity, performativity, interdisciplinarity, and post humanity. I love to work with the curatorial possibilities of long-term institutional thinking and challenging conventional ways of curating.
What are you currently working on?
Most urgently on December 16, I open a temporary “Institute of Coexsistence” at the Finnish art museum WAM together with the artist Gry Worre Hallberg and the organization Sisters Hope. The project will run for a year and present artistic research into ways of coexistence.
Next year, Kunsthal Aarhus curates an exhibition at the Korean art centre Art Sonje Center, titled “Minimalism-Maximalism-Mechanissmmm” which takes up a lot of my time lately.
I have a lot of other projects in progress. If you want to know more, just ask me.
How would you define your practice?
Though I don’t call myself an artist, I like working with curation and making institutions as a form of experimental art.
How do you see your relationship with artists?
It depends a lot on the project. In general, I try to build lasting relations to artists I like. I love following and getting involved in the development of a practice. I like working with artists that see potential in having a partner to deal with the presentation of the work and who are not afraid to let go of the curation when they trust their curator. I find that the best relations with artists are built on friendship and give space for collaborative creation – both ways.
Marie de Gaulejac
curator and head residency programme Triangle, Marseille, France
Šimon Kadlčák
coordinator residency programme Brno House of Arts, Brno, Czech Republic
Johanna Markert
curator anorak, Berlin, Germany
I’m an independent curator based in Berlin. Together with Lukas Ludwig and Florian Model, I co-direct anorak, a curatorial collective and non-profit organisation for contemporary art. This shared practice grew out of collaborating as artists. Since 2016 anorak has served as an experimental platform to present exhibitions, screenings, performances, dinners, publications, and workshops developed in close dialogue with international and local artists and institutions. While anorak is a constant engagement of mine, I also collaborate on projects with other artists.
What are you currently working on?
Recently, I co-wrote the script for a performance with artist Ana Wild titled Gravity and Grace for which mystic, political activist and philosopher Simone Weil’s idea of ‘decreation’ served as a critical starting point. It premiered in October as part of Diver Festival, Tel Aviv, and we’re now working on bringing it to Berlin within anorak’s upcoming programme. This coincides with an exciting new development – after years of working nomadically, anorak is about to open a project space in Kreuzberg. Currently, we’re in the process of moving into the new location and developing the programme for 2022.
How would you define your practice?
My approach is transdisciplinary and dialogical. It often begins with an investigation into a specific work and related practice that continues in close exchange with other artists: a collaborative process that transforms the initial fascination into form. I am interested in the ways art, particularly time-based forms and moving image, develops a new sensorium to detect affective attachments – feelings that we usually ascribe to subjective experience – as integral to larger social, material and environmental contexts. Running a non-profit offers space for this way of working. It also includes the continuous work on a sustainable support structure to enable artists to produce, share and critically discuss their work.
What do you expect from the UFO visitors programme?
I’m curious to learn more about the organisations behind the programme and look forward to the site and studio visits, the conversations that emerge within and beyond the days spent together.
Vasiliki Sifostratoudaki
artist, founder and curator Yellow Brick, Athens, Greece
I am a visual artist and art educator based in Athens Greece. I studied art at Athens School of Fine Arts, graphic design and interior architecture at Vacalo Art & Design College and completed my Masters in Fine Arts at the Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy in the Netherlands.
My artistic practice explores the creation of space around objects and the social prospects both space and object generate.
A metaphor I often use for my practise is the ‘table’: a space for performing single actions of making, shifting into a space of coming together and of polyvocal interaction.
What are you currently working on?
Since 2016, my main focus has been the development of Yellow Brick; a project /space I founded in Nea Ionia, a suburb of Athens established by migrants of Asia Minor. Yellow Brick promotes interdisciplinary dialogue and cultural exchange undertaken through relational engagement of writers, curators, and members of the local community. With the board and team of Yellow Brick we focus primarily on multimodal practices including art exhibitions, educational programs for children and adults, artists’ workshops for the production of artworks, art publications, common dinners and experimental activities, aiming at the interaction of research and cultural rethinking.
Parallel to running Yellow Brick, I have been involved in several research and artistic projects with the most recent one being JUNCTIONS21 resulting to an exhibition display and presentation titled ‘Unearthing memories, feeding practises for plural knowledges and beings’ with Elliana Otta, Nuno Cassola and Imaya Caceres at PACT Zollverein (December 2021 – Essen, Germany). JUNCTIONS21 was initiated by PACT Zollverein as an invitation to seven transdisciplinary teams across different continents to develop collective research projects in relation to local and postcolonial contexts. My contribution was a preliminary draft of my on-going research on the practices of midwives from Asia Minor, following the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Stories of migration, human rights, the accuracy of history, language, hospitality, healing, family structures – approached through a feminist lens – continue to inform this research, which is set to have its second iteration in the upcoming group exhibition at Yellow Brink and prospectively form a foundation for a PHD application I am currently occupied with.
How would you define your practice?
If I had to choose a phrase, it would be that of ‘not – yet’ borrowed from Jeanne van Heeswijk’s enticing essay ‘PREPARING FOR THE NOT-YET’
To quote from the text: ‘The creative practitioner has an important role in re-imagining spaces and scenarios for living together. This process does not have a clear roadmap, nor a linear trajectory. The practice is not a series of projects or a series of interventions. It is actually an attitude and it has to become embodied through the practice of the not-yet.’
How do you see your relationship with artists?
Reciprocal, organic and in a constant continuum..I would like to think of each artist hosted at Yellow Brick as an integral component of the ongoing progress and configuration of the project. The team, board and participating artists move within a relational framework aligned to Yellow Brick’s fluid operational mode. Together we are to continuously regenerate those energetic processes of exchange and (un)learning.
What do you expect from the UFO visitors programme?
I am very happy to be invited to the UFO Visitors Programme as I predominately work on collective processes of exchange and research. This has been a conscious choice of learning from and with. I am looking forward to convening with the artists and curators selected, to being introduced to their practice and operational modes and to share my perspectives, finding common grounds of interest and in general immerse myself into new territories of exchange.
Elfi Turpin
director Crac Alsace, Altkirch, France
