On April 23rd we conducted our studio visits with an emphasis on discussing work without props and writing project proposals for Delft id11. On the 24th Simon Ferdinando from Amsterdam was our guest along with Paul O’Neill from Bristol, UK. Simon used his postal route
to derive our way through Amsterdam West and along the way we will considered the nature and textuality of the invisible city, Situationist Movement, Spinoza and postcodes. We then arrived at Smart Project Space, viewed the exhibition there Endless Installation: A Ghost Story for Adults organised by PSWAR, and then Paul O’Neill lectured on curation, leading up to the contemporary position of artist-curator. Most of us had seen his previous show at Smart, Coalesce: Happenstance, which is ‘a result and a product of a long period of the demystification of art’s mediation processes. Whilst it denounces the position of the curator as a master planner, it is intended as a reflection upon how the re-configuration of curatorial praxis can be made apparent within the final exhibition-form.’ (Smart Papers, 10/01-22/02/2009).

Paul is the editor of Curating Subjects, an anthology of new curatorial writing that documents the inter-dependent relationships between the curatorial past, present, and speculative futures which is being reprinted! and he donated a copy to the DAI library. Other reading assignments: Jens Hoffman’s text: The art of curating and the curating of art.

Prayas Abhinav was our guest during DAI days (March 13th-14th) who discussed his work as an artist, but also an organiser of social spaces in Bangalore, India, where he is based. Prayas is also a contributor to n.e.w.s and he and I had just attended Wintercamp, a 5 day conference organised by the Institute of Networked Cultures in Amsterdam.

We began with a series of interviews I had made the past months with organisers, curators and writers of socially engaged projects that remap the territoriality of public space, ‘private’ equity and past governmental or state institutions. Alan Moore is one of the founders of ABC No Rioin NYC and presently organising the migrating show, “House Magic: Bureau of Foreign Correspondence”, which will also be part of theUniversity of Trash show at Sculpture Center in NYC. Eric Duivenvoorden is the author of ‘Een voet tussen de deur : geschiedenis van de kraakbeweging (1964-1999)’ (A foot between the door: history of the squatter movement 1964-1999) and ‘Met Emmer en Kwast’ (With a bucket and a brush) that is one of the most comprehensive publications on Dutch poster design of protest in the Netherlands the past 50 years.Branka Curcic, based in Novi-Sad, Serbia and at new media center_kuda.org, is also a contributor to n.e.w.s., elaborated on her blog post about Autonomous Spaces of Deregulation and Critique where she discussed the historical and present day relevance of Youth Social Center in Novi Sad.

Prayas Abhinav delivered the evening lecture that allowed a more in-depth look at his artistic practice, his work as an urban geographer and a recent curatorial project. On the second day he gave a short workshop to the participants on ways for artists to represent themselves on the Internet and website applications.

On February 12th and 13th I travelled to Enschede and finally met the participants, having only been in discussion with them virtually the past 6 weeks. I introduced my work as an artist that specifically deals with site specificity, artistic residencies and curatorial practice in the form of powerpoint/Keynote presentations while discussing further the concept: Negotiating Equity. Equity in the sense of investment potential, stock and accrued value or assets but also in the sense of fairness: shared ideas, distribution of resources and ideals of justice (fairness) or equality of opportunity.

Thursday evening we were joined by Saskia van der Kroef, a researcher for n.e.w.s., who lectured on the position of the artist/curator in art historical as well as contemporary discourse emphasising, above all else, the importance of curatorial mimetic activity in regard to artistic practice. Friday consisted of getting to know the students and their work.

Saskia donated the publication Manifesta Journal (2002-2005), a magazine in six issues devoted to contemporary curatorship.

Here is an image of an anonymous contribution to VOIDS exhibition at Centre Pompedou, Paris and an excerpt from Saskia’s lecture.

In December I was invited to conceive a project that addresses collaborative curation and the position of the artist as curator- investigating experimental and conceptual art practices under physical as well as virtual conditions. DAI was invited by alumni Jolanda Jansen from artist initiative STeC in Den Haag and id11 in Delft to collaborate by using apartments, which eventually would become available, as an artist residence or place of site-specific works. Tiong Ang and Stephen Wright introduced the project Negotiating Equity at DAI in Enschede, the Netherlands on the 15th and 16th of January as I was in NYC for my Beavers, Wampum, Hoes project at 16Beaver. Tiong and Stephen are both contributors to n.e.w.s., a platform for participatory development of artistic and curatorial projects in contemporary art and new media framed by curatorial contributions from around the globe, bringing together voices and images from North, East, West and South. During the course of the next months more contributors from n.e.w.s. will be guest lecturers and develop this project collaboratively.

On Thursday night all participants attended Terry Eagleton’s and Boris Groys’s lectures on Belief, addressing a so-called a ‘religious turn’ in contemporary society, as part of Now is the Time, a series of lectures organised by different Amsterdam institutions to facilitate a larger, international discourse on contemporary art. Friday consisted of a group presentation of the students’ work with Stephen back at DAI in Enschede.

Here are some images of some apartments at Delft.