Future Hospitalities: a peer-to-peer meeting

During the first Future Hospitalities meeting in Brussels in February, Belgium and Dutch participants interacted on this theme from different perspectives: the artists, the newcomers, the arts organizations, and the humanitarian initiatives. We discussed the importance of local and regional networks, from crisis management to long-term support. Milica Illic summarized the day’s outcomes in the article Future Hospitalities: hosting, learning and changing.

DutchCulture | TransArtists and Flanders Arts Institute organized this follow-up peer-to-peer meeting in Amsterdam. During this meeting outlined what is needed to offer hospitality at the structural level of an organization, the arts field, and the policy level. Can we extend this frame of collaboration within a European context?

Rewatch the presentations and lectures

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Download the speakers bio’s and the transcript of the presentations and lectures here.

Details

Date: 16 June 2023
Time: 10:00 – 18.00 CEST
Language: English
Location: Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, Nes 45, 1012 KD Amsterdam

Program

09.30 Doors open
10.05 Welcome by moderator Kirsten van den Hul, DutchCulture
10.15 Keynote by Bright Richards, New Dutch Connections
10.45 Presentation by An Vandermeulen, Globe Aroma, David ‘Ramos’ Joao, Fameus (B)
11.05 Physical exercise with Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg
11.25 Presentation by ZusaCulture gGmbH (D)
11.40 presentation Atelier des artists en exile (F)
11.55 Framer Framed
12.10 Panel discussion 
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Hosting, learning and changing, Milica Ilic 
14.30 Round table sessions
15.40 Physical exercise with Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg
16.00 Round table sessions
17.10 Sharing outcomes
17.45 Drinks

Subjects round table sessions

What is needed to offer hospitality at the structural level of an organization

1 Future Hospitality within an art organisation
With Bright Richards, New Dutch Connections (Utrecht)
How does a radical choice for polyphony and openness towards newcomers and refugee artists take shape in an arts institution concerning vision, organisational structure, governance, and program?

2 Future Hospitality within the arts ecosystem
With David ‘Ramos’ Joao, Fameus (Antwerp), Amina Saâdi and An Vandermeulen, Globe Aroma (Brussels and region)
What is the role of organisations that choose Future Hospitality within a local and national ecosystem? How do they share their knowledge and connect with peers? How does Future Hospitality become a shared commitment?

3 Future Hospitality and cultural change
With Emily Lee, Framer Framed (Amsterdam)
What is needed for Future Hospitality to take root within our perception of contemporary arts and culture? What steps can art organisations take within their program?

4 Future Hospitality within a European network
With Mariam Serhan, Agency of artists in exile (Paris)
What can organisations learn from each other at European level? What is the added value of a European network concerning future hospitality? Which topics are covered in such a network?

5 Future Hospitality and care
With Rabiaâ Benlahbib, Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen and Creative Court, (The Hague)
Working with artists or participants from conflict areas sometimes involves working with trauma-induced or otherwise sensitive topics. How to consider the different needs and perspectives of your guests, team, and audiences in your program and projects?

6 Future Hospitality as cultural policy?
With Karolina Spaić, ZID theater (Amsterdam)
How much room does the cultural sector have for adjusting its programme to upcoming challenges and what is the difference with the European cultural policy framework? What are the advantages of allowing a more process-based approach for cultural organizations?

7 Future Hospitality and AiR
With Adina Constantin, zusa gGmbH (Berlin)
How can artist-in-residency organisations remain resilient, hosting artists from crisis areas concerning care and financial stability? And how to create a supportive surrounding with room for context, also to your audiences and funding partners?

Speakers

(in order of appearance)

Bright Richards is an actor, writer and founder of New Dutch Connections. In 1993 he fled the Liberian civil war and came to the Netherlands. With New Dutch Connections he won the prestigious Gieskes-Strijbis Podium Prize in 2017, for “being an opinionated thespian who builds bridges between people who don’t know each other yet.” Through New Dutch Connections, Richards aims to bring together old and new Dutch citizens. In 2018 he created The Bright Side of Life with Theater Utrecht, inspired by the arrival of more than 60,000 refugees in the Netherlands and the resulting challenges for both these people and Dutch society.

An Vandermeulen is artistic coordinator at Globe Aroma, an artistic work- and meeting place in Brussels that offers space, time, and their network to artists and co-creators with a precarious citizenship status. Globe Aroma, therefore, builds in alliance with the Flemish, Brussels, and international cultural, educational, and migration sectors, an in-between space for its community to create, discover and share their art practices with a broad audience.

David ‘Ramos’ Joao, working at Fameus. Fameus supports everyone who is passionate about art in their free time in Antwerp and its districts. With ‘The Connection’, Fameus, in collaboration with Atlas (integration), helps artistic newcomers to find their way around the cultural landscape of Antwerp. Fameus is convinced that newcomers with their cultural backgrounds enrich the city’s cultural landscape. Fameus coaches individually and in group to build relations with organisations, find a workplace and training, and realise projects.

Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg is a curator and producer, and until recently artistic director at Jester in Genk, BE. She co-founded Deltaworkers in New Orleans and has an interest in working between disciplines. She co-curated the Dutch Pavilion in Venice presenting melanie bonajo, worked ten years for IFFR and is still involved in Performa.

Adina Constantin is an artist and AiR program & communications officer at zusa gGmbH in Berlin. She joined zusa early in 2022 through a long-term ESC volunteering experience. During the last year, her scope of work has revolved particularly around the I-Portunus Houses, focusing mainly on fostering relations with the hosts that provided efficient residencies for creative individuals, and supporting the financial and administrative aspects of the programme.

Milica Ilić works on various international cooperation, training, research and evaluation projects in the field of culture. Previously she was International Advisor at Onda, coordinator of Reshape (an experimental research and development project looking at reimagining the art sector’s organisational models in Europe and southern Mediterranean), and Communication and Administration Manager at IETM, international network for contemporary performing arts.

Josien Pieterse is director of Framer Framed, a platform for contemporary art, visual culture, and critical theory & practice in Amsterdam. Each year the organisation presents a variety of exhibitions in collaboration with both emerging and established international curators and artists. An extensive public program is organised alongside these exhibitions in order to shed light on the topics concerned, and provide a wide range of perspectives. With this common space for dialogue, Framer Framed aims to show a plurality of voices in a globalized society.

Judith Depaule, director of Agency of artists in exile AA-E. AA-E agency of artists in exile is based in Paris and aims to support artists in exile of all origins and disciplines according to their situation and needs, to offer them work space and to put them in contact with professionals (French and European networks), in order to provide the necessary means to restructure and continue their practice. According to the demands of projects and programs, the aa-e creates its own events, including the “Party in exile” and the multidisciplinary festival, Visions of Exile, in cooperation with its partners.

Rabiaâ Benlahbib is the founder and director of Creative Court, a Hague-based initiative that develops research-based art and arts-based research projects, reflecting on peace and global justice. She is also the director of Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen, a former military fort island turned into art spaces. Here, artists, scientists and local and international communities collaborate in residencies and presentations to contribute to the mindsets required for more peaceful, sustainable and equal futures.

Karolina Spaić, is founder and leader of ZID theater, a City Arts & Performance Centre and cultural organisation in Amsterdam West. In the Balkans, ZID means ‘the wall’. ZID Theater stands for taking down walls. Walls that stand between people or walls that people and even entire groups build around themselves. Zid translates social issues into artistic projects for different target groups

Contact

For questions please contact our colleauge Dirk De Wit or Heidi Vogels, coordinator TransArtists AiR NL at DutchCulture. This meeting is organized by Flanders Arts Institute in collabration with TransArtists | DutchCulture.