A gallery is rarely just a gallery space dedicated only to art installations. We often try to attract audiences in different ways, and we, as cultural workers, often wish to create a community that is interested in what is happening in cultural institutions. How do we make a hospitable environment? How open are we to the very diverse members of the city communities and beyond? Do we think we are hospitable enough?
August 19th at 3 PM, we invite you to a session and discussion with the Head of Programme Frame Contemporary Art Finland Jussi Koitela (Finland), the artistic director of the Museum of Impossible Forms Giovanna Esposito Yussif (Finland), the director of the Contemporary Art Center Derry~Londonderry Catherine Hemelryk (Northern Ireland) and Maria Helen Känd, the curator of Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. During the session, the participants will present the activities and projects of the cultural institutions represented.
In the conversation with the audience, we will focus on the mission of cultural workers and the way we talk about it. In what ways do our institutions fulfil the functions of a cultural centre?
PARTICIPANTS
Maria Helen Känd
Maria Helen Känd is a curator and art critic. In her curatorial practice, she focuses on socio-psychological topics that disclose the fragility of social fabrics and that invite audience to perceive and reflect on the complexities of identity. In her recent projects, she has taken a more intuitive approach toward curating in creating poetic experiments with works of artists that share formal features and express mythological and archetypal themes. She works as a freelance art journalist, project manager, and curator at the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM).
Catherine Hemelryk
Catherine Hemelryk is a curator and Director of CCA Derry~Londonderry, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and an External Examiner at Birmingham School of Art. CCA was a Finalist for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2021 for the organisation’s work supporting artists and audiences during the pandemic. Catherine is a mentor, guest lecturer, editor, consultant and advisor. Catherine was previously Artistic Director at NN, Northampton gaining NPO status under her leadership, and Curator at CAC Vilnius, as well as freelance projects and curatorial residencies spanning Europe, including GeoAIR Tbilisi, Sea Foundation Tilburg, Magacin Belgrade, Galerie Antje Wachs Berlin and Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire.
Jussi Koitela
Jussi Koitela currently works as Head of Programme at Frame Contemporary Art Finland and as an independent curator. At Frame, he is curating Rehearsing Hospitalities public programme with Yvonne Billimore. Lately, his curatorial work has entangled art, embodied research methodologies, feminist philosophy of science and materiality in different exhibition forms and modes of knowledge production. His curatorial projects have been presented, among others, at Pori Art Museum, Konsthall C, Treignac Projet, Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM), De Appel Arts Centre, SixtyEight Art Institute, Trøndelag Centre for Contemporary Art and Kiasma Theatre. Koitela was a participant of De Appel Curatorial Programme in 2015/2016.
Giovanna Esposito Yussif
Giovanna Esposito Yussif is an artistic director of the Museum of Impossible Forms. She engages with curatorial praxis and research. Her background is in art history, museology, and critical theory. Giovanna has a long-standing commitment to nondominant praxes, dissentient imaginations, and epistemologies in resistance. She has collaborated with diverse institutions such as Archive, SOMA, Goethe Institut, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Savvy Contemporary, Manifesta Foundation, Baltic Circle, Helsinki International Artist Program – HIAP, Checkpoint Helsinki, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Galería OMR, among others. In 2019 Giovanna co-curated the Pavilion of Finland at the 58th Venice Biennale with the Miracle Workers Collective.
The event will be held in English.
The discussion will be moderated by Edvinas Grinkevičius, the Kaunas Artists’ House curator.
Kaunas Artists’ House apologises, but this event will not be accessible to people with walking disabilities.
Critical Induction Symposium is dedicated to analysing, critiquing, and discussing urban spaces. During the symposium, professional city researchers, cultural operators and artists will hold open presentations and discussions with the residents and guests of the city of Kaunas.
Participation of Giovanna Esposito Yussif, Jussi Koitela and Maria Helen Känd is organised in the framework of Re-Practicing Hospitalities network, supported by Nordic Culture Point and coordinated by Frame Contemporary Art Finland.
The symposium takes place within the scope of the DeMo reciprocal residency programme and is the final part of the programme.
Reciprocal Residency DeMo is a part of the “Kaunas – European Capital of Culture 2022” programme Modernism For Future.