Two Perspectives on Residency Programs in Visual Arts

The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is holding a symposium on artistic residencies on Thursday, November 21, starting at 11 AM.

Symposium: Two Perspectives on Residency Programs in Visual Arts
Date and time: 21 November 2024, from 11 AM to 4 PM
Location: MMSU, Krešimirova 26c, Rijeka
Language: English

The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is holding a symposium on artistic residencies on Thursday, November 21, starting at 11 AM.

With two complementary panel discussions, the Two Perspectives on Residency Programs brings together representatives and organizers of residencies as well as artists of various generations who have participated in such programs. Our wish is to encourage discussion about the diverse roles of residency programs as spaces for artistic research and experimentation, individual artistic development, but also networking and international visibility. The symposium seeks to present best practices and various models of residency programs, exchange experiences in challenges faced by organizers and artists (financial, administrative, conceptual), and promote residency programs among Rijeka-based artists, students, and the local community.

Since 2014, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art has been running the Kamov Residency Program, established in 2011 by the City of Rijeka’s Department of Culture. From 2020 onwards, the Rijeka City Library and the Croatian Cultural Center Sušak joined MMSU as program partners. The Kamov Residency Program, through organized long- and short-term stays, has hosted more than 500 artists, theorists and authors from Croatia and around the world, collaborating with numerous organizations, institutions and individuals in the cultural field whose focus is on pushing the boundaries of traditional media and practices.

THE PROGRAM

11:00 AM – opening words

11:15 AM – Round Table 1: Residency Organizers

Topics: challenges in securing funding, maintaining spaces, presenting artistic work to the local community and donors, and evaluating residency programs.

Participants:

•            Francesca Lazzarini (curator and art critic, director of AiR Trieste)

•            Yasmín Martín Vodopivec (assistant director of MGLC Ljubljana, Švicarija)

•            Tiziana and Isabela Pers (artists and founders of RAVE East Village, Trivignano Udinese)

The organizers will share their experiences in managing residency programs, reveal how they respond to administrative, logistical and creative challenges, and evaluate the success of their programs.

Q&A – discussion, suggestions and comments

12:15 PM – break

12:30 PM Round Table 2: Artists and Residency Programs

Topic: significance of residency programs for artists – advantages, effects on work, and application process

Participants:

•          Nadija Mustapić, visual artist and full professor at the Rijeka Academy of Applied Arts
•          Katarina Kožul, visual artist and art director of STIFF Festival
•          Siniša Ilić, visual artist
Artists will discuss their personal experiences, highlight significant or memorable residencies they have participated in, and reflect on how such programs have influenced their artistic practice.

Q&A – discussion, suggestions and comments

1:30 PM – lunch and coffee break

2:30 PM – guided tour of the exhibition “Continuities and Interruptions” and a tour of Siniša Ilić’s installation “Surface Mining“ in the BAD.co Archives

The symposium is open to everyone interested – from artists and cultural workers to students and the general public.

Support: City of Rijeka, Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia

BIOGRAPHIES

Francesca Lazzarini is a lecturer, researcher, and curator of visual arts. She is PhD candidate in Advanced Practices at the Department of Visual Cultures of Goldsmith, London. Her research focuses on the post-photographic as a dynamic space to rethink ways of togetherness with and through images. Francesca worked for Fondazione Fotografia Modena and its School for Advanced Studies from the beginning, in 2007, until 2013. She has then undertaken an independent path, curating exhibitions and projects in collaboration with private and public institutions, including SixtyEight Art Institute, Copenhagen; FMAV, Modena; Kunsthaus, Graz; Škuc Gallery, Ljubljana; IC-CD, Rome; Kortil Gallery, Rijeka; Fondazione Francesco Fabbri, Treviso; BACO, Bergamo. Her curatorial practice favours long-term projects based on research, collaboration and experimentation. Among them: the Absent Audience (2020–2022), POIUYT (2017 – ), Neuro-Revolution (2019-2020), Talking (about) Images (2018–2019), and Stories from the Edges (2015–2016). She is a lecturer at LABA the Free Academy of Fine Art in Brescia. She is the director of the art residency program AiR Trieste, which has been running since 2016.

Yasmín Martín Vodopivec is a curator and cultural manager. She has been Assistant Director of the International Graphic Arts Centre (MGLC) since 2011. In 2017, she conceived the year-round project and exhibition entitled Švicarija: Community, Art and Nature, which outlined the vision for the long-term operative focus of the MGLC Švicarija Residential Centre and was awarded the Živa Prize by the Forum of Slavic Cultures. Among others, she curated the exhibition The Anatomy Lesson (2013) by Regina José Galindo, was a member of the curatorial collective of the 32nd Ljubljana Biennial – Birth as Criterion and curated the exhibition I don’t belong here (2021) by Hamja Ahsan as part of the 34th Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana. In addition to her contributions to various publications, she is the editor of the Art in Tivoli Park series. She is currently also a member of several expert panels on visual arts, cultural mediation and international cooperation as well as a lecturer at the World of Art School of Curatorial Practices and Critical Writing.

Isabella Pers. Visual artist and activist. In 2011, together with her sister Tiziana, Isabella founded RAVE East Village Artist Residency, a participatory meta-project that promotes role of contemporary art in relation to the question of animal treatment, exploring the connections between different forms of dominion from an anti-speciesist perspective (www.raveresidency.art). RAVE takes places in a Friulan borgo where animals rescued from slaughter and trees saved from felling coexist.Isabella develops her research by observing and exploring the connections between natural, social, and cultural ecosystems, as well as the impact of the Capitalocene on the life of our planet. Through dialogue across various media, she brings together seemingly disparate situations, perceiving existence as a single, ever-changing organic whole. Within this interconnected web of infinite relationships and interdependencies, she uncovers a space for revelation. Isabella’s project The Root is in the Air will be part of Michelangelo Pistoletto’s exhibition Third Earth at Villa Manin in Passariano, Italy, until December 2024. Her works have been shown in various galleries and institutions, such as: La Galleria Nazionale, Rome; Premio Lissone, MAC Museum Lissone; Casa degli Artisti and PAC, Milan; Manifesta13 Marseille; EDRA50 New York University; MAXXI Rome; Seoul Biennale of Architecture; PAV, Turin; 54° and c.e. 53° Biennale dell’Arte, Venice; New York Public Library; Zentral Bibliothek Zurig; National Library, Buenos Aires; Palazzo Reale and MADRE Museum, Naples; Miami Public Library; Whitechapel Gallery, London. www.isabellapers.com

Tiziana Pers. Visual artist and activist, with a first-class honors arts degree and a PhD from Udine University. She works with different media and explores the relationship between human and nonhuman animals, as well as the connections between different forms of dominion and discrimination (sexism, racism, speciesism, violence on the ecosystems, etc). A co-founder and art director of RAVE East Village Artist Residency, Tiziana has collaborated with philosophers, scientists, zoologists and art historians on various projects, including the following publications: Animality in Contemporary Italian Philosophy, curated by F. Cimatti; Animot 1: Jackie D, dedicated to Jacques Derrida curated by M. Ferraris and L. Caffo; Ecosustainable Narratives, Cambridge Scholars Publishing; Elephant Woman Song with the poetess Natalia Molebatsi; Animal Performance Studies, curated by L. Budriesi, DAMS-Bologna University; L’altro RAVE curated by D. Capra and N. Covre. Tiziana has shown her work in numerous museums, institutions and galleries in Italy and around the world. Some of the most recent projects include: The Age of Remedy, in collaboration with Triennale Milano, Casa degli Artisti di Milano; Nutrimento per un convivio post-antropocentrico, Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, international performance festival Ripetta 222; The Age of Remedy, as part of the exhibition Terza Terra – Michelangelo Pistoletto a Villa Manin, curated by G. Comis and P. Naldini-Cittadellarte; Il Tempo della Comunanza, curated by O. Gambari, Castiglia di Saluzzo, Fondazione Garuzzo; Destà and the Ethiopian Roses project, Artissima Turin, Prometeo Gallery; Project HOLY-DAY in the exhibition La lunga estate calda, Galleria Nazionale di Roma; Premio Lissone, curated by F. Guerisoli – Gran Premio section curated by G. Scardi, MAC Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Lissone. www.tizianapers.com

Nadija Mustapić (Rijeka, 1976) works in the field of audiovisual and visual artspredominantly in video installation, exploring the multidimensional relations between the representation of space, its subjectivity and political contingency. Her approach is based on audio-visual documentarism while expanding the definition of documentary. Mustapić has exhibited in solo exhibitions (Hippoyte Gallery Helsinki, MMSU – Rijeka, Cecile R. Hunt St.Louis, MKC Split, the Home of HDLU Zagreb..), group exhibitions and festivals (Si:n Festival o video art & performance Ramallah,  Faulconer Gallery Grinnell, TH-T Award Zagreb, Directors Lounge Berlin, Instants Video Marseilles,  Contemporary Art Ruhr Media Art Fair Essen…) in Croatia and internationally. She graduated from the Faculty for Humanities and Social Sciences, Art Department at the University of Rijeka (BFA, 1999). She earned her MA (2004) and her MFA degree (2005, graduated with honors) from the University of Iowa. Since 2006, she lives and works in Rijeka, Croatia. She is a Full Professor at the Academy of Applied Arts, The University of Rijeka.

Katarina Kožul was born in 1998 in Novi Sad. She graduated from the Rijeka Academy of Applied Arts, Department of Sculpture. In her art practice, she explores the possibilities of visual arts with a focus on community work and art education. As a scholarship recipient of the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she completed the MIRAI, an educational program for art students in Tokyo. She has participated in the implementation of projects such as VG Academy, Lungomare Art (Rijeka EPK 2020), Biennale of Stage Design (Novi Sad, ECC 2022), International Student Film Festival (STIFF), SKC Activist etc. She has shown her work in group exhibitions in Croatia (Youth Salon, Zagreb; Open Museum Lastovo / Lastovo Contemporary Art Museum; With the Collection / Workshop Online, MMSU Rijeka; Everything is Sculpture, Knifer Gallery, Osijek; Svjetlarna [Light Festival], Laurus Gallery, Lovran; Platforma za eksperiment 1.3, VN Gallery, Zagreb; Poezija je zec iz šešira, SKC Gallery, Rijeka). Katarina participated in workshops and artist residencies in Belgium, Serbia, and the Netherlands. Since 2024, she has been working as the director of the International Student Film Festival and as a project and program coordinator at the Association of Contemporary Circus Artists.

Siniša Ilić (Belgrade, 1977) is a visual artist who works with a variety of media, taking interest in social phenomena and mechanisms by exploring forms of labour, tensions in society, violence and unstable situations. He has shown his work at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of African Art, the Cultural Center and the October Salon in Belgrade, at the MAXXI Museum in Rome, Tate Modern and Calvert 22 in London, Georges Pompidou and the Kadist Foundation in Paris, Ural Biennale in Yekaterinburg, Kunshalle, WUK and Open Space in Vienna, LOFOTEN Festival, Nova Gallery in Zagreb, Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb and Ljubljana, Kunstraum Innsbruck, National Gallery in Prague… He is one of the founders of TkH – an art theory platform from Belgrade (2000–2017). Ilić explores the forms of collective work and the position of the artist as a curator, and engages in design of performance space.