Thanks to a Mondriaan Fonds grant I will be working in the Caribbean for the next 14 months doing research on the sustainability of art practices in the region and the influence of International funding, projects and markets on this, if any and when is or isn’t that contributing to the sustainability of the artists in the region. None of this would be possible if I wasn’t supported by key people from and in the region being my point of entrance, hosting me, guiding me and generously sharing their network, talent and expertise!
My first stop will be in Haiti, for about 6 week’s curator Giscard Bouchotte will be my host. I will be participating in his annual event Nuit Blanche, I hope to do lots of studio visits and have conversations with artists, artist collectives, galleries and institutes and I will be going to the Ghetto Biennale.
After Haiti I will take a bus ride to Dominican Republic (DR) in January 2018 where visual artist Jorge Pineda will be my host. From DR I will visit various countries: Trinidad, Curacao, Aruba, Jamaica, Bahama’s, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Martinique, Guadeloupe… for the remainder of 2018.
You will be able to follow my encounters with artists and other practitioners in the arts weekly in Dutch in the E-zine Trendbeheer and monthly in English in the E-zine Africanah.
This trip is made possible in part by these incredible generous organizations and people (and I will add to this while traveling): Mondriaanfonds, Joost Vrieler, Charl Landvreugd, John Olivieira (NL); Giscard Bouchotte, Vladimir Cybil Charlier, Jean-Ulrick Désert (Haiti); Jorge Pineda (DR), … to be continued.
Photo credit: map of the Caribbean (made my Museo del Barrio)