Fellowship

Fellow 2018/2019

Katayoun Arian

Katayoun Arian is a researcher, curator, DJ, and writer with a background in art history (Leiden University, Leiden) and a Master’s degree in organization science (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam). Her projects range from exhibitions, discursive events, and screenings to reading circles and other forms of interdisciplinary and collaborative work including music-related events. Curatorial projects include the platform Fwd: Gher Space, Amsterdam, 2017–ongoing; Grada Kilomba: Illusions, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, 2017; I Speak in Tongues, 37PK, Haarlem, 2017; Voices Outside the Echo Chamber: Questioning Myths, Facts and Framings of Migration, 2016, and The End of This Story (And the Beginning of All Others), 2015, both Framer Framed, Amsterdam.

Fellowship Research Trajectory

As part of a series of gatherings convened by writer, researcher, and curator Katayoun Arian, Conversation Circle: Decolonizing Globalized Dutch Contemporary Art Institutions? aims to collectively reflect on the increased discourse about de-racializing and decolonizing contemporary art institutions and cultural practices. During these “circles,” participants collectively discuss with invited speakers the ways current types of institutional engagement with decolonial curatorial models, artistic forms, and knowledges could potentially conceal institutional business as usual and prevent actual reform from happening. Institutions generally impose order, control, standardization, and foster a general culture of resistance toward critique and dissent. What are the ethical considerations to decolonizing art institutions? What happens when social movements, artists, theorists, and curators of non-Western backgrounds are invited to institutionalized platforms to present their ideas and work? In what ways does their praxis coincide with (or negate) a re-examination of organizational functions and forms? What are the implications of global neo-liberal economy on organizing in the arts and culture sector in the Netherlands?

The Conversation Circle is also a space for fostering extra-institutional kinships, solidarities, and forms of organizing necessary to reform cultural institutions and practices as artists, theorists, and curators. The Conversation Circle strives to create a collective space for learning and listening.

Regarding Curatorial Activism, the Role of History and Archives

As part of the 2nd Tehran Curatorial Symposium: Curator as Translator, January 2019, Katayoun Arian was invited by organizer, Fereshte Moosavi to speak on curatorial activism. Drawing parallels between the role of history, archival practices, activism, and the decolonial turn, she views the space in which the act of translation unfolds to act as a […]

Sruti Bala: Decolonizing Theater Studies and the Anecdote

Dr. Sruti Bala leads a discussion on decolonizing Theater and Performance Studies and the use of the anecdote during the Fellows Workshop on 21 November 2018.

Performative party

22 June, 19.00–23 June, 00.00 2019

Propositions #8: I Wanna Be Adored
(the Non-Fascist Remix)

Propositions for Non-Fascist Living

Related content

Otobong Nkanga, Andrea Phillips

Seminar with Andrea Phillips

As part of a session convened by 2017/2018 BAK Fellow Otobong Nkanga, educator and political organizer in the arts Andrea Phillips gave a seminar on her current research focus: reorienting contemporary art’s ecology toward producing more emancipatory forms of sharing—not simply about spatial sharing and inclusivity, but also at the level of wage labor. […]

Jessica de Abreu, Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh

Archival Propositions

BAK 2018/2019 Fellows Jessica de Abreu and Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh present at Propositions #7/6: Archive, the final iteration of the public series Propositions #7: Evidentiary Methods. The event also features Ariel Caine (Forensic Architecture, London) and takes place at BAK in the context of the exhibition Forensic Justice (18 October 2018–27 January 2019). This program is […]

Jessica de Abreu, Patricia Kaersenhout

Naomie Pieter: The Body in Black Women’s Activism

BAK 2018/2019 Fellows Jessica de Abreu and Patricia Kaersenhout, along with BAK, convene the January 2019 Fellows Intensive, focusing on the body as an archive, as a form of resistance, and the colonial legacies embodied today. Activist and artist Naomie Pieter leads the Fellows in a workshop on the use of the body as a […]

Isshaq Al-Barbary (Campus in Camps), Diego Segatto (Campus in Camps)

Collective Dictionary: Xenia with Elena Isayev

Elena Isayev is a historian and professor at University of Exeter uses the ancient Mediterranean to explore migration, belonging, displacement and spatial perception. Her research is based on the intersection of Hospitality and Asylum, Potency of Displaced Agency, Common and Public Space. Her interdisciplinary and inter-practice approach has led to collective learning and research beyond the […]