Researcher/curator Yasmine Ostendorf has been undertaking research across Asia and Europe on artists proposing alternative ways of living and working – ways that ultimately shape more sustainable, interconnected and resilient societies and peripheries. She has extensively worked on international cultural mobility programmes and on the topic of art and ecology, having worked for expert organisations such as Julie’s Bicycle (UK), Bamboo Curtain Studio (TW), Cape Farewell (UK) and Trans Artists (NL). She runs the Green Art Lab Alliance, a network of 35 cultural organisations in Europe and Asia that explores, questions, and addresses our social and environmental responsibility, and is the author of the series of guides “Creative Responses to Sustainability,” published by the Asia-Europe Foundation (SG) and the Ecologic Institute (DE). She is an associate curator for Valley of the Possible (CL), for the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World (UK), and for C-Platform (CN). Since 2017 she is the Head of the Lab for Nature Research at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht (NL) and the initiator of the Van Eyck Food Lab (2018); a research placement for an artist/chef, understanding food in the light of current ecological, social and political developments. She has been organising Food Art Film Festivals collecting, showcasing and celebrating inspiring food/art practices from across the globe and has been organising regular Reading Groups to bring together theory and practice. She tries to write a monthly blog for www.artistsandclimatechange.
Research
My initial plan was to spend my time expanding on partnerships for the Green Art Lab Alliance in Latin-America; connecting dots, redistributing resources and organising exchanges and so on. Soon it turned out that above all, Capacete is a personal opportunity to enjoy a second education; a chance to carefully dissect and review Eurocentric perspectives and expand on my theoretical and cultural framework in active anti-colonial and anti-racist ways. More than anything my ‘project’ here is to listen, absorb and internalise. And more than it being about a subject it’s become to be about recognising underlying systems and structures and curating alternative methodologies accordingly.
**Yasmine Ostendorf's residence is possible with the support of Mondriaan Fonds
(https://www.mondriaanfonds.nl/)
