The Commission for the Regulation Impulse & Depth (I&V) has recently been completely renewed. Starting with the second I&V round of 2024, Sami Hammana, Renie Spoelstra, Miloš Trakilović, Ester Venema, David Maroto, Brenda Tempelaar, mo Futures, Claudia Schouten, Benjamin Li and Yessica Deira will consider all applications. Time for an introduction.
Sami Hammana
Sami Hammana works part-time as course leader for the Honours Programme at the Willem de Kooning Academy. In his own artistic practice he is mainly concerned with the boundaries of perception. In his work, often cinematic and textual, he investigates social, political and historical events.
'I hope to contribute to supporting artists who work from a combination of methods, media, disciplines and languages. Or in other words: supporting practices that cannot be easily categorized. With my background in education and visual culture, I hope to contribute to recognizing promising work that falls outside the norm.'
Sami Hammana
Renie Spoelstra
Renie Spoelstra is a visual artist. She has lived and worked in Rotterdam since 1999. Since 2001, her work has consisted of making (large) charcoal drawings of landscapes that she has visited and photographed or filmed. She enjoys the labor-intensive process of drawing, with which she can charge the landscape with exactly the atmosphere she is looking for. She works from a studio and has been working with Galerie Ron Mandos for over twenty years. Spoelstra's work has been shown at home and abroad, in galleries, museums, fairs and artist initiatives. She previously worked as a committee member at the Mondriaan Fund and occasionally gives guest lessons at art academies and lectures at her exhibitions.
'I take the task of committee member very seriously because by selecting you contribute to the art climate of Rotterdam. In my opinion, this should be done as objectively and modestly as possible. I see this as an interesting challenge and variation next to my work in my studio, which is much more inward-looking.
I look forward to making a case for the 'studio artist', also middle-aged and older. This group cannot easily apply for subsidies that are available for specific projects of a temporary nature or site-specific assignments. As a result, they often fall by the wayside or remain under the radar of the subsidy policy.'
Renie Spoelstra – photography by Michèle Magot
Miloš Trakilović
Miloš Trakilović is a Bosnian-Dutch artist. He holds a BFA and MFA from the University of the Arts in Berlin, where he graduated from the Experimental Film and New Media Art department. His work explores the political aspects of perception, focusing on themes of dissolution, fragmentation, memory, and loss. His practice is strongly research-oriented and primarily focuses on digital media, incorporating film, video, animation, and installation. In addition to his artistic practice, he is active as a teacher and advisor in the art field.
'As an artist with a migration background, I feel called to ask critical questions about the structures that shape our society, particularly through the lens of cultural and artistic production. The ambition to broaden and promote the understanding of art, beyond what the art market dictates, is something I value greatly and also see strongly reflected in the objective of the I&V scheme. I believe that art has the power to challenge and broaden our worldviews, and I am excited to bring this perspective to my advisory role in Rotterdam. I look forward to working together on a broad, inclusive approach to art, in which there is ample room for challenging and groundbreaking art practices.'
Miloš Trakilović
Ester Venema
Ester Venema works as an artist in the collective Sunflower Soup. With this collective they explore the border area between art and activism. They often organize meetings based on workshops where they invite the public to collaborate and think about a certain subject. For example, they made the exhibition Plantiarchy where they, together with more than a thousand people, made a paper maché forest and thought about a speculative future where plants have the power. The collective has also recently started curating exhibitions about collaboration and collectivity at Plaatsmaken in Arnhem. Venema is also part of other collectives, including Slow Frequencies, a collective that uses sound as a means to connect and slow down. Slowing down as an act of resistance.
Ester Venema – photography by Mitsi Chaida
David Maroto
David Maroto is a visual artist based in Rotterdam, also active as a researcher and curator. His artistic practice is interdisciplinary (installation, performance, sculpture, drawing) and focuses on exploring writing as a form of artistic production in which artistic research takes a central position. He usually shows his work in performative installations that explore the acts of reading and writing in their social and historical dimensions. From this perspective, Maroto's work is situated at the intersection of visual art and critical discourse, between theory and practice, writing and art making.
'I have experienced first-hand how important the support of the I&V grant scheme is, and now is the time to give something back by contributing to the assessment of new art projects. The openness of the I&V scheme is where it finds its strength, as it supports the creative freedom that underpins artistic practice.'
David Maroto – photography by Santiago Medina
Brenda Tempelaar
Brenda Tempelaar is a critic and editor. She publishes essays on visual arts on her website thelongtailof.art and is the publisher of special publications in small physical editions. She previously wrote for De Groene Amsterdammer and De Witte Raaf, among others. She is a member of the Supervisory Board of RADIUS in Delft. Previously, she was an advisor at the Mondriaan Fund and a researcher at the Cultural and Creative Industries lectorate at St. Joost, where she was also a lecturer.
'In my work as an advisor I am very nuanced. My own principles are not leading, the things I read and see in an application do not have to correspond with my own thoughts, or be to my taste. What matters to me is finding the right argumentation that is in line with the criteria. Where such nuance is not possible, the criteria must be questioned.'
Brenda Tempelaar
mo Futures
mo Futures is a visual artist, archivist, dreamer and time traveller. mo focuses on themes such as (gender)Queerness, Afropese identity, Afrofuturism and the importance of archiving. Futures' practice revolves around documenting, creating and sharing the experiences of the different communities in which they exist. They are currently working on a number of different projects including a follow-up to their graduation project, a zine about Queer Afropea and a number of collaborations with other artists. They also work within the collective ìpọ̀sìn's peace, with whom they organise events for and by QTBIPOC communities.
'With my experience in documenting and archiving underrepresented communities and my knowledge of the Dutch art world, I hope to bring a critical perspective to the committee. I bring an understanding of the need for representation within the arts, and look forward to reviewing projects that bring authentic voices and stories to the fore.'
mo Futures
Claudia Schouten
Claudia Schouten is a curator and project manager, co-founder of Motel Spatie (2010-2020) in Arnhem, and former business director of art space Rib in Rotterdam. She has extensive experience in fundraising and organizing art projects at home and abroad. Interventions as manifestations of longer processes that go beyond the conventional spatial frameworks of art in public space. In her current research, Red Rotterdam 1928-1949, she focuses on the residents of Oud-Charlois and brings interesting characters to life who together tell how the social fabric was organized under national socialist civil administration. It provides an image of Oud-Charlois that clashes with the narrative of reconstruction. The first voices from this research can be heard and made visible in the exhibition A Loud Voice Never DiesThe title comes from a work by Urok Shirhan, in which she asks the question: “Can a lovesong start a revolution?”
Claudia Schouten
Benjamin Li
Since 2014, Li has visited over 1.000 Chinese-Indonesian restaurants in the Netherlands, building up a rich archive of menus, tableware and personal stories. With photography, video, sculptures and puzzles with images of Chinese-Indonesian dishes, he shows the diversity and charm of these restaurants. For Li, these eateries symbolize more than just good food; they represent the resilience of his family and the broader integration of the Asian community in the Netherlands. Many of his family members, including his parents, worked in restaurants to build a new life. With his work, Li honors these often undervalued places while simultaneously emphasizing their cultural and historical value. His work challenges stereotypes and prejudices that Asians encounter in the Netherlands, and focuses on themes such as identity, representation, displacement, cultural eating habits and feeling at home.
Benjamin Li
Yessica Deira
Yessica Deira is an artist who combines her skills as a graphic designer, curator and DJ. Her current research focuses on collective consciousness and sonic ecologies, often using archival material. As the founder of AMPFEMININE, she books DJ talent and organizes workshops and events. Deira holds a BA in Graphic Design from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and an MFA in Blacker Blackness from the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. Previously, she taught at the Design Academy Eindhoven and was a curator at Sonic Acts.
Deira: 'What particularly appeals to me about this role is the opportunity to work with a diverse team of artists and advisors. This is crucial to delivering inclusive evaluations of applications. My diverse experience enables me to support and promote innovative projects from different creative perspectives, thus contributing to a representative and dynamic arts community in my home city, Rotterdam.'
Read more about the I&V scheme
Photo: Lou Lou Sainsbury, Resonant Bodies, Toxic Atmospheres