Between the 2nd of January and 30th of April artist Yasser Ballemans will have a residency at the Instituto Buena Bista on Curacao.

Together with students of the institute he is going to participate in the annual Curacao carnaval parade. Inside Out stands for the emergence of art in the carnaval parade of Curacao. We abandon the safe walls of the gallery and the museum and step from inside to outside. This theme will also be used in the works by the students. We are going out with a personal vision on the carnaval. We will play with the contrast between disappearing in the mob and the individual identity.

The project can be followed on this page and on a big screen in the Electron hangar at KOP in Breda where Willem Claassen in the project OP ZUNNE KOP works on his contribution to this parade.

This project is possible thanks to funds provided by Fonds BKVB (Mondiaan Fund since jan 2012).

More images can be seen on: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2650384093997.2119669.1087562319&type=3&l=8084982b1e

The project Inside Out does not stand by itself. Yasser Ballemans has organized in his position as a co-curator together with KOP the exhibition ‘Op Zunne Kop’ in Breda. Herein the connections between carnaval and the visual arts are explored.

Earlier projects from La Cruz and Helweg on Curacao were:
‘Weta e Lus’ (drug addicts) in cooperation with 5 institutions on Curacao: Foundation Sonrisa, Yabi di Libertat, Brasami, Probation and Dios Yudami.
‘Drop Ar’ ‘Siña Wak, Siña Mira’ an artproject for younger people between 11 and 24 year olds in cooperation with 5 elementary schools and institutions for ‘reeducation and reintegration’ of young offenders and severely maladjusted children.

During the final presentation on January 5th you have the opportunity to see the new installation en works, entitled ‘Curacao Gamble’ that originated during their residency period at the IBB.

Both artists graduated from de Royal Academy of Art in the Hague. From their social engagement they develop projects that combine art, education and welfare. Socially engaged art, art that expresses itself critically on certain things that play out in de community and politics.

La Cruz and Helweg have, next to their own work named ‘Curacao Gamble’ provided a block seminar for the students of the IBB. The block seminar ‘the fable newspaper’ de famous children’s show from the sixties and seventies is the starting point for this block seminar. The animation dolls represent recognizable issues and social topics at the level ok de fablewoods for children, but also very popular with adults because of the ironic and serious overtone. The students will be encouraged to critically and without (self) censoring look at the land in which they live and to subject it to a thorough investigation. This means that de students will collect information (read newspapers) about one or more politicians and the social subject matters on which these politicians stand. After a period of collecting, thinking and discussing, the students will in a playful way work with collected newspaper material, photographs and texts to bring these in visualization in their own way. After first working and sketching on a flat surface, the students are challenged to build a politically engaged artwork/installation.

Every student relates to a certain politician, their topics and visualizes everything in every case via the shape of an animal. References to the famous ‘Animal Farm’ from George Orwell could be found.

During the end-presentation on the 5th of January the students of IBB will also present their work. A few students will also provide a lecture where art –from history and the actuality- fed by protest and social engagement will be presented.

Everyone is welcome to the IBB, for this stimulating beginning of the new year.

Thursday 5 january 2012 from 18.00 o’clock.

Entry is free of charge.

Where: Instituto Buena Bista, Orkidia Paviljoen (Klinika Capriles), Mohikanenweg 8.
For more information see: www.lacruzhelweg.nl www.institutobuenabista.com

Visual artist Annalee Davis was a guest at IBB during our lustrum celebrations and also ran a very engaging project with our students. During this project she spearheaded an exchange between the students of the Barbados Community College and the students of IBB. You can read more about this in her column that ran on the ARC Magazine website but also in the barbados today newspaper. Click the link to read the column: musings @ ARC magazine

You read about it in the newspapers, in the magazines and online. You even saw it on television… It’s Instituto Buena Bista’s first lustrum celebration! Five years of building, cutting, pasting and adapting.

On October 24 the celebrations of 5 years IBB got a symbolic start with 2 seminars for the students of IBB by the artists Annalee Davis (Barbados) and Charo Oquet(Miami/Dominican Republic). For two weeks the students, divided into two groups, had to work with these 2 artists.
Each seminar had its own theme and medium that was going to be presented and taught to the students.
With Annalee the students had to make a blog and a video where they not only introduced themselves but IBB and Curacao as well. During this seminar the students were confronted with the various way to do research and how to work in teams and to create a collective result or work. The blog can be visited on tumblr:
http://whoweareibb.tumblr.com/. A connection between the students of IBB and the students of BCC (Barbados Community College) was also established as the base for a future collaboration between IBB and the BCC.
In the seminar of Charo, installation art was the main theme. Not only did the students do the different exercises in how to build installations but they also learned about the history behind installation art. After the various individual exercises in the building of installations and the building of individual installations the students had to build one collective installation. With this the students where confronted with the complexities of teamwork, space and time.

The official opening ceremony of our celebration was on October 31 by a representative of Minister Jansen (Minister of Culture, Education, Science and Sport), Mr. Roland Antonius. With the presence of the friends of IBB, guests, artists Annalee Davis, Charo Oquet and Chief Curator of the Museum of Modern Art of the Dominican Republic Amable Lopez Melendez the celebration couldn’t go wrong. On this first day mister Amable Lopez Melendez gave a lecture entitled: Espectrologías & Polísintesis en el Arte del Caribe Contemporáneo, that covered the analysis of many contemporary artworks in the Caribbean especially contemporary art from Dominican Republic. This lecture was followed by a speech by David Bade and Tirzo Martha, the initiators of the IBB, reflecting on not only the heights of 5 years IBB but also the lows; the students and their talents and the future. For the initiators of the IBB this is a moment of reflection a moment to fine tune the direction of the IBB towards the future.
After the short speech from Bade and Martha it was time for the launching of a short documentary made by Omar Kuwas that gave an impression of the highlights that illustrated 5 years IBB.

The second day of celebration, November 3, was also a day filled with interesting lectures by the the 2 artists in residence Charo Oquet and Annalee Davis. Both artists gave more insight in their work and career. They both gave some extensive explanation about the themes they’ve taught in their seminars the past 2 weeks to the students. The main event of the evening was the official opening of the exhibition with the results of the 2 seminars by the 2 artists in residence and the students of IBB. The chairman of the foundation IBB, mr. Michael Newton made the official opening with some supportive and constructive words on the existence of the IBB. Both artists presented also their works they’ve donated to the collection of the IBB.
As part of this official moment a painting by Fiona Henriquez, an ex student of the IBB now studying in the Netherlands, has been handed over to the director of the Capriles Kliniek Dr. Waldi Oostburg. This as a gesture of gratitude towards the clinic for their collaboration with the IBB.
A cake in the shape of the number 5 with candles and some singing of Happy Birthday brought this special night of celebration to a conclusion.

On the last evening of the ceremonies, Friday, November 4, Amable Lopez Melendez gave another presentation, this time about more specific artworks, describing them thoroughly and abundantly as he explains how they are all collected within new artistic practices in the era of emptiness. He elaborated on many of these artists who’s works incorporated violence, war and other explicit content. This evening was more of a conference for professionals working in the field of art. The different discussions that where presented by the audience concerning this thematic brought a special energy to the evening.

As we wrap up our first big anniversary, we give thanks to all of you, press, friends, guests, students and of course staff, for supporting us.

Thank you!

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With 16 students currently in The Netherlands and a record amount of 27 students currently attending the institute, the IBB is on its way to pave a strong foundation for the future of Curacao visual and applied arts. A foundation and platform that will have to serve and carry the needs of art on Curacao. To create room for developments, vision, direction and to reserve a place in the future for out new talents and visionaries.
Ibb didn’t only busy itself with her own students en art lovers inside the confines of it’s walls, which since last year has been situated on the Capriles Clinic grounds, but has also moved to the streets of Willemstad, the community and the schools. Places where education comes to it’s right and the added value of it is made clear. A good example of this is our pavilion on the grounds of the Capriles Clinic where IBB offers a variety of possibilities ranging from social project to the development of an exposition space and sculpture garden. In it’s five years of existence the IBB has been host to more than 30 international artists in our residence programs. All of them have taught our students, developed their own work and left works behind for our growing collection of internationally renowned modern art.

We don’t want to let five years of building pass by unnoticed. Especially because it has fed and strengthened us so much. Doors have been and will be open for us. Possibilities are created and new plans are made. Our engagement is getting bigger and multifaceted. On top of that it’s not only restricted to Curacao; the whole of the Caribbean region is involved in it. The references and horizons of our students, IBB and participants at our activities keep getting broader. The knowledge that art is like salt, stinging the wound but healing it in the process, is taken at heart at IBB and keeps showing results.

We want to share all of this with the people of Curacao. We made a program that fits perfectly with the goals, philosophy and plans for the future of IBB that is primarily aimed at art, community involvement and education. From the Museum of Modern Arts of the Dominican Republic we have Mr. Amable Lopez Melendez, head curator of the museum. Together with artists Charo Oquet (Dom. Rep. / USA) and Annalee Davis (barbados) they will give several presentations about their work, teach and work together with our IBB students an possibly with the clients of the clinic. The artwork ‘rocket launch’ that was unveiled recently during the 10-10-10 celebrations on the brionplein shall be added and unveiled, in a new version, in our sculpture garden.

The results coming forth from these workshops and creative processes shall be presented on:

31 October:

19:00 Opening by the Minister of Education, Sciences, Culture and Sport Lionel Jansen
19:30 Lecture by Amable Lopez Melendez
21:00 IBB documentary with introduction bij Tirzo Martha and David Bade
21:30 Program closure

3 November:

19:00 Presentation / lecture by the artists in residence
19:10-19:40 Charo Oquet
19:50-20:20 Annalee Davis
20:30 Official opening exhibition bij the chairperson of Foundation IBB Ir. Michael Newton

4 November

19:00 Conference by Amable Lopez Melendez entitled: Las Nuevas Practicas
Artisticas en la era del vacío

A small section of his cv:

2010:
Member of the assesing comité of the artemericas fair, miami beach, USA.
Member of the organizing comité of the first international triennal of the caribbean. Dominican Republic 2010.
Curated various collective and individual exhibitions of both established and emerging artists in important galleries, museums, cultural centers and alternative spaces in the carribean, USA, and Latin America.

2009:
XLII world congress of AICA, Museum of Contemporary Arts of Barcelona, Spain.
Currently editor of the “Contemporary Art” section of the cultural supplement of the HOY newspaper.
Director of the caribbean area for the “Arte al Dia Internacional”.
Correspondent for the ARTNOTES magazine for the Miami, Carib and Latin American areas.

Her approach features and integrated and participatory process often carried out in collaboration with a close network of assistants, friends and family. The trivial and the subcultures are relevant to Oquet’s work as are the multifaceted layers that are the result of our human experiences, the daily impact, the “materiality of lived times”. Touching on issues of memory, the formation of personal and communal identity, infrastructure, culture, and the layering and compression of time, space, and place. Oquet’s sculptures are conditioned by their interrelationship with their surrounding. Often these gravity-defying, messy exuberance constructions she builds struggle to soar beyond the boundaries of the spaces that contain them, appearing to stagger in the brink of collapse. Distinctly anti-Minimalist in its sensibility, they are not in search of the “hand-made”. While she plays with the properties of each of the material, she subverts its ordinary use. She used fabrics, beads, dolls, fragments of manmade, mostly synthetic materials, exploring how matter takes on value, both temporally and spatially while allowing chaotic forces and the complex behavior of urban life to shape her work.”

website

Her work exposes tensions within the larger context of a post-colonial Caribbean history and observes the nature of post-independent (failing?) nation states. She explores notions of home, longing and belonging; questions the parameters that define who belong (and who doesn’t), and is concerned with issues surrounding the shifting landscapes of the archipelago.

She has exhibited her work throughout the Caribbean and internationally since 1989.
Annalee Davis webssite