Dear friends of IBB,
After our last newsletter in November we are working hard to send you information on IBB activities on a more regular bases. Every 2 months we want to give you all an update of IBB latest news and interesting projects that are coming up.

Artist in Residence: Lydia Schouten
From the second week of October until mid-January IBB in cooperation with the Dutch BKVB Fund welcomed visual artist Lydia Schouten as her guest resident. This ‘grande dame’ of Dutch contemporary art worked with our students next to her autonomous project. Last Tuesday January 12th we invited the public for a lecture by the artist on the work she produced during her stay and we presented the work our students produced during her workshop on new media. The lecture was a great success. For all of those who couldn’t make it, hereby a little more information on Lydia’s work…

Modern media had great influence on our daily life, maybe more than we sometimes realize. The work of Lydia Schouten gives us an awry look behind this influences and at the same time pores it over us. In the eighties she used the techniques the media enforces on us to seduce us and create a dream world, full of self experienced adventures looked at from the real world. Her installations confront us with our desires, especially the sensual and sexual gaze. We are driven by loneliness en uncontrollable urges, “we worry about things that are happening somewhere else and experience them in a surrogate way. Our bodies can be somewhere and at the same time our minds are somewhere else. This makes up impotent, unsatisfied and sometimes-even feel guilty. We are always on the wrong spot, we disregards ourselves and do not value the world we are interacting with…”

Her early installations Schouten made aiming to create something as light possible by using light, air and video combined with objects she designed. Currently she only experiences this way of working as a burden. Because the world is constantly and permanently changing she feels these days it is more appropriate to create installations that only contain projections of visuals and sounds. At the moment you pull the plug, nothing is left. You can surround the observer with a audio visual world, enriched with al sorts of information, and at the same time you are left with some DVD’s. This thought appeals to her. As one can see for instance in her video installation ‘Le Jardin Secret’ (2006/2007)

In Lydia Schouten’s recent work she looks at herself as an engine driver, creating a horizontal structure that can be compared with the editing of a video, which moves in time. To visualize and represent current times she want to plug into different levels of history and combine these with images from our daily lives. 
The outlines of this so called ‘memory-time-space’ cannot be connected with particular spaces but merely a place where narrative elements resonate together and have interaction with each other. In this way Lydia Schouten combines this in her mixed-media ‘drawing’: Log, The Discovery of Easter Island (1722)” (2007). “The concept derived from the 18th century explorer Jacob Roggeveen, from a time when we could posses land by setting foot ashore and plant a Dutch flag. Combining this with the news lines on the many attempts of boat refugees to set foot ashore to obtain a better life, gives us new views on our actions”
For more information about the artist and her work: www.lydiaschouten.com

Curacao Foreign Studio by Fonds BKVB (AiR)


As most of you might know by now four times a year IBB invites guest artists from the Netherlands for a residency period of three months. The purpose of these residencies (as with all our guests) is these artists to encounter the island from a working and living perspective and for our students to have different perspectives on art…

Within this framework Dutch visual artist Maartje Folkeringa arrived in January of this year. She stays until the beginning of April in IBB’s residency house and works at her studio at the Klinika Capriles on a sculpture in P.U. foam. Maartje inspired this project on official portraits for statesmen, wanting to make her own variation for ‘common people’ with the same grace and elevated gesture. Her ‘lady’ is now 250 cm high and accompanied by her pet and ‘watchdog’: a giant iguana. Next to this piece she will do a workshop with the IBB students on building characters with a broad range of disciplines and media in the visual arts. 



For more information on the artist and her work: www.maartjefolkeringa.nl



IBB internship by Annabeth van der Mark
Third year student at the Dutch Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht, Annabeth van der Mark, is attending the schooling to become an art teacher. Annabeth was the first student we can welcome from this school, hopefully in a long and fruitful tradition to come. She worked with a lot of passion for her work and recently completed her two month internship at IBB giving our students the basics of drawing and painting still life’s in charcoal and transferring that into a painting in acrylic. She also assisted Dutch artist in resident Lydia Schouten, who stayed at IBB for a period of three months from October 2009, in her block seminar with the students. We are all going to miss Annabeth and are looking forward to the new student from Utrecht!

Kooyman School Project

Kooyman Enterprise, a hardware store on the Dutch Antilles, celebrated her 70 year anniversary last year with several projects and events for the public. Together with IBB, Kooyman wanted to do a project for schoolchildren between 12 and 17, which was developed by our two IBB co-founders David Bade and Tirzo Martha.

Our school project started last October 2009. The educational material was delivered to the (CAV) teachers of the 6 participating schools: the Marnix College (Cas Cora), Dr. Albert Schweitzer School (Salinja), Dr. Albert Schweitzer School (Parera), Ancilla Domini, Stella Maris and the Vespucci College. Each school received two parcels, one with the program developed by David Bade, one developed by Tirzo Martha. The first was an assignment to make a three dimensional portrait of you and/or your family and the second one was making your favorite, non-human, spatial object.

In the beginning of December Tirzo and Judith van der Ham – who was doing her internship at IBB at that moment – visited the schools to check on the results and give a short demonstration on the creative possibilities this project had. Both the students and teachers where very thrilled with the project which one can see from the results that came out of it!
 

After all participating schools finalized the project IBB collected the works for presentation at our space at De Ruijterkade 58. Last Saturday the 23rd of January we presented the works to the public and a professional jury consisting of: Tirzo Martha (IBB), Phyllis Hernandez (Radio Top FM) and Maartje Folkeringa (our current artist in residence from the Netherlands). And the winners were:
1st Prize: Marnix School (Cas Cora)

2nd Prize: Albert Schweitzer School (Salinja)

3rd Prize: Marnix School (Cas Cora)


International Project Space (IPS)

At the beginning of January a former guest of IBB returned for the second part of his project: Carlos Rolón a.k.a. Dzine (Puerto Rico, 1970) currently living in Chicago. In January 2009 he started working on one of his famous ‘bling-bling bike projects’ with the students. For this second part of his project he now came back to work with the new league of students at IBB. We can safely state that over the last year Dzine got strongly attached to IBB, the way we work and the future of our students, which we are – of course – very proud of. Without asking any fee or personal profit he came back to Curacao to continue the project on ‘floatbar biking’. These are street culture bicycles that are being extended at the bar to make them longer. The youngsters put a piece of metal or plastic underneath the back wheel and then slide down hills.
Dzine inspired and supported the students in making a bike like that, but also making them conscious about the space they are working in, the materials they choose and respecting their tools and environment. The students enjoyed the project intensely…

More information on the artist and his work: http://www.dzinestudio.com

A rider drifting his floatbar bike. For more information on these bike’s we recommend you to whatch this YouTube movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ni6XExYCs&NR=1

Guest teacher at IBB: Erik Habets


IBB teacher and co-founder David Bade is working in the Netherlands on his solo-exhibition in the Hague (http://www.gem-online.com/index2.phtml) and a group-exhibition in Amsterdam (www.nietnormaal.nl) during the first part of this year. Because his absence we decided to invite visual artist and professional art teacher Erik Habets from the Netherlands to replace David temporarily. In week 5 and 6 Erik is doing a seminar on sculpture with our students, the results can be seen at IBB soon. At our new IBB website you can follow the process…

Pocha Nostra at IBB

IBB director Nancy Hoffmann accompanied the Mexican/US performance artist Guillermo Gomez Peña and the Spanish curator Orlando Britto Jinorio from the Canary Islands to Curacao for an orientation trip. In November of this year Gomez Peña together with members of his performance network organization La Pocha Nostra (www.pochanostra.com) and curator Orlando Britto Jinorio are planning a big performance art workshop on Curacao dealing with border issues, matters of language, history and social constructions. Together with local intellectuals, writers, poets, visual artists, dancers, actors, etc. they will be preparing for a performance art event that will shake our little rock! For more information on the workshop, please contact IBB (info@institutobuenabista.com)

Short story by Captain Erickson – Captains log…
IBB is frequently visited by a wide range of artists from all over the world. This particular writer and artist made a short story on his adventures at IBB, wrapped up in a fictional setting of military jargon vs. Captain Jack Sparrow but nevertheless very amusing… 



Hello all,
Again I have to excuse myself for reporting you too late on my mission here in the Caribbean. We have been very busy over the last few weeks. Two days after the two propaganda specialists from Mexico and Gran Canaria arrived on the island, the last settlement of our enemy fell down: Westpoint. Everything seemed like sunshine and roses and we all had a party until dawn. Thanks to the green rum and intoxicated by victory we lost control and weariness. For this reason a small militant group under leadership of the owner of The Sea Side Terrace group had the chance to let a killer rat loose in our Head Quarters at Montezuma. At that moment we just had a briefing with our Commander in Chief of the armed forces, the propaganda specialists and some of our staff members. Suddenly we were standing face to face with the most horrible, one meter long, extremely hairy killer rat. Sweating and unarmed we were driven into a corner of our bunker. Thank god our Spanish propaganda specialist was – at that moment – fighting with his DVD player because he wanted to show us his latest propaganda piece. Right at the moment the killer rat was going for my throat I farted out of fear. Our Spanish compadre dropped the DVD player, the DVD fired out of the player with high velocity and with surgical precision it cut the carotid artery of the killer rat. We all bursted into laughter, drank green rum and ate wild boar fillet all night long to celebrate.

By means of indoctrination for our enemies we arranged an exhibition at the Curacao Museum. The killer rat with the DVD stuck in his throat placed on an altar – with red LED lamps replacing his eyes – surrounded by candles. Around the rat we placed a circle of bottles of the famous Curacaoan green rum. In a glass box we put a wax replica of the propaganda specialist holding the DVD player. Until now the situation is stable on the island, no riots. Our recruits have been summoned to make sculptures of our enemies and place them on the facade of our new IBB party building.

The atmosphere is very good right now. My beloved and her parents arrived on the island and are currently guarding the beaches. Chavez – the third dog, as we call him – has not been seen yet. Meanwhile I have been setting up some social development projects. I have organized a small massage parlor to soothe the people. My mission is almost completed. Next week my replacement will arrive, if the government allows it. He, Tomas Primero, then has the difficult assignment to keep things the way they are right now, together with our good old friend Captain Caribbean. 

I hope to see you all again soon in good health.
All best wishes and strength to you all,

your servant,
Captain Erikson


Sponsoring request from our students: become a ‘Friend of IBB’…
Talent doesn’t always has the opportunity to grow and find the right path within our complex society which is mainly build on the principles of profit and loss… 
IBB yearly scouts talents from all layers in society. Some of them are less fortunate when it comes to their financial background. To our opinion this fact may never be a reason for them to not get the chances they deserve and we can offer. That is why IBB is looking for personal sponsoring for these students. A sponsor will get the chance to follow the road of his or her student and you never know… your student might be very successful one day!



In return the student you ‘adopt’ will give you regular reports on projects he of she is working on, you will be invited for student presentations and twice a year the student will make something special for his or her sponsor to thank you for the support. If you are interested in supporting a student in this way, please contact Cisca Bouman at IBB: +5999 461 3394 or cisca@institutobuenabista.com and she will tell you more about this sponsor agreement. Small donations are also very welcome and will all be used for the benefit of our young talented artists, graphic designers, fashion designers, photographers, arcchitects, filmers, etc. of the future…

So far we have provided you with the latest projects and events at IBB. We hope to meet you soon at De Ruijterkade 58 (open at weekdays from 2.00 to 6.00 pm). You can expect our next newsletter around the end of April.

Nancy Hoffmann (director), Josje Smits (general manager), Cisca Bouman (PR and Communication), David Bade (artist, teacher and co-founder), Tirzo Martha (srtist, teacher and co-founder), Omar Kuwas (technique and design) and Sidney N. Pieter (all-round support)