After working on Aruba for three months we arrived on Curacao the 9th of April, welcomed by an angry lady at the lost luggage desk, after that by the heat. Finally, after all the delay, we met up with David who came to pick us up from the airport. It instantly felt like coming home.
Curacao and IBB have become very precious to us in the last two years. While Curacao is often associated with a laid-back lifestyle, our impression is almost the opposite. After leaving the more timid sister island Aruba, the loud and hectic chaos of Curacao were a welcomed alternation.
After a Sunday off we started working at IBB. It was great to meet the IBB team and of course the students, some of which we already know and some new young talents.
Since the institute recently moved from Waaigat to Klinika Caprilles, it was exciting to see IBB’s new location. We were impressed by the spacious ateliers and the huge garden, offering the students the possibility to work big and present their works in different settings. The interaction between the students and the patients of Capriles (who also have the opportunity to work there) also seemed like a valuable addition.

Talking about energy! As always the students were packed with many nice projects, some small and some extensive. We were lucky to witness two of them in the first week already. First the celebration of ‘60 years Klinaka Capriles’ for which the students were assigned to make a stage for a musical performance. The day after we went to the presentation of a relief project at St. Albertus College. In the past months all students had made their own ceramic reliefs depicting their interpretation of biblical stories. The reliefs were now installed on the wall of a monastery and a priest was there to bless them.

Another project is the recording studio. A space where students can make music, record radio shows and do voiceovers for video works. Monica and some students worked on making the studio soundproof with the help of some old-school egg boxes, foam and fabric. A basic inventory of recording equipment was made to this great addition of IBB’s facilities.

One of the main points of focus during our two month stay has been the students admission to several art academies in Holland. This year six students were found ready to take their talents abroad. Over the past years they have produced an immense amount of works that’s been documented digitally. We’ve been assisting them to make a portfolio with a structured selection, accompanied by a motivation letter. This process is always quite an extensive job, but the end result is very rewarding. Even though the first responses of the art academy’s commissions are yet to come in, the development that the students present in their portfolios is definitely something they can be proud of already.
The last couple of weeks we’ve spent working on our block seminar ‘Musical Sculptures’; the students are challenged to make their own musical instrument that also needs to have sculptural qualities. We started off with a short group exercise where they were asked to record sounds they made with objects in their direct surroundings. A quick audio/video composition was then made in iMovie. After that they started sketching on their instruments and we went on a road trip to collect recycled materials.

In the coming days the instruments will be finished and ready to use. Together they will form an orchestra and rehearse a musical composition that will be performed for an audience June 3rd.

After that it’s time for us to return to Amsterdam. Once again we leave with great memories and hope to return for another period in the near future.

Over the last weeks we’ve been posting many images and video’s of our experiences and the workshop on a blog. Please have a look at http://m-and-t-at-ibb.tumblr.com/.