Dutch curators in EXPO CHICAGO 2024 Curatorial Exchange Program

Wed, Apr 10 - Sun, Apr 14  2024

EXPO CHICAGO - Chicago Consulate Region

EXPO CHICAGO Curatorial Program offers select mid-career and established curators the opportunity to engage closely with their peers, convening as part of a four-day program that includes access to the Curatorial Forum, exhibitions, private collections, artist studios, museums, and institutions during EXPO CHICAGO.

Established in 2018, EXPO CHICAGO‘s Curatorial Exchange is an invitation-only program and is one of the nation’s only dedicated initiatives focused on funding global curator convenings that fosters future collaborations for curators on the local, national, and international level.

The Curatorial Exchange is developed in partnership with foreign consulates and cultural agencies from countries around the world including the Australian Consulate-General Chicago; the Danish Arts Foundation and the Consulate General of Denmark in New York; Villa Albertine and the Consulat Général de France à Chicago; Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Chicago; Consulate General of the Republic of Lithuania in Chicago; the Lithuanian Culture Institute; the Consulado General de México en Chicago; Dutch Culture USA, a program by the Consulate General of Netherlands of New York; Québec Government Office in Chicago; Taipei Cultural Center in New York; and Arts Council of Ireland.

The following curators from The Netherlands will participate in the 2024 edition of the Curatorial Exchange program:

Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide

Senior Curator
Van Abbemuseum

Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide’s interests lie in intersecting perspectives and modes that decentre the oppressor in practices of freedom and liberation, to influence art institutional practices. She is senior exhibitions curator at Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands and was previously deputy director at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons in Utrecht where she began as an intern in 2008. At Van Abbemuseum she is curator to: Positions #7: Everything worthwhile is done with other people (2023); Sung Hwan Kim: Protected by roof and right-hand muscles (2023); A Lasting Truth is Change (2022) and co-editor to the epynomous publication (K. Verlag, Van Abbemuseum, 2022). She is also co-editor to: Laure Prouvost, This Means Love (Lisson Gallery, Van Abbemuseum, 2021); I Think My Body Feels, I Feel My Body Thinks: On Corpoliteracy (Van Abbemuseum, 2022). She has been a tutor at the Dutch Art Institute, Roaming Academy, thesis advisor in the Fine Arts department at the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam (2016–2019), a member of the editorial board of L’Internationale Online and is a board member at Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam.

Jo-Lene Ong

Independent Curator and Program Advisor
12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale

Jo-Lene Ong is an independent curator based in the Netherlands and Malaysia. She is a program advisor for the 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale and teaches at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam. Her practice engages with counter colonial ways of knowing, sensing, and organising. Jo-Lene’s long term research on ecologies of resilience across and beyond Asia and its diaspora has been advanced through a residency at Delfina Foundation, London and the Ishibashi Foundation/Japan Foundation Fellowship for Research on Japanese Art. Recent projects include Other Futures, Amsterdam; Elsewheres Within Here, Framer Framed; SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now, Mori Art Museum and National Art Center, Tokyo; and Practice Space, a volume on approaches to “the local” by art initiatives operating outside of conventional frameworks published by De Appel, Amsterdam and NAME Publications, Miami. Previously she managed mapKL, a platform in Kuala Lumpur offering space for contemporary ideas.

Josien Pieterse

Co-Founder and Co-Director
Framer Framed

Josien is, together with Cas Bool, founder and co-director of Framer Framed. Framer Framed is a platform for art and culture, with an exhibition space in Amsterdam. Their exhibitions are located at the intersection of contemporary art, visual culture and politics. The exhibitions present work by known and unknown artists, who are active worldwide and address social issues. When organizing exhibitions, Framer Framed offers a platform to both established curators and new names. In addition to each exhibition, an in-depth, interdisciplinary public program takes place, consisting of artist talks, lectures, film screenings, performances and publications. In 2018 Framer Framed opened an art and community space ‘Werkplaats Molenwijk’ for the Molenwijk neighborhood in Amsterdam North. Each year Werkplaats Molenwijk offers artist in residence for two artists to work on new projects. In addition to many public symposia, Josien realized more than 60 exhibitions on behalf of Framer Framed, including the first Dutch pavilion at the 14th Gwanju Biennale in South Korea with various international guest curators. Josien Pieterse was founder and ten years director of Network Democracy, a platform for democratic innovation. In 2014, she received the oeuvre prize, ‘Radical Innovators’, from the journalistic magazine Vrij Nederland for her work with Network Democracy.

Guinevere Ras

Curator
Nederlands Fotomuseum

Guinevere Ras works as a curator at the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam. She focuses on decolonizing the narrative space with exhibitions that question and complement the dominant Western narrative. Previously, she was involved in the creation of the Gallery of Honor of Dutch Photography (2021) which is permanently on display, Imagination (2022) and Out of This World | Sanja Marušić (2023). As a freelancer she promotes inclusivity andmultivocality in the cultural sector. Among others, she co-wrote the ‘Guide to researching traces of slavery and the colonial past in collection registration’(2021), published by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands. Additionally she is a member of the visual arts advisory committee at the Cultuurfonds and member of the Programs Advisory Committee (2025-2028) at Mondriaan Fonds.