Art café: the reality of autonomous art practice
Against the backdrop of the exhibition The Autonomous Art Practice & The Dream, which features the work of four young autonomous artists, curator/researcher Ilga Minjon talks with postconceptual artist/activist Alina Lupu and editor/producer Agata Bar about the reality of autonomous art practice. Language: English
An art practice that develops to its heart’s content? In this economy? Those who work as artists cannot escape the reality of contradictions. If you can find a studio at all, the question is how much time you can spend there in addition to your three side jobs. And will you get into that institutional exhibition if you speak out against genocide in Gaza?
Would you like to attend? Please register here!
Saturday, June 21, CBK Zuidoost, Anton de Komplein 120
3.45 – 4.15 pm: Walk in
4.15 – 6.00 pm: Panel Talk
About the panel
Ilga Minjon (hen/hun) is a curator, researcher and lecturer based in Amsterdam. Working closely with artists of various disciplines, they strive to weave together images of the future from decolonial and feminist rewrites of connectedness in art, technology and sound.
Hen is a member of the Stadscuratorium Amsterdam, a citywide advisory committee for art in public spaces. As a lecturer at Design Academy Eindhoven, she teaches Contextual Studies and design research. Ilga has frequently curated experimental programs, exhibitions, symposia and international residency exchanges, at Impakt [Center for Media Culture], FLAT Station/BijlmAIR, Amsterdam Southeast and Stroom The Hague. Other activities revolve around experimentation with audio/radio and exchanges around pedagogy of collectivity.
Ilga is part of Reading Vigil for Palestine, a collective that, since November 2023, has met daily for an hour at Dam Square to read about Palestine in public space until a permanent cease-fire.
Alina Lupu is a Romanian-born, Netherlands-based post-conceptual artist, writer, photographer and activist. Her work explores the role of images and performative actions in promoting solidarity and resistance to capitalist hegemony and precarity. She views protest from a broad perspective, provides civil disobedience, petitions, debates and anti-capitalist care structures, and works in her practice to reinterpret institutions.
Agata Bar is a Polish-born and Amsterdam-based editor, publication producer and cultural worker with a focus on photography, contemporary art and culture.
Agata was part of the organization and production teams of Photomonth in Krakow and Unseen Amsterdam, and was previously responsible for the production and worldwide distribution of Foam Magazine. In recent years, she worked at Noor Images as Editorial Director, where she shaped visual storytelling strategies and managed various editorial projects. She was also responsible for coordinating publications for the Manifesta Biennial, further deepening her involvement in critical and interdisciplinary art discourses.
In 2022, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Agata co-founded the publishing initiative Growing Pains. In addition to her freelance practice, she also works at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam.