This programme is part of the event Europe’s Finest Hours. Please visit the main page to reserve your spot for this programme.
What does European collaboration mean for emerging artists? Do they relate to this as an open cultural space? How does working in Europe impact their practice and their outlook?
The makers Víctor Santamarina, Nixon Mukiza, Sára Kučerová and Ouassila Arras will be guiding us through both past projects and future plans through quickfire presentations – showing what they look for in collaborations and how they navigate Europe as artistic professionals. Join this programme if you’re eager to learn about their stories, want to grow a network of European peers and after the presentations, get to know a very practical way to fund your project through the Culture Moves Europe programme, with funding advisor George Parry-Jones.
About the Speakers
Victor Santamarina develops his practice through material based processes, with an experimental approach to techniques and means of production. His work looks at the processes of exhaustion and preservation departing from a present time marked by the western ontological depletion. He recognises in this conjuncture an existential drive of transformation able to bring forward an alternative system of values, norms and desires.
Nixon Mukiza architect, views the city through the lens of a photographer from his Research & Studio Photography Maison Mukiza, a virtual mansion. He specializes in the art of photography, blending urban strategies to develop concepts that give new meaning and understanding of our space and identity. Through Research & Studio Maison Mukiza, he builds relationships between architecture, design, and human experience, to find complexities within diaspora identity formation. His aim is to study the concept of ‘home’ and the challenges faced by individuals in establishing a sense of belonging. What does healthy individual identity formation look like for the diaspora? What do they experience as “at home”?
Sára Kučerová is a Czech multidisciplinary designer and occasional illustrator, has been living in the Netherlands for almost two years. She has a generous appreciation for life, and her work aims to showcase the presence of beauty and inspire others to witness it. Characterizing elements of her projects include lightheartedness and symbolism. Sára exhibited her work at Dutch Design Week last year alongside her former classmates from D3 studio at the Academy of Art, Architecture, and Design in Prague, where she received an education that shaped her as a creator the most. Recently, she completed the Pre-Master study program at Design Academy Eindhoven which rooted her as a designer in the Netherlands. She continues to work as a designer now.
Ouassila Arras, born in 1993 in France, currently lives and works between Paris and Berlin. Her artistic work, centered on the themes of identity and memory, unfolds organically using simple materials and ordinary domestic objects. Delving into the intricate tapestry of Franco-Algerian history, the narrative is fragmented by echoes of exile, war, silence, and societal taboos. The exploration draws inspiration from the intimate stories of her family narratives often overlooked in official records but deeply entwined with the complexities of identity and politics. Guided by travels to Algeria, Marseille, Chicago, Beyrouth and Berlin, she engages in a continuous process of “deterritorialization,” skillfully navigating between past and present. The collection of archives and testimonials becomes a powerful means to update and reshape her understanding of history.
George Parry-Jones is a Grant Officer at Culture Moves Europe, which provides international mobility grants for artists and cultural professionals in all 40 Creative Europe countries. His main focus is on the Individual Mobility Action, through which artists can apply directly for a mobility grant to implement a project in another Creative Europe country. He will also discuss the Residency Action, which provides financial support to organisations and artists registered as legal entities who wish to host artists for a residency project.
