Researchers

NN Contemporary Art, UK

Emer Grant is the current Artistic Director and CEO of NN Contemporary Art, a National Portfolio Organisation in Northampton. She is a Curator, Producer, and Researcher who completed her studies at CCS Bard College (USA) the University of York (UK), and the University of Brighton. Emer was a Fellow for The Recalibrated Institution (Miami) and Curator at Art Center South Florida (now Oolite Arts). Prior she has curated shows and programming for various institutions including the Hessel Museum (NY), P! Gallery (NY), ISCP (NY), Stroom den Haag (NL) Void Gallery (NI), Pollinaria (IT), Yeah Maybe (MN), PHL (DE) and The Grand Parade Gallery (UK). She was Visiting Tutor at the RCA, Visiting Curator at Bard College MFA, Visiting Curator at the University of Minnesota Studio Arts BFA and Visiting Critic for Florida International University’s Architecture BFA programme. and has written for various publications including, Nero, Electronic Beats, The Editorial, The Miami Rail and Rhizome.

She was a fellow selected for the ICI (Independent Curators International) 2013 and has consulted for various organizations on Digital Arts and interdisciplinary strategies for public space, she was also an Associate Curator for Left Gallery (Berlin). Emer initiated and developed the 4.7 mil capital project at  24 Guildhall Road, Northampton, due to be completed in 2024. The renovations of the old Town Hall built in 1927 ( across 5 floors & 2000 sqm) will become NNCA’s new permanent home. Facilities will include a new gallery space, project space, education studio and civic reading room.  NNCA plays a unique role in the ecology of the visual arts in the town and region, focusing on how artist-led institutions can be developed and defined for the 21st century.

Secondment Destination:
Athens: June 2023

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

After a degree in cinema studies at Paris I University (Panthéon-Sorbonne), a master’s degree in applied literature with a specialisation in screenwriting at Paris IV University (Paris-Sorbonne) and a training for cameramen at École des Gobelins, she worked as a screenwriter (Sélenium Films, Atelier Farnèse) and audiovisual editor. She was a research fellow at the University of Siena (DISPOC), where she worked on the design of a digital storytelling platform for the National Diary Archive (Pieve Santo Stefano, AR), and at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (DSLC), where she worked on the development of the LAMA Laboratory (Audiovisual Materials Laboratory), dedicated to transmedia narratives applied to research. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Her research project focuses on the audiovisual device as a tool for analysing the social and for the production of new sociality, and in particular as a support for self-narratives and interactions produced by migrant subjects.

http://dslc.unimore.it

Secondment destination:
Project Arts Centre
June 2024

Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, The Netherlands

Aline Hernandez is a curator working at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Currently, she is conducting a SGSAH-funded PhD which explores issues around performance and performativity in archives and counter-archives of (trans)gender violence in Mexico at St Andrews University, Scotland. Hernández holds an M.A. in Media, Art, and Performance Studies from Utrecht University with a specialization in Gender Studies. She is a member of the artist/activist-run cooperative Cráter Invertido and of the trans-local ecosystem Arts Collaboratory.

https://casco.art/

Secondment destination:
TBC

Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, The Netherlands

Marianna Takou is a researcher and organizer from Athens, Greece. She is currently based in Utrecht, where she works as a producer, organizer and researcher at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons. She first became part of the ecosystem of Casco as a volunteer in 2013. Since 2019, as part of the team, she has been working on different aspects of Casco’s operations and is a member of the Arts Collaboratory network.

With a background in Sociology and training in International Development, she holds an MSc in Sustainable Development. Her research interests and organizing focus on feminist and queer practices in mobility, migration, the commons and the degrowth movement.

https://casco.art/

Secondment destination:
TBC

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

Vittorio Iervese is Professor in Sociology of Cultural and Communicative Processes at the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Studies, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.

He conducted research on visual culture, visual sociology, cultural design, festival studies, conflict management, intercultural communication, social participation, sociology of childhood. His latest researches are on the use of still and moving images to build narrative memories (SHARMED. Shared Memory and Dialogue) and a study on new digital platforms for audiovisual and culture (CLAP – Cultural Lab Platforming). Since 2017 he is President of Festival dei Popoli – Istituto Italiano per il Film di Documentazione Sociale, with which he collaborated since 2007 in the programming of the competition and for which he curated several sections and retrospectives. He is the director of the advanced course in Digital Humanities (Dhialogue) and the Festival of interactive and immersive transmedia narratives (VRMF – Virtual Reality Movie Festival)

http://personale.unimore.it/Rubrica/dettaglio/viervese

Secondment destination:
Verein zur Förderung von Kunst und Kultur am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz e.V.
February 2023

Uniarts Helsinki, Finland

Daniel Peltz is an artist and Professor of Time and Space Arts with a specialization in Site and Situation Specific Practices at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki. He is also the co-founder of the long-term, place-based research project, Rejmyre Art Lab’s Center for Peripheral Studies.

Through public projects, performances and media installations, Peltz’ artworks explore complex social systems, attempting to provoke ruptures in the socio/cultural fabric through which new ways of being may emerge and be considered. To accomplish these goals, he uses a range of intervention, ethnographic and performance strategies. His projects often take the form of existing social behaviours, systems or protocols to directly engage non-art audiences in the language of critical art practice.

www.danielpeltz.net

Secondment destination:
Kunstverein am Rosa–Luxemburg–Platz, Berlin, Germany

Festival dei Popoli – Istituto italiano per il film di documentazione sociale ETS (Italy)

Margot Mecca is a researcher, programmer and producer working mainly in the field of creative documentary. She works at Festival dei Popoli since 2011, she’s currently a member of the selection committee and Head of Doc at Work Future Campus, an initiative dedicated to emerging talents in documentary filmmaking. She collaborates, in different roles, with several film festivals around Europe (FIDMarseille, Visions du Réel, Majordocs).

She holds a PhD in Geography from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; she has been a post-doctoral researcher at Universitat Pompeu Fabra from 2019 to 2023. Her research interests focus on urban public space, gender, youth and the use of cinema in ethnographic research.

https://www.festivaldeipopoli.org/

Secondment destination:
University of Applied Arts Vienna, March 2023

Coventry University UK

Gary Hall is media theorist and experimental writer, editor and publisher. He works (and makes) at the intersections of digital culture, politics and technology. He is Professor of Media at Coventry University, UK, where he directs the Centre for Postdigital Cultures. He is the author of a number of books including, most recently, A Stubborn Fury: How Writing Works In Elitist Britain (Open Humanities Press, 2021), Pirate Philosophy (MIT Press, 2016) and The Uberfication of the University (Minnesota UP, 2016). In 1999 he co-founded the critical theory journal Culture Machine, an early champion of open access in the humanities. In 2006 he co-founded Open Humanities Press (OHP), the first open access publishing house explicitly dedicated to critical and cultural theory, which he co-directs. His work can be found at www.garyhall.info

Secondment destination:
CASCO

Van Abbemuseum, NL

Teresa Cos Rebollo studied Art History in the University of Barcelona and Cultural Economics and Entrepreneurship in Erasmus University Rotterdam. Since 2019 she has worked in the Van Abbemuseum where, as assistant curator, has coordinated several projects and exhibitions, including: The Otolith Group Xenogenesis (2019-2023), Parallel Lives, Parallel Aesthetics: Gülsün Karamustafa & León Ferrari (2021-2022), and the Decolonial Summer School 2020-2023.

She is currently working on a research project and collaboration (since 2020) that will develop into an upcoming exhibition called Soils (opening on June 2024) dealing with issues around land use, farming, extractivism and exploring our cultural and spiritual connection to land and territory.

https://vanabbemuseum.nl

Secondment destination:
TBD

Van Abbemuseum, NL

Charles Esche is director of Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and professor of contemporary art and curating at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London where he works with Exhibition Studies. He is a visiting professor at Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht and chair of CASCO, Utrecht.

For his secondment he will visit Dublin, Cork and Cobh. In 2023 he will investigate archives and artists that could be useful for the development of the Soils exhibition planned in 2024, dealing with topics around farming, extractivism and land use will also join the Sirius Summer School organised by Mia Lerm-Hayes from University of Amsterdam and Miguel Amado, director at Sirius Art Centre.

In June 2024 he will organise the Sirius Summer School and also spend time in Dublin with NCAD and intend to visit artists including Gerard Byrne whose work is in the Van Abbemuseum collection.

For his secondment he will visit Dublin, Cork and Cobh. In 2023 he will investigate archives and artists that could be useful for the development of the Soils exhibition planned in 2024, dealing with topics around farming, extractivism and land use will also join the Sirius Summer School organised by Mia Lerm-Hayes from University of Amsterdam and Miguel Amado, director at Sirius Art Centre.

In  June 2024 he will organise the Sirius Summer School and also spend time in Dublin with NCAD and intend to visit artists including Gerard Byrne whose work is in the Van Abbemuseum collection. 

https://vanabbemuseum.nl

Secondment destination:
NCAD national college of Art & Design Dublin (SIRIUS, Project Arts), Summer 2023 and Summer 2024