Chantal van Lieshout
1 September - 30 December
Full of wonder, Chantal van Lieshout (1994, Geldrop, NL) wanders through forests, across moors and along waters, collecting things and thoughts that form the basis for sculptures and installations. It is precisely the small, banal, misunderstood and incomprehensible things that seem to fascinate Van Lieshout the most. Not surprisingly, world’s most common animals, insects, are so important to their practice. Along with these creepy-crawlies, toys and game elements often appear in Van Lieshout’s work, in which a childlike naïve playfulness takes an important role. Deploying this playfulness together with personal stories creates a poetic humour as a weapon to make difficult subjects, elusive realities and the overwhelming inaccessibility of the universe more manageable. Van Lieshout plays with discomfort, not to shock but to expose vulnerability that translates into a tragicomic visual language in which a desire for understanding and connection shines through.
Instituto Buena Bista
The Instituto Buena Bista, Curacao Center for Contemporary Art, IBB, started in 2006 as an artists initiative with the goal to create a solid platform for art and art education.
As an art institute that offers preparatory training for young talents, the IBB deals with all the aspects of art and art education that make a follow up to an art academy or creative schooling possible. The educational components don’t limit themselves to the students but also cover a broad area of the Curacao and Caribbean art towards the local society. The social engagement and added value of art for the society is also very present in the IBB structure. Being situated on the premises of the Capriles psychiatric clinic is not only a statement of the social engagement of the IBB but also a reflection of the concepts that IBB strives to achieve as well; collaboration, exchange and development.
The clients of the clinic participate on a regular basis together with the students in workshops and classes. This, as part of an initiative by the clinic and the IBB to make the clinic more accessible to the public and to create more insight in the psychiatric world.Projects in public spaces have become a regular activity by the IBB. In these projects the students work together with patients of the clinic, students from other schools or people from organisations that participate in these activities.
The IBB students get a special role where they have to support and guide the participants and at the same time experience responsibility towards their creations and others.