As curator of collective learning she has her focus on divers ways of education and visualization of arts & culture. Within this function she created programs where the connection between people is encouraged and where the cross over between disciplines is the main goal. One term that she finds extremely important is solidarity. She wants people to meet and share art as a bridge to overcome differences. As a conclusion, that these projects are very socially based and meant to be a small part of change in society on a positive level. By practicing collective learning, the institution opens up to also learn from its programs and audience.
Rotterdam, 2018- present
Some examples of her curatorial programs;
SESSIONS
A series of events where participants will experience a combination of performance, entertainment and learning by practicing their own art form and share these with others. (spoken word, music, dance or other.)
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MELLY TV
Three episodes with talk-shows, neighborhood guests, and commissioned art projects, Melly TV is presented in partnership with Open Rotterdam and developed with consulting partners Lilith Magazine and Brand New Guys as part of the official name launch of Kunstinstituut Melly. This program is conceived by Jessy Koeiman and Vivian Ziherl.
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CLIP: THE WORK LEARN PROGRAM
A group of young emerging professionals from Rotterdam aged between 17-24 work on a six month based program where they will work in Melly every week and learn how to be involved in cultural institutional decision-making to increase the institutional top-down mentality.
The first edition of CLIP, 2018-2019 focused on identity, which resulted in renaming FKA Witte de With’s ground-floor gallery space to MELLY. Where the second edition, 2019-2020, focused on cultural policy and the third, 2020-2021, on the new corporate identity of the institution after the name change. The fourth edition, 2022 focussed on the body and the placements of bodies within the fields of (contemporary) art. The fifth edition will be about oral histories and filmmaking.
See the documentary from the first edition here:
See the documentary from the second edition here:
See the documentary of the fourth edition here:
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THE KETI KOTI DIALOGUE ESTAFETTE (COLLABORATION)
Couples of white and black origin engage for an hour in a facilitated dialogue, structured around a set of questionsfocusing both on personal experiences and ideas about the social challenges with regard to the history of slavery, racism and discrimination. Each dialogue couple will start with a few rituals from the Keti Koti Table, with chewing the bitter kwasi bita and rubbing each other’s wrists with coconut oil, before engaging in dialogue.
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THE COOL PROJECT
The revisit of a social project that took place in 1991 by artists John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres. All the participants of this 1991 project were located and asked to revisit this project once more by sharing their memories and stories next to portraying for the same photographer as in 1991.
Please see the video of Open Rotterdam, where she is speaking with Ed de Meijer, Mario Boeyen and John Ahearn here: