Proposal deadline: January 31, 2023
Museumplein 10
1071 DJ Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Recently, the newly formed Buro Stedelijk announced Rita Ouédraogo and Azu Nwagbogu as its founding curators. The Buro Stedelijk is an initiative of the Stedelijk Museum in close collaboration with de Rijksakademie and De Ateliers, with the aim to bridge the missing link between studio practice, academic training programs, and the galleries into close dialogue with the museum. Buro Stedelijk is conceived as a multidisciplinary space, with a focus on the production process, fueled by the creative scene in Amsterdam, with an international dimension. A place where curators, artists and other makers have the freedom to create and present new work which will give fresh impetus to Amsterdam.
“We believe that the present and future of the art world require deeper collaborative practices and good listening— not just between institutions and artists, but between everybody in the art world ecosystem. This means paying close attention to what they are saying in their practice, knowing how to probe and engage by posing the right questions and providing a platform for this engagement. We imagine Buro Stedelijk as an observatory offering alternative, experimental ways of seeing and being through radical artistic principles.”
Buro Stedelijk invites proposals and papers from those willing to participate in this initial performative discourse session that hopefully will guide the future of Buro Stedelijk. We aim to explore ideas which go beyond institutional critique and that delve into remediative practices. The idea is to tap into the reiterative power of discourse to produce new phenomena and logic to shift current status quo.
A one page/500-word/audio recording in any preferred language with proposals that offer new ways towards institution building in and with Amsterdam are welcome. Please send your proposals to listening [at] burostedelijk.nl before January 31, 2023. Invited participants will engage in a two-day workshop at Buro Stedelijk.
Rita Ouédraogo is a curator, programmer, writer and researcher, and was curator and program coordinator at Framer Framed in Amsterdam. She was Research Programmer and (Community) Collaboration Officer at the Research Center for Material Culture of the National Museum of World Cultures in the Netherlands. Ouédraogo holds a MSc in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam. Her work is informed by her interest in African diaspora, decolonizing institutions, institutional racism, popular culture and social issues. She researches questions related to cooperation and solidarity that explore modes of collaborative practices across power differentials, especially within a decolonial framework.
Azu Nwagbogu is an internationally acclaimed curator, interested in evolving new models of engagement with questions of decolonization, restitution, and repatriation. Nwagbogu’s primary interest is in reinventing the idea of the museum and its role as a civic space for engagement for society at large. The British Royal Photographic Society appointed him as “Curator of Year 2021” and ArtReview included him in the Power 100. Nwagbogu founded the African Artists’ Foundation in Lagos, Nigeria. In 2018 and 2019 he directed the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art in Cape Town. Nwagbogu is the founder and director of the LagosPhoto Festival. He initiated Art Base Africa, a virtual place to discover contemporary African art.
Rein Wolfs, director Stedelijk Museum: “The selection of the first curators of Buro Stedelijk emphasizes in every respect the exceptional position of the Stedelijk as an international museum in Amsterdam. The new Buro Stedelijk will present the local in a broad international perspective and bring the international to Amsterdam, as is also deeply embedded in the DNA of our partners Rijksakademie and De Ateliers. These curators will be able to give the Amsterdam art world new impulses.”
Buro Stedelijk is being developed in close dialogue with de Rijksakademie and De Ateliers, representatives of which will serve on an independent advisory board. This will enable Buro Stedelijk to operate as autonomously as possible within the museum. Buro Stedelijk will be housed on the first floor of the museum building. Its programs are expected to start from the first months of 2023.
