AiR Platform NL

About

AiR Platform NL is a collaborative platform for artist-in-residence initiatives and partners to connect, to exchange information and experiences, and to establish collaborations and projects in the Netherlands, Flanders and abroad.

AiR Platform NL aims to strengthen the position of artist-in-residence organizations in the Dutch and international art field. In that line we organize meetings and seminars, we offer practical advice to organizers, funds and policymakers, connect artist-in-residence initiatives with partners and networks, and we establish international projects for the mutual exchange of information and expertise.

Development

Since 2003 AiR Platform NL organized meetings that were hosted at various artist-in-residence locations in the Netherlands and Flanders. Expert meetings were developed concerning topics of practical concern to the re-evaluation of the artist-in-residence concept. Research was instigated into the different models of artist-in-residence programs in the Netherlands and Flanders, leading to the development of tools of support for anyone with a wish to start their own artist-in-residence program. We developed projects with other artist-in-residence networks, close by and far away, to meet and exchange experiences with colleagues who organize space for artists in other contexts and countries. While over the years the amount of artist-in-residence phenomena took flight and organizers work together with a range of partners, support and funding remains project based leaving strainign the organizations that still operate independ way. AiR Platform NL keeps working to gain more visibility and acknowledgement for artist-in-residence organizations, who often provide the hidden gems in the arts ecology landscape.

Platform Werkplaatsen

AiR Platform NL together with EKWC, AGA LAB, Beeldenstorm and Frans Masereel Centre initiated and supported since 2012 a series of meetings with technical workshops in The Netherlands and Flanders. Workshops (with and without AiR programs) facilitate craft techniques for and by artists and designers. As they reflect the changes in daily art practice, creating innovative applications of old and new techniques, their function has shifted; from traditional facilitating workshop, to knowledge centre, to junction within knowledge networks. This has created unexpected connections between art, science, business and society. The network of workshops developed into a platform, with the aim to make this development visible, and to examine the position and significance of workshops by organizing symposia and meetings. More about Platform Werkplaatsen > here.

Partners

AiR Platform NL works together with a range of international, national and local partners and platforms. In the advice of programs and exchange of expertise and collaboration partners in the Netherlands currently include Mondriaan Fonds, PlatformBK, ZaakNU.
 

Artist-in-residence programs in the Netherlands

The majority of international artist-in-residence programs in the Netherlands are organized by artists themselves through artist-run-spaces and -initiatives. There are three main residential centers; De Ateliers in Amsterdam was originally set up by artists to create independent self-education in 1963 and it still functions as an independent art institute run by visual artists themselves. The Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam functioned as governmental institutes for higher art education before they both gradually evolved into international residential art and research centers. Another group of artist-in-residence programs have been developed by private initiatives, art institutions and local governements. Alltogether these programs increasingly play an important role in the arts sector in The Netherlands, like artist-in-residence programs fulfill elsewhere in the world.