The EUROPALIA CURATOR’S AWARD is a unique prize in Belgium that offers financial and logistical resources to a (group of) curator(s) to develop an ambitious project with artists of their choice. The preparation of the project also includes a residency in the country of that year's EUROPALIA festival.
EUROPALIA launched this unique prize in 2015, on its 45th anniversary. The curators chosen for the first edition, Alberto García del Castillo and Louise Osieka – on the occasion of the EUROPALIA festival dedicated to Turkey – developed their project with artists Laurie Charles and Marnie Slater. Following their residency in Istanbul, they presented their new creations during La Kermesse héroïque, a mini festival held at the Beursschouwburg and Midpoint café in Brussels from 13 to 15 January 2016. The event was accompanied by the publication Midpoint, published by Theophile’s Papers.
For the second edition of the EUROPALIA CURATOR'S AWARD, Laura Herman and Charlotte Dumoncel d’Argence were chosen by a jury of emerging curators and cultural programmers active within Belgian cultural institutions. They developed their project with, among others, Martin Belou, Rachel Monosov and Adrien Vermont. Their exhibition Natural Capital was shown at BOZAR during EUROPALIA INDONESIA, from 21 December 2017 to 21 January 2018. The exhibition was accompanied by the online publication naturalcapital.online, including several contributions, essays and interviews with artists and researchers from Indonesia, Belgium and beyond.
For the third edition, which took place during EUROPALIA ROMANIA, the jury chose curator Els Vermang, who developed her project HIT in collaboration with artist Claudia Radulescu. HIT was structured around Imposture, a musical composition and video produced by Claudia Radulescu, and MPTSR, an installation by Els Vermang. The project included collaborations with a number of artists in the music scene whose contributions were brought together in a vinyl album and an exhibition at KANAL – Centre Pompidou from 14 December 2019 to 26 January 2020.
The next edition of the EUROPALIA CURATOR’S AWARD will take place in anticipation of EUROPALIA GEORGIA. The festival will run from October 2023 until February 2024. A call for projects will be launched in autumn 2022.
Members of the jury of previous editions were:
Jennifer Beauloye (KANAL – Centre Pompidou), Giulia Bellinetti (M HKA), Tanja Boon (S.M.A.K.), Andrea Cinel (Argos), Caroline Dumalin (Wiels), Charlotte Dumoncel d’Argence (curator 2017), Lieze Eneman (CC Strombeek), Alberto García del Castillo (curator 2015), Laura Herman (curator 2017), Helena Kritis (Beursschouwburg), Louise Osieka (curator 2015), Marie Papazoglou (Botanique) Grégory Thirion (Botanique) as well as Dirk Vermaelen, Marie-Ève Tesch and Eva Bialek (EUROPALIA).
More info: info@europalia.eu
