In the third episode of the season we talked to Puerto Rican curator and writer Sharmyn Cruz Rivera. As with all our guests this season, we discuss her views on the exhibition and the ways her practice aims to expand the boundaries of exhibition-making, with an emphasis on collaborations and dialogue. Sharmyn also explains to us how she listens to the exhibition, and we discuss how sound and listening resist the traditional exhibition structure of containment. We also talk about the ways communities are often taken for granted within an exhibition framework and how listening helps us tap into the world around us in different ways.

In our introductory short conversation with Eloise we talk about enchantment and exhibitions where we had that experience lately.

About our guest: Sharmyn Cruz Rivera is a Puerto Rican curator and writer based in Rotterdam. Her curatorial practice seeks to expand the boundaries of exhibition-making to make way for emerging formats of interdisciplinary collaboration, presentation, and dialogue. Her work explores the politics of identity under the conditions of modernity, colonialism, and capitalism and how subversion manifests in creative acts of refusal. She often tackles the legacy of colonisation within the Caribbean context through the lens of contemporary artistic production and strategies of redress. 

If you have feedback we’d love to receive your email at ihopethismessagefindsyouwell@gmail.com; you can also follow us on Instagram @ihopethismessage. The jingle was made by the artist Natalia Solzano and sound engineering by Nick Thomas. Graphic design by Christophe Clarijs.

We have launched our I Hope This Message Finds You Well t-shirts, get them via our Everpress campaign: everpress.com/i-hope-this-message

The episode was recorded in January 2024.

Show notes:

Sharmyn Cruz Rivera https://www.sharmyncruzrivera.com/
Nibia Pastrana Santiago https://www.nibiapastrana.com/ 
Daniel Giles https://www.pzwart.nl/blog/2020/04/01/danny-giles/ 
The Josephine Baker house by Adolf Loos https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/loos-and-baker-a-house-for-josephine
Fluister de Wind Waarop at De Appel https://www.deappel.nl/en/archive/events/1139-fluister-de-wind-waarop
Lampo, Chicago https://lampo.org/  
The Art Ensemble of Chicago https://www.artensembleofchicago.com/ 
Sun Ra 
Pauline Oliveros
Max Neuhaus 
Connie Fredericks-Malone https://conniefredericksmalone.com/
Fuga, curated by Sharmyn at Shimmer https://shimmershimmer.org/ 
Félix González-Torres https://www.felixgonzalez-torresfoundation.org/

I Hope This Message Finds You Well, Sharmyn Cruz Rivera (S3/Ep3)

In the fourth episode of the season we talked to Hendrik Folkerts, Curator of International Contemporary Art and Head of Exhibitions at Moderna Museet in Stockholm. With Hendrik we talked about the ways his former experience in curating performance and public programmes influenced his current curatorial practice and approach to exhibition-making. He sees the exhibition as a relational mechanism, manifested by his interest in scenography, staging artworks and the way bodies move through space. We also talked about Hendrik’s approach to curating and his recent projects: Seven Rooms and a Garden: Rashid Johnson and the Moderna Museet collection, and a large-scale solo exhibition Vaginal Davis: Magnificent Product. 

Hendrik Folkerts is Curator of International Contemporary Art and Head of Exhibitions at Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Previously he served as the Dittmer Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago between 2017–2021. He was also a member of the curatorial team of documenta 14 and served in Amsterdam as curator of performance, film, and discursive programs at the Stedelijk Museum.

If you have feedback we’d love to receive your email at ihopethismessagefindsyouwell@gmail.com; you can also follow us on Instagram @ihopethismessage. The jingle was made by the artist Natalia Solzano and sound engineering by Nick Thomas. Graphic design by Christophe Clarijs.

We have launched our I Hope This Message Finds You Well t-shirts, get them via our Everpress campaign: everpress.com/i-hope-this-message

The episode was recorded in January 2024.


Show notes:

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam https://www.stedelijk.nl/en 
Curatorial Programme at De Appel Arts Centre https://www.deappel.nl/en/curatorial-programme/518-intro 
Seven Rooms and a Garden: Rashid Johnson and the Moderna Museet collection
https://www.modernamuseet.se/stockholm/en/exhibitions/rashid-johnson-seven-rooms-and-a-garden/ 
University of Amsterdam https://www.uva.nl/en 
Rachel Esner
Marga van Mechelen
Miriam van Rijsingen
Sophie Berrebi
If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want to be Part of Your Revolution https://ificantdance.org/ 
Tino Seghal
Maria Hassabi
Alexandra Bachzetsis
Stuart Comer Catherine Wood
Sharon Hayes
Wu Tsang
Every Ocean Hughes
Rashid Johnson
Ann Goldstein 
The Sovereignty of Quiet by Kevin Quashie https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/the-sovereignty-of-quiet/9780813553108/ 
Vaginal Davis 
Nationalmuseum Stockholm https://www.nationalmuseum.se/en/ 
Index Stockholm https://indexfoundation.se/ 
Accelerator Stockholm https://acceleratorsu.art/en/frontpage/ 
Tensta konsthall ​​https://www.tenstakonsthall.se/en 
documenta 14 https://www.documenta14.de/en/ 
Adam Szymczyk
The Art Institute of Chicago https://www.artic.edu/

I Hope This Message Finds You Well, Hendrik Folkerts (S3/Ep4)

In the fifth episode of the season we talked to Dr. Clémentine Deliss who works across the borders of contemporary art, critical anthropology, curatorial practice, and publishing. We talked about her curatorial beginnings and significant projects in her professional trajectory as an “artist to artist” curator. We also discussed her take on the exhibition that foregrounds and reflects a “conceptual intimacy”, where non-didactic learning, visual thinking and juxtapositions take center stage. 

Dr. Clémentine Deliss is Global Humanities Professor in History of Art, University of Cambridge, and Associate Curator at KANAL-Centre Pompidou in Brussels, where she runs the “Metabolic Museum-University”. Between 2020-23, she was Associate Curator at KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin. Her exhibition at KW “Skin in the Game” included seminal prototypes by Ruth Buchanan, Otobong Nkanga, Collier Schorr, Rosemarie Trockel, Joëlle Tuerlinckx and Andrea Zittel. Since 1996, she has published the artists and writers’ organ “Metronome”.

In the introductory mini conversation we, Eloise and Kris, talk about our relationship to food, nourishment, AI friends and online communities.  

If you have feedback we’d love to receive your email at ihopethismessagefindsyouwell@gmail.com; you can also follow us on Instagram @ihopethismessage. The jingle was made by the artist Natalia Solzano and sound engineering by Nick Thomas. Graphic design by Christophe Clarijs.

The episode was recorded in February 2024.

SHOW NOTES:

“Metabolic Museum-University” www.mm-u.online 
University of applied Arts Vienna, Ulay, Vito Acconci, Marina Abramović, Joseph Kosuth, Susan Hiller, Michael Oppitz, Valie Export, Rudi Fuchs, Kasper König, Harald Szeeman
Hayward Gallery London
DUACH, Mike Kelley, Rosemarie Trockel, Lubaina Himid, Jay Gorney, Jeff Koons
“Lotte or the Transformation of the Object” https://formerwest.org/ResearchLibrary/LotteortheTransformationoftheObjectLotteoderderTransformationdesObjekts 
Haim Steinbach, Mr. Salt 
“Manifesto on Neighborly Dislike as Curatorial Critique” https://www.moussemagazine.it/magazine/manifesto-on-neighborly-dislike-as-curatorial-critique-clementine-deliss-2023/ 
“Skin in the Game” at KW Berlin https://www.kw-berlin.de/en/skin-in-the-game/ 
“Metronome, an artists’ and writers’ organ” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metronome_(artists%27_and_writers%27_organ) 
Paul Virilio, Issa Samb, Yinka Shonibare, Robert Loder, Gasworks London, Stuart Morgan, Artscribe magazine, John Akomfrah, June Givanni, Mark Sealy 
Africa95 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa95
“Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa” https://contemporaryand.com/magazines/seven-stories-about-modern-art-in-africa/ 
El Hadji Sy, Chika Okeke, Wanjiku Nyachae
Cédric Fauq
Okwui Enwezor
Frieze
Mathis Esterhazy 
Dilijan Arts Observatory https://mm-u.online/project/arts-observatory/ 
Theaster Gates
Ruth Buchanan, Otobong Nkanga, Collier Schorr, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, Andrea Zittel

I Hope This Message Finds You Well, Clémentine Deliss (S3/Ep5)

Gazelle Twin is the stage name of Elizabeth Bernholz, a British electronic composer, producer, singer, and visual artist. She released her first album back in 2011 and at Rewire Festival in Den Haag in April 2024, she performed her latest album Black Dog. Desperate Hobbies met her for an interview has she just arrived from the UK, in the lobby of her hotel the evening before her performance.

DesperateHobbies @ Rewire: Gazelle Twin

No Land is a poet and artist based in New York City. She continues the lineage of the downtown NYC avant garde, honoring an intuitive vow towards creation. She makes poems, paintings, films, and performances with many collaborators, and describes herself as being guided by spirit encounters with downtown artists, poets, elders, and activists, spending formative time amongst Occupy Wall Street’s street-art revolutionaries, Steve Cannon’s Tribes Gallery, and poet Anne Waldman’s outrider poet worlds.

We saw No Land perform on stage with Blacks’ Myths at Koorenhuis Friday night at Rewire, with a table filled with papers in front of her. We saw her again at Nest during Black’s Myths performance in Atelier Impopulaire’s installation, and at that moment were able to schedule an interview with her just in time before she left Den Haag. Lucky we!

DesperateHobbies @ Rewire: No Land

Stephanie Pan is a voice artist and interdisciplinary composer based in Den Haag.  At the root of her work is the notion of pure communication; finding a form of contact with the audience which is stripped of social expectations and distractions, that speaks beyond the conventional and social limitations and constructs of language. 

This past year, she worked together with Ensemble Klang, an ensemble of percussion, trombone, saxophone, and guitar who have been working collaboratively on a wide range of musical and theatrical collaborations with each other and other artists since 2003. We spoke with Stephanie and Ensemble Klang member Pete Harden about their new collaborative work “The Art of Doing Nothing”, a feminist manifesto. As described by the artists, “The piece celebrates soft, ‘feminine’ qualities like intuition, vulnerability and emotionality, and leans into the empowerment and freedom that comes with giving space to them.”

DesperateHobbies @ Rewire: StephaniePan & EnsembleKlang

As we are wrapping up the third season of the podcast, we’d like to share with you a short bonus episode, recorded at the gym. 

We talked about our relationship to exercise and understanding of our limits. We also discussed failure, body-work and writing via Kathy Acker, and writing as a physical experience.

If you have feedback we’d love to receive your email at ihopethismessagefindsyouwell@gmail.com; you can also follow us on Instagram @ihopethismessage. The jingle was made by the artist Natalia Solzano and sound engineering by Nick Thomas. Graphic design by Christophe Clarijs.

The episode was recorded in March 2024.

I Hope This Message Finds You Well – Bonus episode

I Hope This Message Finds You Well is a podcast on curating hosted by Kris Dittel and Eloise Sweetman. 

It grew out of our friendship and delight in talking about art, where we, two freelance curators, openly discuss and question what we are doing, why we are doing it, and open up this conversation to our colleagues. 

In each episode we talk to our guests about their work, professional trajectory, motivation, and reasons to work as a curator or otherwise.

I Hope This Message Finds You Well, Sharmyn Cruz Rivera (S3/Ep3)

I Hope This Message

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