This year, the Helsinki International Curatorial Programme (HICP) welcomes curators Yana Foqué and Toni Lewis to one-month curatorial residencies in Helsinki. Their residencies will take place in September and October 2025 in the HIAP residency center on Suomenlinna Island.
Yana Foqué is a Belgian curator, editor, and writer whose practice is grounded in institutional critique, expressed through notions of collaboration, authorship, and structures that underpin them. Formerly Executive Director & Chief Curator at Kunstverein Amsterdam, Foqué shaped the institution’s experimental program, international partnerships, and publishing initiatives before relocating to the Baltics.
“The work behind the scenes — and the very construction that holds up the curtain — is often the most revealing part of the show. I’m curious to learn what that means in the context of the Finnish art world, a scene I’ve never been in contact with, but am eager to discover”, Foqué says.
Toni Lewis is a Birmingham-based interdisciplinary artist-curator, researcher and creative producer working across live art & performance, theatre and visual art. Her work is largely intimate, radical, participatory and socially-engaged, thematically revolving around racial and body politics, care, sex and sexuality.
“I’m truly honoured to have been selected for this prestigious and unique residency. This is a pivotal and nourishing moment that will shape and transform my curatorial practice, fostering new connections, perspectives and creative ideas”, Lewis says.
Co-organised by Frame and HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme, HICP offers one-month residencies for contemporary art curators. The programme aims to allow internationally active, professional curators to connect with the Finnish contemporary art field and plan projects in collaboration with artists and partner organisations in Finland. During the last decade, the programme has hosted 33 contemporary art curators from 24 countries across 5 continents.
251 applications were received for the open call organised in February 2025. Selections were made by Frame’s Programme Coordinator Arvid van der Rijt, HIAP’s Residency Assistant AK Wane, and independent curator Yue Yu. HIAP’s Director Emma Beverley chaired the jury.
Yana Foqué (vas.) ja Toni Lewis.
Biographies
Yana Foqué is a Belgian curator, editor, and writer whose practice is grounded in institutional critique, expressed through notions of collaboration, authorship, and structures that underpin them. Formerly Executive Director & Chief Curator at Kunstverein Amsterdam, Foqué shaped the institution’s experimental program, international partnerships, and publishing initiatives before relocating to the Baltics.
Foqué’s work increasingly embraces the role of the director-curator as a meta-form, where the infrastructure of art becomes part of its expression. In this, she learns and leans into the practices of artists she has worked with. She is a contributed writer for Frieze, Metropolis M, and Artenews, and is currently setting up a bar.
Yana Foqué
Toni Lewis is a Birmingham-based interdisciplinary artist-curator, researcher and creative producer working across live art & performance, theatre and visual art. Her work is largely intimate, radical, participatory and socially-engaged, feeding into a body of work thematically revolving around racial and body politic, care, sex and sexuality. Toni is passionate about equity, sustainability, inclusivity, access, and joy.
Toni is a lead producer of Canopy, an international adoption project conceived by Selina Thompson Ltd., investigating and mapping how adoption moves people, money and national values around the globe. The project is currently active in the UK, Ireland, Germany and China. Selina Thompson Ltd is a Black & Disabled led theatre company based in Birmingham.
As a founding director of Contemporary Other CIC, a grassroots arts organisation sitting at the intersections of race, art and health, Toni designs and leads a program of artistic projects geared towards equity and sustainability for marginalised artists in the Midlands. Their commission strand ‘Help Is On The Way, Dear’ returns in 2025. Contemporary Other was developed with support from Paul Hamlyns Ideas and Pioneers fund, Arts Council England and the School for Social Entrepreneurs.
Toni has curated with Sex with Cancer, the world’s first Cancer patient-led sex shop and art project, and is launching a toolkit for reconnection entitled “The Reawakening” in Spring 2025 with SICK festival. Her work has been exhibited at Latitude Festival, COMPASS, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Arts Admin, Venice Architecture Biennale and Edinburgh Fringe. Toni has worked with Fierce Festival, Fatt Projects, Scottee & Friends and a host of performance artists and theatre makers, including Demi Nandhra. She has guest lectured at University Arts London and led the access advisory group for Leeds City of Culture 2023.
Toni Lewis