Networking and Research Projects
Frame supports international collaboration within the Finnish art scene through versatile projects for networking and research.
Frame’s projects for research and networking aim to increase professional connections for Finnish and Finland-based curators and artists. They also offer international curators possibilities to gain insight and experiences from the Finnish contemporary art field.
Through research visits, projects, residencies and fellowships, the various projects make it possible to engage with the Finnish art scene at different lengths and intensities.
Additionally, we organise mentoring programs and study trips for curators and artists.
Representatives of different art institutions participating in the Islands of Kinship -project. Image: Natália Zajačiková.
From 2022 to 2024, Frame is involved in a joint project between seven European art institutions called Islands of Kinship: A Collective Manual for Sustainable and Inclusive Art Institutions. The project aims to instil more ecological and socially sustainable practices within contemporary art institutions. The goal is to deepen art institutions’ knowledge of practices that promote inclusivity and equity and to create new ways of considering ecological sustainability and climate justice in their actions.
The end result of the project will be a handbook that can be applied to the activities of various art institutions. The handbook and the results of the project will be published at an international seminar in spring 2024. Additionally, in conjunction with a programme for audiences, Frame will also organize a partner meeting in Finland in 2023.
The project is financed by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme. The other organizations involved in the project are the Jindřich Chalupecký Society (Prague, Czech Republic), the Faculty of Things that Can’t be Learned (Bitola/Skopje, North Macedonia), the Július Koller Society (Bratislava, Slovakia), Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art – LCCA (Riga, Latvia), Temporary Gallery (Cologne, Germany) and Stroom Den Haag (The Hague, Netherlands).
The Frame Curatorial Research Fellowship is a five-year programme for contemporary art curators. The programme explores new forms of research that renew curatorial and institutional working habits.
The programme offers support to develop new curatorial research methods and enliven curatorial research practices embedded in organisational frameworks. It explores what kinds of curatorial work cultivates new ways of presenting and mediating contemporary art and cultural production in a form that is inseparable from artists’ and institutions’ daily life, politics, and policies.
The programme hosts four fellows between 2020–2024 within the different frameworks related to Frame’s and its partners’ organisational work, research, and programming. It offers fellows the opportunity to dive into curatorial research through an environment comprising various agents around Frame and its international partners, including artists, researchers, other practitioners and institutional actors.
Along with its partners, Casco Art Institute (Utrech), EVA International (Limerick), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), and the Queens Museum (New York), Frame has hosted four fellows between 2021 and 2024. From 2021 onwards, Frame and its partners have worked with fellows Ama Josephine Budge (EVA International) and Nikolay Smirnov (Casco Art Institute). In 2024, the fellows are Soph Boobyer (Van Abbemuseum) and Laura Serejo Genes & Kiyoto Koseki (Queens Museum). Read more about their research here.
Research fellowships offer an opportunity to bolster and develop further the critical potential of curatorial research and rethink the utilisation and value of research within institutions and society at large. It is about energising new connections between artistic practices, institutions and research beyond the dichotomy of utilitarian value and autonomy.
Fellowships also offer an opportunity to rethink what internationality and mobility of curatorial research could mean in the future. Are there new ways in which travelling, physical mobility and presence in certain geographical contexts could support socially and ecologically sustainable research practices? The programme looks for research forms that can renew curatorial and institutional working habits and introduce new ideological frameworks for sustainable international mobility within the field.
The programme also aims to embed new forms of ethical curatorial thinking into the daily routines and actions of art organisations and foster new connections within curatorial research, artistic practice, and institutions to reimagine the role of a wide new range of curatorial knowledges within the field of contemporary art. Similarly, it is an opportunity to build new shared futures and alliances between institutions and individuals. The Fellowship programme is supported by Kone Foundation.
In February 2024, a new publication accompanies the Fellowship programme. Falling In: Movement and Becoming in Curatorial Research gathers curators from various geographical locations to open up and discuss their methods, motives, and aims for conducting research in the field of curating. It is co-published by Frame and Mousse Publishing.
Frame hosts a curatorial residency programme in collaboration with HIAP – Helsinki International Artists Programme.
The programme offers internationally active, professional curators an opportunity to connect with the Finnish contemporary art field, plan projects in collaboration with artists and partner organisations in Finland, and research future exhibition or publication projects. The one-month long residencies take place in the HIAP residency center on Suomenlinna Island.
Previously selected curators:
2024
- Gantuya Badamgarav – Ulan Bator, Mongolia
- Kevin Bellò – Milan, Italy
- Evelyn Simons – Bruxelles, Belgium
- Malena Souto Arena – Buenos Aires, Argentina
2022
- Sarah Abdu Bushra – Ethiopia
- Raluca Voinea – Romania
2021
- Kate Brehme – Australia
- Mary Conlon – Ireland
- Syaheedah Iskandar – Singapore
- Kathy-Ann Tan – Germany
2019
- Clelia Coussonnet – France
- Annie Jael Kwan – UK
- Tereza Jindrová – Prague
2018
- Ceci Moss – US
- Cory Scozzari – US / Spain
- Adwait Singh – India
- Asep Topan – Indonesia
2017
- Gina Buenfeld – UK
- Kris Dittel – Netherlands
- Blanca Victoria López – Cuba
- Carolina Ongaro – UK
2016
- Richard Birkett – US
- Marianne Mulvey – UK
- Xavier Acarín – US
- Adelaide Bannerman – UK
2015
- Ece Pazarbasi – Turkey
- Angela Jerardi – Netherlands / US
- Yasmina Reggad – France / UK
- Yameli Mera – Mexico
2014
- Laura McLean – Australia / UK
- Lian Ladia – Philippines
- Sasa Nabergoj – Slovenia
- Tobi Maier – Germany / Brasil
Frame organises annually research trips, where curators and artists get to know contemporary art scenes in different cultural contexts and countries. During the trips participants gain a comprehensive overview of the local art scene. They meet local artists, curators and institutions, and map out possible collaborations for future projects.
In Autumn 2023, Frame organised a research trip to New York as part of the Finnish Pavilion Without Walls programme at the Performa Biennale. Finland-based art professionals and curators specialised in performance art and live art participated in the trip.
In Spring 2022, Frame organised a study trip to The Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, The Netherlands, for representatives of Finnish small and mid-scale art organisations. The study trip was organised in collaboration with Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux.
From 2019 onwards we have collaborated with the Mondriaan Fund, Danish Art Foundation and Pro Helvetia to organise a shared study trip. In 2019 a study trip was organised to the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, coordinated by the Mondriaan Fund.
Between 2016 and 2018 Frame collaborated with the Helsinki International Artist Programme (HIAP), AV-arkki and Baltic Circle Festival and organised study trips to Asia and Oceania. Participants visited Tokio, Seoul, Shanghai, Hongkong, Melbourne and Sydney.