International conference

25 May 2008

The Van Abbemuseum with this symposium puts itself forward as an example of precisely the kind of museum which offers change in a provincial city. Eindhoven is a city of approximately 200,000 inhabitants, but has a large national and international reputation and reach. Our postion as a public space within our more intimate local context must also be considered.

This conference proposes that, if we attempt to read our activities through the local prism, we are able in a more focused way to think and talk about the lived experience of our ideas in connection with our surroundings and this particular cities’ public.

Together with the artists we wish to discuss how the museum can reflect and instrument change within the provincial city by attending to the notion of ‘the local’, but also by faciltating global discussion though the frame of the local.

In the discussion of the day, guests include: Petra Bauer, Abdellatif Benfaidoul, Michael Blum, Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, Phil Collins, Carla Cruz, Gerrit Dekker, Erwin van Doorn, Ronen Eidelman, Ed van der Elsken, Hadassah Emmerich, Alexandra Ferreira, Daan van Golden, Rana Hamadeh, Nicoline van Harskamp, Alicia Herrero, Hans van Houwelingen, Johan van der Keuken, Annette Krauss, Agung Kurniawan, Surasi Kusolwong, Toos Nijssen, Ahmet Öğüt, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Bik Van der Pol, Ilya Rabinovich, Mario Rizzi, Mounira Al Solh, Fiona Tan, Alite Thijsen, Lidwien van de Ven, Tintin Wulia, Bettina Wind, and Stephen Willats.

A series of public projects called the Eindhoven Projects will also be considered in this context.