Gedeelde grond (‘Shared ground’) 19: listen to a new conversation with Koi Persyn

Summary

Curator Koi Persyn is a founding member of Publiek Park. As a nomadic and multidisciplinary initiative, it presents the work of local and international artists in parks and public gardens. This work is commissioned and created in relation to the green environment in which it is displayed. The initiative distinguishes itself by showcasing temporary art in public spaces and providing a platform for young artists, as well as for practices rarely seen in such settings, such as performance and video.

Following an inaugural event in Ghent and subsequently in Antwerp, the third edition took place in Brussels at the Meise Botanical Garden and the Botanique. Larger partners, greater resources, but also greater complexity. “It is, of course, on a different scale. The Botanical Garden is such a rich place, not only financially but also in terms of knowledge: the wealth of fauna and flora. That was very fascinating, but also challenging for us to navigate with a group of eleven artists, to get everyone around the table and build support. We look back on that with great pleasure and pride; it was a wonderful and educational journey.”

In addition to Koi, the Publiek Park team consists of three other cultural workers and curators: Jef Declercq, Adriënne van der Werf and Anna Laganovska. “As a team of four, we handle the entire budget, the administration, the communications and the distribution of the books. We not only mentor artists, but also handle all the paperwork.” These are skills that extend beyond traditional curatorship, illustrating the trend towards a more hybrid practice in which curators also act as organisers, producers and mediators. It is not only artists’ careers that are hybrid, but those of curators too. This clashes with ingrained notions about artistic practice:

“There’s still this notion of the ‘success narrative’ – that your CV needs to be consistently beefed up every year. You’re expected to be working with major partners or big names all the time. You’re constantly expected to be building your career. I think that for many younger professionals, breaking into the institutional sector – or securing a job opportunity – is becoming more difficult.”

This evolution goes hand in hand with a growing need for networking, support and community-building among curators – a traditionally solitary profession. “Support networks, or a place, a time, a way to put our heads together, learn from one another, facilitate new opportunities, and develop new collaborations. I think there’s a bit of a gap there, and I don’t know how or who should fill it, but I do think that we at Publiek Park have benefited greatly from having supported one another within that project for five years. Although it’s not limited to Publiek Park alone; we also support one another in other challenges or issues. We’re at similar stages in our careers, but also in other areas. And there, too, we feel that we can really help or reassure one another.”

“The way the course is delivered seems to be increasingly failing to meet the needs. Or you get the sense that many of the new voices or new profiles joining the programme are keen to incorporate that broader aspect of support into their practice.”

Koi has noticed this elsewhere in his work too. As well as Publiek Park, he is involved with celador, an arts venue in Brussels. “But it is also a collective of eleven cultural workers who rent a space together. The strength here, too, is that you are surrounded by people working in the same field and facing the same challenges.” When we ask Koi about his dream for the arts sector, it involves a more connected sector in which collaboration, dialogue and solidarity are central. “I hope that we, as a sector, will listen to one another more, without prejudice, without personal agendas, with the greater good in mind. That this dialogue can also be extended to policymakers, not just at federal level but also at local level. And that, in this way, a healthy and sustainable arts sector can be developed, where people hear, see, welcome and encourage one another. That is, of course, a very naïve and open-ended dream. But I think that is what we must strive for.”

Download the full transcription (in Dutch)