Words and Images Vanini Belarmino (Gathering)
Editing The Kanto team
Art Hub Copenhagen (AHC), in collaboration with independent curator Vanini Belarmino, presents Gathering, a two-day seminar on April 4 to 5, 2025 in Copenhagen, Denmark, convening artists, curators, and cultural practitioners from Denmark, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, and Thailand.
Gathering fosters dialogue on sustainability, resilience, and artistic agency in an era of shifting cultural and economic conditions. Discussions will circle around the critical evolving landscape of independent art spaces and initiatives.
AHC is a facilitating, experimental, and network-building art institution based in Denmark. AHC provides time, space, and voice to artistic experimentation through residencies, international development programs, interdisciplinary communities, and public events.
As a platform dedicated to fostering artistic work and research, AHC is a fitting host for Gathering, which seeks to bridge global perspectives on independent art spaces, creating new opportunities for critical exchange, shared strategies, and international collaboration.
Vanini Belarmino has an ongoing research project on independent art spaces across Southeast Asia, initiated in 2022 as a means to reconnect with artists and cultural workers following years of pandemic-induced disruption. She shares that this project has helped shape Gathering and what it stands for.
Art Hub Copenhagen, photographed by Hampus Berndtson
Through visits to Bacolod, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Ho Chi Minh, Iloilo, Lucban, Penang, Phnom Penh, and Singapore, Belarmino also explored how artist-run spaces navigate evolving challenges—from securing resources to sustaining community engagement in the absence of formal support structures. The idea for Gathering emerged from a desire to bring together these founders and stakeholders—not only to exchange knowledge but to understand that their efforts and challenges are part of a larger, collective journey and acknowledge the common realities they navigate.
In places where institutional backing is scarce, artists and curators have forged alternative pathways for sustainability, transforming limitations into opportunities. They have repurposed or rebuilt old buildings into creative hubs, built artist-led residency programmes, established community-driven funding models, and mobilised artist networks to create pop-up and nomadic platforms. This research revealed not just the constraints but the resilience and ingenuity of these spaces, highlighting the urgent need for shared strategies and new forms of collaboration.
Unfolding through keynote presentations, panel discussions, workshops, performances, studio visits, and informal exchanges, Gathering provides a collective inquiry into the possibilities for independent artistic practice in a rapidly transforming world.
Among the invited participants is Filipino artist Charlie Co, founder of Orange Project in Bacolod City. With two decades of sustained exhibition-making and community engagement, Co brings valuable insights into the resilience and evolution of artist-run spaces.
A panel, Foundations for the Future – Artists & Curators Shaping Creative Ecosystems, will feature Charlie Co representing the Philippines, Mook Attakanwong of ATT19 from Bangkok, Thailand, Liza Ho BackroomKL & The Zhongshan Building, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Elena Tzotzi Signal – Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö, Sweden.
This session will explore how independent art spaces emerge and evolve in response to their local contexts, examining their sustainability and their role in international engagement.
Additionally, Singaporean artists Adeline Kueh and Hazel Lim-Schlegel (founders of Critical Craft Collective), along with curator and designer Ashley Chiam (founder of Supper House), will delve into how artists and curators carve out experimental spaces in Singapore. •
