Three artists coming to BijlmAIR in 2015

BijlmAIR welcomes artists and other cultural producers who in the course of their work want to relate to the transnational and intercultural society of Amsterdam Southeast, providing them with a way of temporarily coming to and live and work there. BijlmAIR is the Artist-in-Residence programme of the Centre for Visual Art Southeast, the FLAT Foundation, and Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (SMBA). Following an open invitation for participants, in the autumn of 2014 77 candidates applied for the residency. The participating institutions have now arrived at their selection. It is with fitting pride that we are here announcing the three finalists' names. They are, successively, Lynnée Denise Bonner, Hana Miletic and Ryts Monet.





Lynnée Denise Bonner

At the start of 2015 the American DJ, independent researcher and cultural producer Lynnée D. Bonner will explore the relation between the urban environment, migration and pop culture in the Bijlmer during the 1980s. "The Bijlmer '80s" is part of Bonner's long-term project “The Global Art '80s”, in which over the past two years she has organized concerts, performances, conferences, screenings and lectures that illuminate the cultural contributions of underground artists' collectives in New York, South Africa and London. Inspired by the relation between the pertinent art of pop art artists – like the politically charged work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and the work of Andy Warhol which so thoroughly caught the spirit of the times - and the music of that era, with the rise of pop, dance and urban genres such as R&B, hip-hop and house, Bonner seeks to determine what the turbulent 1980s meant for various places in the world.

Find more about Lynnée Denise Bonner

Hana Miletic

Following that, in the spring of 2015 Hana Miletic attunes her eyes and ears to life in Amsterdam Southeast. She will compose a collection of poems from graffiti and wall texts, conversations which she records, snatches of song texts from music on local radio or on passers-by's mobile telephones, and trivial finds in her surroundings such as shopping lists. Her manner of working, in recording life around her, resonates with her background in documentary photography. This time, however, it will not be images, but words that she captures.

Miletic already has various artist's books to her credit. At present she is resident at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, where she developed a collection of poems based on years of collecting photos of wall texts on façades in her birthplace, Zagreb, Croatia. She works in close collaboration with the graphic designer and poet Dongyoung Lee, who will probably also be involved in her project for BijlmAIR.

Find more about Hana Miletic

Ryts Monet

Under the heading “notable residents” on the English language Wiki page for Amsterdam Southeast, almost the only names to be found are those of footballers with a multicultural background. Ryts Monet sees this as the convergence of two important aspects of the Bijlmer: its enormous cultural diversity, and the architectonic presence of the Amsterdam ArenA, one of the most important football centres in Europe. During his residency in the autumn of 2015 Monet will explore the role of football and sports in the neighbourhood and in de community: how does football unite a neighbourhood or a group of people, and what symbolism is related to this? He involves his own calling as an artist in this by comparing football with performance: footballers and artists both train to perfect their skills, and preform in the presence of an audience.

In previous residencies – among them Venice and Tokyo – Monet also explored his surroundings in an anthropological manner. His artistic research consists primarily of photography, video and installations, in which he generally reflects on cultural and social elements in the places where, as an artist, he presently finds himself.

Find more about Ryts Monet


In 2015 the residents will be staying in Florijn 42. Possible presentations by each of the residents will take place there, as well as in SMBA and the Centre for Visual Arts Southeast.

For further information see CBK