Ghent Metropolitan Area
Danielle van Zuijlen is an artistic initiator, collaborator and advisor; a sparring partner for artists and organisations looking to develop new, collaborative directions. In 2018 she co-initiated Kunsthal Gent, where she is part of the coordination team and artistic coordinator for development (responsible for the development programme and the development of the organisation.) She works on commissions through her company Lodewijks van Zuijlen. Her main interests are in artistic development, artistic strategies for art in social and public contexts, collaborative working methods and horizontal institutional models. After graduating from the Master of Fine Art programme at Glasgow School of Art, Scotland in 2002, Van Zuijlen co-founded Hotel Mariakapel, a residency and exhibition space in Hoorn, NL, where she directed the programme until 2008. She did residencies with IBB, Curaçao (2007) and Capacete, Rio de Janeiro (2010, 2013) and was a guest curator at Nieuwe Vide, Haarlem (2009), Culturgest, Porto (2010), Nest, The Hague (2011, 2012) and The Model, Sligo, Ireland (2015-16). In 2015-2023 she was the coordinator of PILOOT, a long-term public art program in the Tondelier area of Ghent, Belgium. She co-developed collaboration projects between Flemish arts organisations (e.g. initiating Kunsthal Gent BE in 2018; or SOLO, a residency as a collaboration between Flemish studio organisations, 2017-2018, a precursor of umbrella organisation UFO.) For studio organisation NUCLEO she developed an artist support policy, resulting in the SUPPORT programme, self-directed by artists. She has served as advisor for the Kunstendecreet in Flanders (until 2021), the cultural projects committee of the City of The Hague in The Netherlands (2018-2021) and as external expert for the Creative Europe program of the European Commission (since 2014, working as lead expert since 2017.) She is currently part of the general assembly of Platform 0090 in Antwerp and a board member of Kunstenpunt/ Flanders Arts Institute, the Flemish organisation for support and development of the arts.
Since 2018 I am part of a team of 5 coordinators that set up the new organisation Kunsthal Gent. We have no director - instead we are 5 people with specific roles, together making up the coordination team of Kunsthal Gent. 1) I am member of the coordination team. In that role, I co-develop the strategic policy of Kunsthal Gent. As a team, we coordinate its realisation. 2) I coordinate Kunsthal Gent's development programme: a residency which hosts, supports and connects 6 artists, collectives or small artist run organisations per year. Kunsthal Gent opened in January 2019. For more information, please go to www.kunsthal.gent
Artistic consultancy, curatorial projects & research on artistic strategies in social and public contexts. Consultancy, commissions, writing and editing, teaching, advisory and committee work. Regular collaboration with artist Bart Lodewijks.
- editor of publications by Bart Lodewijks, www.romapublications.org - co-editor of 'Heimwee naar Krijt' by Bart Lodewijks, essay in series of the Mondriaan Fund www.bartlodewijks.nl
For an association of studio organisations in Flanders (in formation) I developed SOLO, a temporary residency project for Belgian artists. SOLO was situated next to and developed in association with Roger Raveel Museum, Machelen-aan-de-Leie and hosted 6 artists in 2017 and 2018. For studio organisation NUCLEO in Ghent I researched a new model for an artist residency, as a collaboration between visual arts organisations. This research fed into the plans for the institutional model of Kunsthal Gent, a new organisation initiated in 2018.
Long term art project in the new Tondelier area of Ghent, Belgium. This is one of 5 projects in Flanders that together form a pilot project for public art, initiated by the Flemish ministry, Kunstenpunt and the Flemish Architect.
advisor visual art in advisory committee cultural projects, City of The Hague