We the North is an initiative of the provinces of Drenthe, Fryslân and Groningen and the municipalities of Assen, Emmen, Groningen and Leeuwarden. The programme brings makers, institutions and governments together, builds sustainable networks, develops talent and supports lobbying and profiling of Northern Netherlands as a cultural region. The Noordenaars is one of the (talent) networks of We the North.
About the Winners
Samantha Pellarini
Samantha Pellarini (Venezuela, 1994) receives the Groninger Visual Arts Stipend Land for her research project Hunze and other stories: There is a river flowing under my house!. That began with the discovery of the historical course of the river Hunze under her home in Groningen. With this project, Pellarini connects personal experience to broader social and ecological issues, such as climate change, spatial planning and responsibility for future landscapes.
Radina Kordova
Radina Kordova (Bulgaria, 1994) receives the Groninger Visual Arts Stipend Horizon. With From the source to the mouth and everything in between she plans to walk 3000 km along the Danube. Starting at the source in the Black Forest in Germany to the mouth of the Black Sea in Romania, crossing seven countries. With this research and performance project, Kordova approaches the Danube as a more-than-human entity that connects cultural, historical and geographical layers.
Lily Dollner
Lily Dollner (IE/UK, 2000) receives the Noordenaars Stipend. In the coming year, Dollner will focus on deepening her performance practice, in which she questions our obsession with ‘productivity’ through absurd actions, and celebrates futility. She examines the relationship between object, labour and body as inseparable elements that relate to the concepts of value, effort and time. With this conceptual framework, Dollner develops the ‘Labour-Body-Object theory’ as a performance score and foundation for her work.
Babak Modarresi
Babak Modarresi (Iran, 1996) receives the Noordenaars Stipend. In a study of the phenomenon ‘Jamais Vu’ (translated: never seen, a term from psychology, the opposite of Déjà Vu) Modarresi looks at the alienating new realities that arise online in the age of AI. The archive of underground and niche Iranian web content that he has built up over the years forms the basis for experimenting with new virtual and material forms of presentation.
75 submissions
The winners were selected by professional expert juries. With 75 submissions, the juries see an impressive cross-section of the strength and diversity of makers based in the North. In the selection, not only the quality of the work weighed, but above all the developmental question of who can use the stipend most meaningfully. All four will participate in Artist in Space in the coming year, the talent development programme for visual artists in Northern Netherlands, made possible by We The North and the Mondriaan Fund. They are guided in this by professionals from the Noordenaars, the network of 17 presentation institutions and art initiatives in Northern Netherlands.
In addition to the winners, the following artists were nominated:
Land: Sojung Lee, Micha van der Molen
Horizon: Marina Sulima & Marijke Klamer, Klaudija Yliate
Noordenaars stipends: Lorenzo Modestini, Karina Puuffin
About the stipends
Groninger Visual Arts Stipends (Land & Horizon)
The Land and Horizon stipends encourage artists up to 25 years of age to carry out a project, through which they further develop their practice, make an artistic contribution to the field and to the city of Groningen. Each stipend consists of an amount of 20,000 euros, made possible by the Municipality of Groningen, and is linked to Artist in Space (via Noordenaars) with a value of 12,500 euros.
Noordenaars Stipends
The Noordenaars stipend is awarded to make a crucial deepening of the artistic practice of artists in Groningen, Fryslân and Drenthe possible. There is room here for practice and experiment. The Noordenaars Stipends consist of a fee of 19,000 euros and is linked to an Artist in Space budget of 13,500 euros.
We the North
We the North is an initiative of the provinces of Drenthe, Fryslân and Groningen and the municipalities of Assen, Emmen, Groningen and Leeuwarden. The programme brings makers, institutions and governments together, builds sustainable networks, develops talent and supports lobbying and profiling of Northern Netherlands as a cultural region. The Noordenaars is one of the (talent) networks of We the North.