İz Öztat, Constituting an Island, Video still, 2017

Creating contexts for meaningful collaboration is significant for Maria Lind, İz Öztat, and Nicholas John Jones. This conversation will begin from their experiences and you are invited to contribute to open discussion about approaches to collaboration and the agency these hold.

Maria Lind is a curator, writer and educator based in Stockholm. She is the director of Tensta konsthall, Stockholm, and professor of artistic research at Kunstakademiet in Oslo. She was artistic director of the 11th Gwangju Biennale and was director of the graduate program, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (2008-2010) and director of Iaspis in Stockholm (2005-2007).

İz Öztat is an artist based in Istanbul. She is a member of BAÇOY-KOOP (Printing, Duplication and Distribution Cooperative), utilizing mimeograph technology for collective and independent publishing in the current suppressive environment in Turkey. She is a collaborator of HTTPpRESS, an online platform that publishes content with free/libre licenses or notices. She is friends with Fatma Belkıs, with whom she explores the convergence of water and freedom. She has been engaged in an untimely collaboration with Zişan (1894 – 1970) who appears to her as a historical figure, channeled spirit and an alter ego. Selected exhibitions include Tamawuj, Sharjah Biennial 13 (2017); Land without Land, Heidelberger Kunstverein, Germany (2016); and Saltwater: A Theory of Thought Forms, 14th Istanbul Biennial (2015).

Nicholas John Jones is an artist, curator, occasional writer and founding director of PRAKSIS, through which he brings together cross-cultural transient communities for development through exchange. Jones has curated exhibitions on the theme of collaboraton and together with Ivan Liotchev and Helen Knowles he founded JKL Books, a bespoke publishing organisation producing handmade limited edition books.