Summer 2023 program

On June 9, 2023, Kunstinstituut Melly inaugurates new exhibitions. 

Lucy Beech: Ooze
Whereas much attention is given nowadays to how society creates waste, Lucy Beech has been preoccupied with how waste shapes society. The latest works by this visual artist and filmmaker operate in a fluid space between documentary and fiction and focus on ways in which the uses of waste have come to blur boundaries between social constructs and biological realities. Their solo exhibition, Ooze, includes their new film Flush, commissioned by Kunstinstituut Melly; the Dutch premiere of Beech’s Warm Decembers; and their earlier work, Reproductive Exile. 

Kelly Sinnapah Mary: The Fables of Sanbras
An artist engaging with ecological, historical, folkloric, and ancestral materialities, Kelly Sinnapah Mary’s The Fables of Sanbras is her first exhibition in The Netherlands. It includes existing and newly commissioned artworks, in which the artist considers daily rituals—such as feeding hens and watering plants every morning—and the flora and fauna surrounding her home and art studio in Guadeloupe. She works with a repository of memories, existing mythologies, and common superstitions, which together wrestle with certain ideological constructs that have been imposed by the West. 

Falke Pisano: not / to be / governed like that / by that
For her performance-based exhibition at Kunstinstituut Melly, artist Falke Pisano presents a new project  that stems from her year-long research into the first savings bank in Rotterdam. Established in the early nineteenth century, the Spaarbank was created by a group of affluent residents and an emerging local bourgeoisie. Decades earlier, in 1784, a similar group of people had established a foundation called Society for Public Welfare. In their own way, this bank and foundation were interested in inculcating personal growth and self-discipline amongst working-class citizens and those financially underprivileged. 

A new artistic environment in MELLY
Developed in 2018 as a curatorial project at the intersection of art and education, MELLY is Kunstinstituut Melly’s ground-floor gallery turned multipurpose space, including a bookshop and cantina. Here, numerous artists have created new work, whether hung on the walls, displayed in vitrines, or presented through live presentations. Working collaboratively, Loes van Esch and Simone Trum from the graphic design studio known as Team Thursday, architect Tomas Dirrix, and artist Koen Taselaar create a wholly new environment at MELLY. Their cue is that MELLY is not just a place to experience art; it is also a space used to rehearse ideas.

84 STEPS
Inaugurated in 2021, 84 STEPS features projects conceived at the intersection of art and education. To date, 84 STEPS has included works by Afra Eisma, The Feminist Health Care Research Group (Inga Zimprich), Alma Heikkilä, Maike Hemmers, Moosje M Goosen and Daily Practice (Suzanne Weenink), Domenico Mangano & Marieke van Rooy, Raja’a Khalid, Lisa Tan, Tromarama, RA Walden and Anna Witt. In June, the art installation by Lisa Tan gives way to a culminating chapter of 84 STEPS: a documentary display surveying the numerous artistic installations, environments, and activity-based programs that have come to constitute this exhibition initiative over the past three years.

Founded in 1990, Kunstinstituut Melly was originally conceived as an art-house with a mission to present and discuss the ideas and work created today by visual artists and cultural makers. It is supported by the City of Rotterdam and the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science in The Netherlands. Additional support is provided by Ammodo, Stichting Droom en Daad, and the Hartwig Foundation. These exhibitions are supported by Fonds 21, Frame Finland, Goethe Institut Rotterdam, IASPIS, ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), Institut français NL, Mondriaan Fund, OUTSET Netherlands, Stichting Elise Mathilde Fonds, Stokroos Foundation, Terra Foundation, and Van Wijngaarden-Boot Foundation.