Coop Summit 2025

Against the maddening backdrop of our world on fire and denial, 80 students and tutors of the Dutch Art Institute enact COOP SUMMIT 2025, the wrap up of the 2024–25 COOP study group trajectory. On June 24, 25 and 26 DAI returns to Nicosia and welcomes those around on the island of Cyprus to join us for intra-action between participants and public. After a year of intensive gatherings DAI presents collective offerings by seven COOPs.

June 24 
An Invitation to Action—A Basis for Hope (Christelle Makris, Echo Guo, Fagner Lima, Leo Asemota, Liam Warren, Mokia Dinnyuy Manjoh, Muyang Teng, Qiaoling Cai, Ratri Notosudirdjo, Sara Alberani, Zhuang Leng, spirited by SAVVY Contemporary from Berlin) presents Invitation to Actions: Ensembling, Sincering, Transmitting, a live radio broadcast accompanied by a collective meal, considering radio as a weapon, feast as gathering and a newsletter as a place to hold what can’t be held elsewhere.  

Living Room: Rehearsals towards Place-making (Annette Rodriguez Fiorillo, Carlos Azeredo Mesquita, Dana Andrei, Ginevra Collini, Helena Estrela, Ivčo Ružić, Julian Rieken, Keit Bonnici, Lisa Vlamings, Marina Christodoulidou, Noor Abuarafeh, Sharon Romie, Tuba Kılıç activated by de Appel Amsterdam) proposes to live by ear, and the eye will follow, an interactive radio format, broadcasting from multiple “micro-stations.” “Bring along a sound, together we’ll think through communal spaces and their potentials in resistance.”

June 25 
FOREST INSCRIPTIONS (Dimitris Chimonas, Egija Inzule, Erik Peters, Foad Alijani, Ilja Schamle, Jonas Žukauskas, Jurga Daubaraitė, Magdalena Beliavska, Nanna Stigsdatter Mathiassen, Sophie Dandanell Refsgaard, Stellar Meris, Sanna Hirvonen prompted by Neringa Forest Architecture in Nida) gathers us around To see the Forest for the Pines, an immersive experience where forest becomes a witness. From Lithuania over Cyprus to Palestine, the transformation of landscape is a colonial tool to control and eradicate indigenous life.

Half Land, Half Sea: Transcartography of Resistance (Alessandra Ferrini, Ayse Idil Idil, Chiara Cartuccia, Davide La Montagna, Dory Ikonen, Jip van der Hek, Maria Miguel Pratas, Nika Pecarina, Öykü Özgencil, Rana Kelleci, Samira Ghoualmia, encouraged by Archive Ensemble based in Berlin, Dakar and Milan) offers WE SEARCHED SO MUCH IN ERRATIC WAYS, an assembling gesture to engage with collective making and writing in relation to transitional spaces—an exercise for mapping tangible and opaque landscapes.

June 26
Trespass, Loopholes, Action Design (Alkmini Gkousiari, Aimeé Phillips, Anne van Ophem, Ariell Zéphyr, Aziza Harmel, Billie Meiniche, Clara Rudin Smith, Despina Sanida Crezia, Eszter Dobos, Harun Morrison, Sam Mountford, Sarmistha Bose, Tereza Darmovzalová, held by Hosting Lands based in Copenhagen) stages Good Deal, scenes from a script: “Can we work with immaterial things?” People nod in agreement, some look at their phones. Someone who has been getting frustrated with the decision making process interjects, “Let's say we are producing meaning as we are looking for it.”

Curating Positions: Voz de Tierra (Asmaa Barakat, Egle A. Benkunskytė, Henriks Zegners, Jamie Donald, Leire Vergara, Leo Hugendubel, Leon Filter, Marwa Arsanios, Olfa Arfaoui and Tara White mobilized by Bulegoa z/b from Bilbao) presents The Mountain Hangs Overhead, a choreographed live montage encouraging the audience to shift their gaze through an unfurling of multi-channel screenings, recorded and live sound. Changing the axis between empty cinemas, disintegrating airports and animal voyeurs, we make space to practice the labour of listening.

The Word and the Wound 2 / And Now You are Ready to Sing (Anna Buyvid, Agnese Krivade, Alva Roselius, Agnese Spolverini, Bel McLaughlin, Frederique Bergholtz, Hannah van der Schaaf, Javier Rodriguez Perez, Lisa Montan, Mia Tamme, Nada Gambier, Patrick Freriksen, and Snejanka Mihaylova activated by If I Can't Dance I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution) performs Hearing interval: there is a place for you, a call-and-response-based, site-specific rehearsal, or practice—“Each name has a tone housed in it, each body an ear.”

Generously hosted by SPEL in Nicosia. Reporters: Alaa Abu Asad, Ivor Glavaš, Masha Domracheva, a.o. For program details visit DAI's website or contact COOP leader Philippa Driest at phedflip@gmail.com.