As part of our European Solidarity Residencies project, two young professionals visited us for a one-month residency at rhe end of last year to learn about the local cultural scene and Pro Progressione’s place and role in it – Márton Csuzi, our external expert and mentor guided them during the whole residency journey. We asked Márton, to summarize his experiences in this interview:
To start with, could you briefly introduce your role in the European Solidarity Residency project, and what being the External expert, Mentor means in practice? What personal and professional experiences did you bring into this project?
My background is contemporary performing arts, I am a dancer, acrobat, I co-founded a fresh, small company, called OneTwoMany Collective. In addition to being a performer and creator I work as a curator, coordinator at a big scale music Festival and i participate in all kinds of cultural projects from conducting researches to develop financial models for art organizations. I use my wide range of experience in the ESR program to help in planning and running the residency program, to guide the participants through it, to support the selection process and evaluating the results as well. The direct prelude to this collaboration with Pro Progressione was a previous Creative Europe project called DemArt project, where I played a very similar role in working with non professional curators.
How would you describe the core mission of ESR in your own words, and what does “solidarity through art” mean to you in practice?
The most important mission of the project is to contribute to the formation of curatorial practices and careers of emerging cultural professionals who are just starting their paths as curators and facing some challenges of unequal opportunities. This contribution is very specific: international residencies, mentorship, field visits, hands on experience.
When you first joined the project, what were the initial expectations and objectives—and how have they evolved since the project started?
At the beginning I had goals rather than expectations. My biggest hope was that the program I helped planning would have a long term impact on the participants career paths. Now my aim is more to develop the program to be more measurable both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Looking back so far, what do you feel has worked particularly well, and what has surprised you during the implementation?
What surprised me, that the most helpful part of the program was a workshop about a specific part of project management: mapping stakeholders of a particular project idea. This was the least directly art related activity yet the most useful for the participants. Probably because this was the least subjective element too.
Could you walk us briefly through the participant selection process? What kind of resident profile did you consider ideal for the Budapest context—and what made Alma Kadic and Raouf Moussa strong matches for this residency?
We were looking for candidates who are really at the beginning of their pathway as curators and have pretty personal relation to solidarity. Another very important consideration was that we wanted people who would benefit the most from what we can offer, so we chose people with a multidisciplinary approach and a strong socially engaged mindset.
ESR explicitly prioritises emerging cultural professionals from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds. How did this value influence the selection process and your curatorial thinking?
It is a very complicated challenge: what does disadvantaged mean? We were focusing on people from countries which are underrepresented in the European cultural circulation. Alma is originally from Bosnia, Raouf from Tunisia, but both are living in Germany and Belgium for a while, so they have a deep understanding of the European art scene and the professional field of culture. They are both at the very beginning of their curatorial careers and had not many opportunities beforehand to bring to life their curatorial ideas.
How did you design the professional programme of the Budapest residency? What were the key thematic or methodological principles behind it?
The most important factor we were aiming for was diversity. We wanted to introduce the Hungarian contemporary art scene in its complexity rather than focusing on one segment of it. The other aspect was multidisciplinarity involving both performing and visual arts. Through job shadowing days we wanted to provide a deep insight into into the work of top experts, via field visits we wanted to give an overview of the artistic scene itself and by offering workshops we wanted to give hands on experience and knowledge in management and organisational practices. The central element of the whole residency was individual work. Participants had to design a project, create a plan for implementation but didn’t have to really bring it to life. This gave them a reference point for the aforementioned activities.
Budapest can be a complex but inspiring context for artistic work. In what ways did the city influence the residency programme and the residents’ artistic processes?
The participants chose to work on a very location specific idea: reinterpretation and reintegration of socialist monuments. This is not limited to Budapest only, but this is one of the few cities which were really changed its narratives through changing its monuments after the socialist regime’s collapse, but there’s people still living whose everyday life was accompanied by those monuments.
The residency involved selected institutions and professionals. What were the main criteria when choosing these partners, and what kind of collaboration were you aiming for?
We were trying to choose experts who are key figures and institutions of how the contemporary art scene is developing at the moment in Budapest. These people are either very much experienced and helping to shape the cultural scene for decades, or having such charisma and momentum despite their young age that they have the opportunity to refresh the work of the aforementioned experts.
From your perspective, what impact did the Budapest residency have on the residents—both in terms of artistic development and personal / professional growth?
It is really difficult to evaluate the impact on the participants in such a short period of time, that’s why I think it is important to follow them and their professional progress for a longer period of time, but one thing is certain: they both found new perspectives in their work, expanded their network.
Based on the one-month-work with Alma and Raouf, what feedback of theirs resonated with you most? Were there any reflections that made you rethink parts of the programme?
I feel now that for next time the program should have less differing elements and more opportunities to dive deep. Fewer people to follow as shadows, cooperation with one institution as sort of an internship, more professionals involved in the individual work as mentors, helpers, guides.
What are your main plans and ambitions for the next residency? What will you keep, and what would you like to change or strengthen?
I would focus more on practical experience. Not only visits but real working experiences.
How do you feel this work has contributed to your career as an artist, curator, or cultural professional?
It teaches me a lot about the complexity of the cultural life in Budapest and gives me an opportunity to have an insight into the international context.