The Delfina Foundation in London, a non-profit organisation catering to emerging contemporary artists, is offering residencies this year not just for artists—but also for collectors. Six international collectors will undertake residencies as part of the foundation’s Collecting as Practice programme, which looks at the psychology and different philosophies behind collecting today.
The six participating collectors are Pedro Barbosa (Brazil), Dorith Galuz (France), Sean Lu (China), Luba Michailova (Ukraine), and Daisuke Miyatsu (Japan). Lu is the founder of the Sifang Art Museum in Nanjing while Michaiolva founded the art organisation Izolyatsia in 2010. More participants are due to be announced.
Aaron Cezar, the director of the Delfina Foundation, says he sought collectors who are “pushing the boundaries of what a collection is and can do, like Lu’s Sifang Art Museum, which is a collection of objects and architecture, demonstrating design and aesthetics in Nanjing, a city undergoing rapid development”.
The collectors will collaborate with resident artists and curators such as the Brazilian practitioner Deyson Gilbert and the Indian artist Avani Tanya, who will also work with the Victoria & Albert Museum in London as part of a joint commission.
“The collectors are invited to reflect on their ‘practice’ and key concerns, similar to our resident artists. They will be required to engage and activate critical discourse through public and private events with their fellow residents. The collectors are not expected to collaborate on production per se; but, Barbosa and Gilbert, for example, have already been working together on the ephemera within Barbosa's collection,” Cezar adds.
