Extra Academy is a collaboration between the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Sint Lucas Antwerp and Royal conservatory of Antwerp. They organize an open program of lectures, performances, workshops and screenings around artistic practices, reflection and research. Since September 2024 they hold there monthly meetings at Stadsform. The program is in English and open for non students also, no need to register!

How can writing and curating reinforce each other?

Eloise Sweetman is a curator, writer, and editor who founded the curatorial office Between Works. The office specialises in exhibition-making, events, and publishing that operate between intimacy, attentiveness, and contemporary art. Her work explores art as living, relational spaces that bring together artworks, audiences, and environments. Each project builds temporary communities: gatherings that arise through exhibitions, performances, meals, or conversations, in which reflection, vulnerability, and collective attention can unfold.

Sweetman works closely with artists such as Nico Docx, Joseph Grigley, Lee Kit, and Charlotte Posenenske, supporting them through exhibitions, events, and publications. She also runs Shimmer, a curatorial studio in the port of Rotterdam, where experimental exhibition models are developed that push the boundaries of conventional exhibition-making. Here she has collaborated with Anne Tallentire, Ellen Gallagher, and Mike Kelley, among others.

Her work as a curator goes hand in hand with writing. Sweetman co-edited Curatorial Feelings (2021). A collection of essays on ethics, proximity, and emotion in curating. She explores how writing itself can be a parallel exhibition space: a place where intimacy, curiosity, and meaning arise through the words themselves.

In her talk, Sweetman explores how writing and curating reinforce each other. Her texts are not explanatory, but constitutive. They create a space in which the vulnerability and intentions of artists become tangible. Inspired by literature, music, and philosophy, she explores how stories and experiences can invite collective attention and ethical engagement with the work of others.

The result is a practice of closeness and participation, in which art, words, and audience meet and form a shared experience.