Tirza Kater, artist-curator

"Tirza Kater is an artist and curator living and working in Amsterdam. Working within institutional and self-organized environments, she looks and picks at the structures inside, behind, around, in front of, instead of, below and above the making, showing, and teaching of art. She is co-director of artist-run project space Marwan (since 7 years an ambitious program of commissioned projects) and was the initiator and curator of the residency program Home Alone, in her parents’ home while they were on holiday. From 2019 till 2022 Tirza was the Artistic Director of Hotel Mariakapel in Hoorn.

Tirza graduated from the Dutch Art Institute in 2018 and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2013.

According to Isabelle Sully, Artistic Director of A Tale of A Tub, Rotterdam, NL 'She folds hosting, supporting, and an astute politics of care into the practice of being an artist proper, one that works within organizational and developmental structures, whereby the material of her work becomes the very communities and practices that she fosters.'"

I (have) work(ed) with (selection): STROOM Den Haag, Three Four Three Four Gallery New York, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Gemeente Amsterdam, St. Joost Academie Den Bosch, SYSTEMA, Marseille,P/////AKT, Amsterdam, Dutch Art Institute. I (have) receive(d) grants from (selection): Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Mondriaan Fonds, PPO Werktuig. I (have) collaborate(d) with (selection): Evita Vasiljeva, Minne Kersten, Jannis Marwitz, Isabelle Sully, Platform BK, Cráter Invertido.

tirzakater[at]outlook[dot]com

Marwan is a collective artist-run project space founded by Tirza Kater and Tim Mathijsen in 2017 and since 2021 run with Dieuwertje Hehewerth.

Marwan is a collective body through which making space is practiced by stretching, shrinking, s l o w i n g, growing limbs, and hibernating. Marwan aims to build sustainable, supportive scaffoldings through which artists in and connected to Amsterdam can practice and celebrate their work. We consider Marwan a collective practice that is materialised in close dialogue with the artists and objects that we host.

Marwan is an ongoing exercise in exhibition making and programme composition that questions notions of production and efficiency that push artist-run spaces into unsustainable modes of work. Marwan’s practice takes shape from the negative space between work, study, and the individual practices of Tim, Tirza, and Dieuwertje. Marwan works from where we are and through what we are personally and collectively able to do, and developing that mode of production through the growing network with whom we work.

Marwan consists of:

Dieuwertje Hehewerth
Tirza Kater
Tim Mathijsen

and could not exist without AKINCI gallery, Anllel Maria Tanús Guillén, Elki Boerdam, Karin Iturralde Nurnberg, Philipp Gufler, Rieke Vos, Jason Hendrik Hansma, G, Sophia Xu, and its extended community.

'Keychains (traverse, raccord d'angle, pièce en T courte, plaque de base ronde, traverse en T combinée, pièce coudée, crochet, traverse de flambage)',
2023, mixed media (for dispersion of Marwan’s keys)

SYSTEMA, Palais Carli, Marseille, 2023

Keychains (kruisstuk, hoekkoppeling, T-stuk lang, T-stuk kort, voetplaat rond, combi T-kruisstuk, kniestuk, haak, knikkend kruisstuk)

Marwan, Amsterdam, 2023, within 'Living Room', choreographed by Karin Iturralde Nurnberg

'Roid Gut', Nell Schwan, curated by Tirza Kater, Dieuwertje Hehewerth, and Tim Mathijsen. Text by Huw Lemmey. 30.9.2023 - 12.11.2023, Marwan, Amsterdam