How Do You Do? A conversation between Mathilde Villeneuve, Fernanda Brenner and Alice Motard

On Thursday, February 13 at 7 pm, we present the public talk How Do You Do?, organized as part of the third edition of the Hangar Visitors Program. On this ocasion, the participants will be Mathilde Villeneuve (BUDA, Kortrijk, Belgium), Fernanda Brenner (PIVO, São Paulo), and Alice Motard (CEAAC, Strasbourg). The session will be moderated by Anna Manubens, Hangar’s director, and Veronica Valentini, responsible for the center’s research network and international residency programs.

The talk revolves around an apparently simple question — “how do you do?” — which functions as a double linguistic play: it can mean both “how are you?” and “how do you do it?”. From this ambiguity, the event invites reflection on institutional practices and values that are not always explicit or publicly debated. Among the topics to be discussed, the dynamics sustaining programming, the relationships between the local and global contexts, and the collective processes defining institutional identities will be addressed: are they inheritances, joint creations, or products of internal negotiations?

This meeting is part of the third edition of the Hangar Visitors Program, a project designed to connect artists from Spain with relevant international networks. In addition to taking part in the talk, the speakers will also conduct studio visits with Hangar’s resident and local artists, offering them the opportunity to delve into their methodologies and creative processes. This program seeks to foster new connections between the global and local artistic spheres, expanding both the horizons and opportunities available to the city’s creative community.

Practical Information
Date: Thursday, February 13
Time: 7 pm
Venue: Sala Ricson, Hangar
Language: English
Free entrance

Mathilde Villeneuve is the artistic director of BUDA Arts Centre (Kortrijk) since 2019, a place dedicated to the performing arts and cinema, both as a workplace for artists and for public performances. From 2013 to 2018, she co-directed Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, a place of research and experimentation in art open to all artistic fields, which strives to create conditions for artists to emerge from singular forms, where art is linked to current social and political concerns.

From 2006 to 2012, she coordinated the outdoor projects of the École Nationale Supérieure d’arts Paris-Cergy and programmed its Parisian exhibition space, La Vitrine. She has also worked as an curator and independent art critic. She directs a literary collection at the Publishing house B42 (Rester. Etranger, Dominique Petitgand). She has coedited with Virginie Bobin, Re-publications, published by Archive Books (Berlin, 2012), which analyses artistic practices consisting in the re-circulation of confiscated historical information. With Claire Moulène, she published in a book of residence of the Ateliers des Arques (Edition B42, 2008).

Fernanda Brenner is the founding director of Pivô in São Paulo and Salvador and a Latin American art advisor for the Kadist Art Foundation. Based between São Paulo and Brussels, she initially trained as a filmmaker and production designer before becoming a contemporary art curator. She has been a contributing editor for Frieze Magazine since 2017.

Recent projects include Paulo Nazareth: Luzia at Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2024), Body House: Dialogues Between Carolee Schneemann, Diego Bianchi, and Márcia Falcão at Pivô, São Paulo (2024), I see no difference between a handshake and a poem at Mendes Wood DM, Paris (2023), Do You Believe in Ghosts? at the 24th Pernod Ricard Foundation Prize, Paris (2023), Peace, or Never at FHNW, Basel (2022) co-curated with Chus Martínez; Oriana, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz (2021/2023) at Pivô and Argos, Brussels, Pol Taburet: Sweats for the Sweet (2023), Mariana Castillo Deball: To-day project (2023), It’s Night in America, Ana Vaz (2022), Vuadora, Paulo Nazareth (2022) co-curated with Diane Lima, República, Luiz Roque (2020), and Avalanche, Katinka Bock (2019) all at Pivô.

Alice Motard is the Director of the Centre européen d’actions artistiques contemporaines (CEAAC) in Strasbourg, France. Prior to this position, she was Chief Curator at Capc Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (2016–2021), where she organised a survey of the 1970s independent publishing house Beau Geste Press in 2017; Curator at Spike Island in Bristol (2014–2016); and Deputy Director and Exhibitions Organiser of Raven Row in London (2008–2013).

Among others, she has curated shows with Caroline Achaintre, Xavier Antin, Julie Béna, Luca Bertolo, Michael Beutler, Chiara Camoni, Isabelle Cornaro, Ruth Ewan, Anna Franceschini, Lubaina Himid, Anna Hulačová, Charlotte Khouri, Běla Kolářová, Marie Cool Fabio Balducci, Benoît Maire, Marianne Marić, Gareth Moore, Reto Pulfer, Florian Pumhösl, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Anne Laure Sacriste, Takako Saito, Samara Scott, Endre Tót.

She holds MAs in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art in London and in Art History from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne/Freie Universität Berlin.

The Hangar Visitors Program is supported by Acción Cultural Española (AC/E).

Photo Fernanda Brenner: Art Dubai courtesy
Photo Alice Motard: Christophe Urbain de FB Art Dubai