Alice Smits

I am the initiator and artistic director of Zone2Source, a platform for art, nature and technology in the Amstelpark in Amsterdam. We invite artists for regular exhibitions, talks, workshops and excursions in which new imaginations on nature-culture relations are being developed in the parks pavillion and outdoor spaces. With Zone2Source I am also developing longer term transdisciplinairy collaborative research programs such as Machine Wilderness (on robotics in relation to nature together with FoAM), Land (Art)Making (on anthropocenic landscapes, together with LAC) and Exploded View (on the park itself, in collaboration with CLUE+ heritage studies Free University).

I am currently a researcher with the Research Institute for Art and Public Space at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam on contemporary land art practices and theories of the anthropocene. I hold a master in art history at the University of Amsterdam.

Before establishing Zone2Source in 2013 I initiated various exhibitions in both New York and Amsterdam (I ran amongst others a year long project space in PS1, New York and for 2 years worked as a curator for Smart Project Space in Amsterdam). Between 2004 and 2012 I was co director and initiator of the Amakula Kampala International Film Festival in Uganda. I write regulary as a freelance art critic for art magazines such as Metropolis M and occassionaly give lectures. I am interested in the role art can play in society as a specific form of knowledge and place to experiment with new experiences and imaginations on a more inclusive society, and the development of alternative pedagogies.