Alice Smits (NL)
Alice Smits is the initiator and artistic director of Zone2Source, a testing ground for art and ecology in the Amstelpark in Amsterdam (NL). Offering the park as a living lab, artists are invited for exhibitions, research, workshops, performances and talks in which alternative imaginations and practices of our role in ecosystems is developed in three glass pavilions, two artist gardens and the surrounding outdoors of the Amstelpark. Her curatorial approach brings theory into a transformative practice by focusing both on the processes and results of artistic research, often by developing longer artistic research programs with cultural and educational partners (for example Machine Wilderness (with FoAM), Polyphonic Landscapes with ArtEZ, Smart Hybrid Forms with the Free University or the biannual School for MultiSpecies Knowledges). With a background in art history (she graduated at the University of Amsterdam in 1996) she has organized as a freelance curator multiple exhibitions and festivals in the Netherlands, New York (US) and Kampala (Uganda). She is a freelance art critic for magazines such as Metropolis M and a researcher on art science in the field of ecology.