To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the museum, Foam is organising a broad range of activities under the title Collaborate! and is present in Arles during the opening week of the international photography festival Les Rencontres d’Arles. In collaboration with Regards & Mémoires, Foam transforms the monumental building of La Bourse du Travail in the centre of Arles into a discussion and meeting place with exhibitions and presentations.

One of the main features of the Foam X Arles programme is the exhibition Jungle Check, organised specifically for the occasion with Cristina de Middel (SP) and Kalev Erickson (UK). While in Arles, Foam is also presenting a collaboration between photography students of the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague and the University of Art and Design (ECAL) in Lausanne. 

_{Jungle Check, 2017 ©  Cristina de Middel & Kalev Erickson}

PROGRAMME FOAM X ARLES

• Exhibition Jungle Check by Cristina de Middel and Kalev Erickson: a visual adventure inspired by a found collection of Polaroids from a trip through Mexico.
• Exhibition and daily zines: discover the result of the collaboration between photography students of the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague and the University of Art and Design (ECAL) in Lausanne.
• Interactive installation plplpl.pl: engage with the anti-surveillance machine by Matthias Oostrik and BeamLab, that confronts the visitors with themselves and each other.
• Artistic Internet Café: in collaboration with the Dutch online platform Patty Morgan Foam organises the Patty Morgan Internet Café.
• Discussions and Q&A’s: interesting exchanges with artists, curators and teachers present in Arles (Wed-Sat, 17.00-17.45 hrs).

The Collaborate! programme in Arles is made possible with the support of: The Dutch Embassy in France, Mondriaan Fund, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Fonds21, VSBfonds and OH! Pays-Bas. With special thanks to: Regards&Mémoires, the City of Arles, La Muleta and Union Locale CGT Arles.

Foam is supported by the BankGiro Loterij, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, Delta Lloyd, the City of Amsterdam, Olympus and the VandenEnde Foundation.

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EXHIBITION JUNGLE CHECK
Jungle Check is the story of two still-image adventurers on a quest to retrace and reinterpret the remains of a past dissolved in the emulsion of the Polaroid photo, a direct positive printing process now in danger of extinction. While browsing the flea market in Mexico’s La Lagunilla on a Sunday, Cristina de Middel came across a collection of Polaroid photos on sale that appeared to have been taken by the same person in the jungle near Tulum. These anonymous images all shared an orangey-pink tint caused by the passage of time, together with some random golden marks on the emulsion. It was in August 2015 that Cristina de Middel and Kalev Erickson visited this jungle, where they shattered the limits of the re-photographic protocol. Important elements of the exhibition are monumental lenticular prints. Invented in the nineteenth century, lenticular technology aims to recreate depth, a fantasy that Jungle Check hijacks by overlapping and uniting an image of yesterday with another of today, thereby creating the past in the present and a memory of the forgotten.

STUDENT EXCHANGE | KABK X ECAL X FOAM
While in Arles Foam takes on a role promoting international cooperation and exchange between students by initiating a collaboration between photography students of the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague and the University of Art and Design (ECAL) in Lausanne. The collaboration will be incorporated in the educational programs of both academies. The programme consists of two separate yet complementing parts: in the months running up to the opening week of Les Rencontres d’Arles the students have been exchanging material and ideas to create works, preparing for an exhibition at La Bourse du Travail. Once in Arles, they will make a daily report to be shared with the public. The exhibition space in La Bourse will function as a large studio in which the international students will work on these reports.

COLLABORATE! A YEAR OF VISUAL ENCOUNTERS
To celebrate its 15th anniversary, Foam is organising a broad range of activities throughout 2017 united by the theme of collaboration, under the title Collaborate!. Foam explores beyond the limits of photography and fine arts to help develop ties between different artistic disciplines, as well as venture into scientific and technological fields. Foam has identified a number of changes in the photographic landscape, with collaboration as a key component. A generation of young artists and artist initiatives is approaching their professional practice in this new manner. Foam is an outspoken advocate of this tendency; working together has always been part of its DNA. It is of the utmost importance to research, question and pay close attention to this trend.

The extensive Collaborate! project will feature a host of activities that differ substantially in nature: from exhibitions and events to activities well beyond the museum’s walls, in Amsterdam and abroad. A diverse array of both domestic and international artists, industry professionals and experts from other disciplines will participate, as well as a range of institutes and collectives.