Krista Jantowski (1986, NL) works as a curator, organizer and host. Most recently, she was part of the curatorial team of sonsbeek20→24 and from 2016-2023 she ran WALTER books, an independent bookshop, lively kitchen and political hang out in Arnhem (NL). In 2023, WALTER books moved to Amsterdam (NL), and is now part of a collaboration with Metro54. She is a boardmember for the artist collective under the table and a member of lumbung kios, a decentralized network of artists and cultural workers exploring alternative economies. She sometimes writes but wants to do this more often.
Year of participation
2023
During my residency at Greylight Projects, I will develop a semi-public reading room which holds a growing collection of texts, conversations, and gatherings that trace the mining past of the region of Heerlen (NL) through its afterlives. Departing from the question: how is the story told after it’s over?, the reading room is a public research effort to question dominant historical narratives, collective memory and cultural heritage. The research is primarily concerned with storytelling as a site of power: how (and by whom) histories are designed, acknowledging the different dynamic processes of making meaning, where stories are continuously being (re)told, shaped and (re)organized to fit and fix certain narratives, while obscuring others. These questions are carried forward through personal stories, contributions by different (artistic) practitioners, community members and collaborators.