New studio
From June 1st, 2009
Duende
Tamboerstraat 9
3034 PT Rotterdam
The Netherlands
Duende is a self-organized and independent artist-cooperative housed in a building that provides 42 studios where independent artists carry out their work on a professional basis. The building is a former school, hired by the members of Duende cooperative from a communal housing company (OBR).
Apart from the permanent residents, Duende is running a gueststudio program, providing three large studios with a seperate living space, available for foreign artists for a period of three months. As a cooperative, Duende is looking back on a 20-year history with a broad range of activities and manifestations. Duende understands itself as an initiative that wants to stimulate discussion and reflection about art, inside and out of our daily practice. Plurality and flexibility are prepositions for an active debate and exchange of ideas. Duende has the intention to function as a platform, providing space and opportunity for international influences to emerge in the local circuit via the actual practice. Duende keeps up a vivid cooperation with other comparable artist-communities as well as the local institutions such as TENT., Witte de With, CBK, musea and galeries. International connections in a local context enable the individual artist to remain sharp and engaged in real movements at the base of art production and developement: the studio.