Here as the Centre of the World was a transnational artistic research project that took place in six cities worldwide: Enschede (NL), Damascus (Syria), Khartoum (Sudan), Taipei (Taiwan), Beirut (Lebanon) and Diyarbakir (Turkey). Initiated by the Dutch Art Institute and co-curated by Lucy Cotter, Gabriëlle Schleijpen, and Alite Thijsen, the project set out to explore and challenge uneven cultural hierarchies in what is often taken to be a culturally neutral “international” art world.

Bringing together 75 artists globally, the project invited artists to reflect on the situatedness of their own practice in wider cultural and social discourses and reconsider taken-for-granted definitions of contemporary art. The project revolved around a series of ten-day collaborative artistic research workshops, with each artists participating both in their location of residence and in at least one other city, offering the experience of having one’s norms perceived as “other”, as well as having oneself and one’s art practice perceived as “other” in another location. To move out of the usual comfort zones of contemporary artistic practice, the project revolved around a series of ten-day collaborative artistic research workshops engaging with one street in each city, which created the conditions to collectively negotiate the terms of making art.

Here as the Centre of the World was initiated with an international conference, reflecting on the uneven cultural field and the challenges of peripherality in a globalizing world. An accompanying programme of lectures and panel discussions was held in each city, opening up local critical discourses and providing space for emerging questions to be addressed in specific terms in each context.

Here as the Centre of the World was co-organized in close collaboration with the following partner institutions: Netherlands Institute for Academic Studies Damascus (NIASD), Diyarbakir Arts Center, Anadolu Kultur (Istanbul), Zico house (Beirut), Rashid Diab Art Center (Khartoum) and Taipei National University. The workshops culminated in exhibitions in partner institutions as well as site-specific works and screenings in public space in all six cities in 2007-2008.

Additional exhibitions presenting the overall project took place at Villa de Bank, Enschede (2009), and Kunstvlaai art fair, Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam (2010).

The outcomes of the project are documented in a full-color catalogue/reader, accompanied by reflections by literary authors, postcolonial theorists, curators, and artists. Edited by Lucy Cotter, Gabriëlle Schleijpen, and Alite Thijsen. Published by Archis, 2009. Launched in conjunction with the 11^th Istanbul Biennale.