Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam is pleased to announce the appointment of three new members to its Supervisory Board: Fariba Derakhshani, Timme Geerlof, and Annuska Pronkhorst. They take the seats of three exiting members of Witte de With’s Supervisory Board, whose membership terms have reached their conclusion: Jeroen Princen, Nathalie De Vries, and Kees Weeda (chairperson).
“We are most grateful for the dedication and supervision granted to our institution by Princen, De Vries, and Weeda. I am especially thankful to them for their tenacious advice offered last year, the first in my tenure,” said Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, director of Witte de With. “The three new board members will help us in best shaping and implementing our future policy. And their professional expertise, plus the diversity of cultural backgrounds now found in our board, promises to enrich the discussions about our institutional vision.”
Fariba Derakhshani brings to Witte de With her expansive cultural insight of contemporary arts in non-Western regions. She works at the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where she is the Programme Coordinator of the Prince Claus Awards.
Born and raised in Rotterdam, Timme Geerlof brings his legal insight to Witte de With. A partner of Windt Le Grand Leeuwenburgh, he heads the law firm’s department of intellectual property and advises on legal matters pertaining creative industries.
An architectural historian, Annuska Pronkhorst brings her knowledge about spatial implications of migration in cities. She is a partner at Crimson Historians & Urbanists and co-founder of Independent School for the City, both in Rotterdam.
The three new members will join four other board members: artist Gabriel Lester, based in Amsterdam; artist Katarina Zdjelar, based in Rotterdam; Stijn Huijts, director, Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht; and Annet Lekkerkerker.
A member of Witte de With’s Supervisory Board since 2017, Annet Lekkerkerker is its acting chairperson. She is part of the Executive Board of the Amsterdam University of the Arts, a position she recently took on after having served as general director of the Holland Festival.
Founded in 1990, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art was conceived as an art house with a mission to present and discuss the work created today by visual artists and cultural makers, from here and afar. It organizes exhibitions, commissions art, publishes, and develops educational and collaborative initiatives. This non-profit institution has especially worked with artists, and engaged audiences, who are interested in posing challenging inquiries and articulations of our present.
Recently, and after a series of public debates, the institution has come to examine the origins of its name. For more information about this, please refer to 2018 Annual Report, available here.
Witte de With complies with the Code Cultural Governance and with Code Cultural Diversity.
Portraits of all board memebers are available for download.