“Do institutions need memes more than memes need institutions?”

Event

Debate

“Do institutions need memes more than memes need institutions?”

With Cihad Caner, Lua Vollaard, Geert Lovink and Karen Archey, moderated by Ilga Minjon, taekwondo by Tjamie Sports

18 May 2025

15:00 — 17:00

Location: IMPAKT [Centre for Media Culture]

€10,- (Regular) or €9,- (Discount CJP, Upas, Student, <18)

The opening night of Crit Club: Meme Debates focuses on the dilemma: ‘Do institutions need memes more than memes need institutions?’ This question hits at the core of the relationship between memetic strategies and institutional structures.

Social media, run by large corporations, determine the spread and even survival of memes through their algorithms. This makes memes dependent on these platforms. However, collaboration with institutions can give memes legitimacy in such a way that they are seen as cultural products that reflect the state of contemporary affairs. Academic analysis can increase the impact they have and give them a place in social discussions. Moreover, archives, museums and libraries play a crucial role in preserving these fleeting but cultural expressions for the future.

At the same time, institutions are increasingly dependent on memes to stay relevant in a digitising world. Memes reach large, especially young, audiences and make complex topics accessible. They reflect current emotions and trends and offer valuable insights into society. Institutions risk missing an important part of contemporary culture if they ignore memes. In this debate, speakers such as Cihad Caner, Lua Vollaard, Florian Cramer and Karen Archey will approach this question with their perspectives from art history, historiography, political science and collective memory. The debate will be moderated by Ilga Minjon

Cihad Caner Lua Vollaard Geert Lovink Karen Archey Tjamie Sports Ilga Minjon Elena

Cihad Caner

― Speaker

Cihad Caner (b. 1990) is an artist based in Rotterdam and Brussels. His practice explores the politics of the image through the mediums of film, music, motion-capture, and CGI. Caner’s research-driven practice revolves around (re)presentation, language, marginalisation and alterity. His fictional CGI characters are often multi-lingual protagonists in non-linear, metaphorical narratives that employ humour, absurdity, and poetry to critique the status quo.

Lua Vollaard

― Speaker

Lua Vollaard is a curator and writer based in Amsterdam. She works as a curator of contemporary art at Stroom Den Haag, developing projects that respond to questions of the public domain and notions of justice. As part of the collective Superkilogirls, she researches the material infrastructures of computing and its entanglement with women’s labour. As part of the collective Art Goss (2020-22), she disseminated high-effort gossip about the Dutch art world. Lua teaches at the Design Academy Eindhoven MA Critical Inquiry Lab. She writes about art for Frieze, Art in America, e-flux, and others.

Geert Lovink

― Speaker

Geert Lovink is the founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures, whose goals are to explore, document and feed the potential for socio-economical change of the new media field through events, publications and open dialogue. Since 2004 he is a researcher at the Faculty of Digital Media and Creative Industries at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA) where he heads the Institute of Network Cultures. He is the author of a.o. Uncanny Networks (2002), Organisation after Social Media (with Ned Rossiter, 2018) and Sad by Design (2019).

Karen Archey

― Speaker

Karen Archey is Head of the Curatorial Department at K20 K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf. There, she manages the program and curatorial teams of K20 and K21, and organizes exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. From 2016-2025, she was Curator of Contemporary Art at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, curating major exhibitions and performances with Marina Abramović, Hito Steyerl, Rineke Dijkstra, Metahaven, Jeff Preiss, CFGNY, Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, Michele Rizzo, and Ann Hirsch, among many others. Her book “After Institutions,” which examines institutions as rapidly evolving public space, was published by Floating Opera Press in 2022.

Tjamie Sports

― Speaker

Jamil Chami is wereldkampioen ITF Taekwondo (2007, Canada) en oprichter van Tjamie Sports, een sportorganisatie met een eigen sportschool in Utrecht en Zeist. Met meer dan 20 jaar ervaring in taekwondo en kickboksen traint en begeleidt hij kinderen, jongeren en volwassenen op een inspirerende en professionele manier. Als voormalig topsporter en ervaren sportdocent zet hij zich in voor persoonlijke groei, discipline en zelfvertrouwen. Via Tjamie Sports biedt hij een veilige leeromgeving met extra aandacht voor kansarme jongeren, waarbij sport als krachtig middel dient voor ontwikkeling en positieve verandering. Lorenzo van de Horst is een talentvolle leerling van Jamil Chami en een gedreven martial artist. Hij is zowel Europees als wereldkampioen Taekwondo en draagt met trots de zwarte band. Als instructeur deelt hij zijn kennis en ervaring met nieuwe generaties vechters. Daarnaast is Lorenzo actief als kickbokser op hoog niveau en heeft hij meerdere wedstrijden op zijn naam staan. Buiten de sport zet hij zich in als zorgbegeleider voor jongeren, waar hij zijn discipline, empathie en coachende vaardigheden inzet om anderen te ondersteunen in hun persoonlijke ontwikkeling.

Ilga Minjon

― Moderator

Ilga Minjon is a curator, researcher and educator based in Amsterdam. Working closely together with artists across disciplines, they aim to weave together future imaginaries from liberatory, decolonial and feminist re-writings of belonging, in art, technology and sound. They’re a member of Stadscuratorium Amsterdam, a city-wide advisory commission for arts in public space, and a tutor at Design Academy Eindhoven. Other activities include experiments in audio/radio and exchanges around pedagogies of collectivity. Ilga is part of Reading Vigil for Palestine, a collective who gathers on Dam square in Amsterdam daily since November 2023, to read about Palestine in public space until a permanent ceasefire.

Elena

― Artist

Elena is a Millennial proselyte of the gaming age, operating at the intersection of Digital Culture, Speculative Design, and Design Fiction. Currently part of the AIxDESIGN team and The New Centre for Research & Practice, she is devoted to the exploration of alternative futures in this era of technological acceleration. Her work shapeshifts to fit its context — to compute the links between simulation & authenticity, alienation & liberation, and machine & indulgence.

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