ARTCEB Art Center Botopasi

Art Center Botopasi - ARTCEB - is a platform for progressive art exchange initiated in 2010 by the Surinamese and Netherlands based artist Isidoor Wens.

The center is located on the shores of the Surinam River in the small village of Botopasi at the edge of the Amazon Forest. It is only accessible by boat, which is an invitation to discover the riverside of this region and an opportunity to experience the inspiring environment of primeval forests.

“ARTCEB is located in a very beautiful place, here is something different, but the experience when you are here is also something different because being here is like going back a few centuries in time. But this village has a lot of energy, you will see a paradise. It is a park, a creek with nice and clean water, where you can walk and take a small boat, and you’ll see beautiful trees, you’ll see nature's wonders. I cannot describe it to you, it’s so beautiful that when I think of it, it’s a paradise on earth,” confides Isidoor Wens, founder of ARTCEB.

The project is committed to the production of arts in this interior region of Suriname and organizes every year the Botopasi Festival that presents numerous activities around music, theater, and arts.

“I want to help a little bit the village, that’s the reason why I started ARTCEB, to bring artists here so there is the interconnection with culture, so that the culture influences them, get them more knowledgeable, and so that I can share that with my own people here, and grow with my tribe,” explains Isidoor Wens.

The platform actively promotes the development of cultural exchanges with the local and native populations of Amazonia through its international residency program. The programs take place three times a year and are open to national and international artists from all disciplines. Nevertheless, the residency emphasis on four major axes: contemporary arts, ceramic, music, and theater. The program is self-directed, although the participants will be oriented on arrival.

“The artists who come here in this program have to have four years of experience after their studies because the independence of the artist is important {…} The artists that I want here are artists that have some dream, you have to have some dream, you have to be a dreamer. Art is the only important thing in the world,” shares Isidoor Wens.

Up to ten artists each year will be participating in the programs that can last between one and three months. Selected artists will be hosted in private rooms and have access to shared studios, sculpture and woodworking facilities, tools, a dance floor, and exhibition spaces. Artists are invited to organize some activities for the community such as workshops, classes, conferences, performances… At the end of their stay, artists will have the opportunity to either organize an open studio or an exhibition in Botopasi, or present some works during the annual festival, and even participate in an exhibition in Paramaribo or in the Netherlands.