Bio

Working as an artist, architectural historian and writer based in Brussels, my practice operates at the intersection of different disciplines to investigate the social, historical and political dimension of architecture and the urban environment. I’m interested in the influence of formal spatial/political power structures imposed on our living environment, and in the informal counter-strategies people create to deal with them. My work is based on artistic/architectural research, and adopts different media, such as writing, mapping, photography and film, which translate into presentation methods that use forms of scenography and performative lecture to activate and contextualize exhibited images and objects.

In 2016/2017 I was a Jan van Eyck participant, and since 2018 I have been working with different people and in different formations on projects around the colonial history of Indonesia. In 2019 I participated in the 900mdpl biennale in Kaliurang, Indonesia. Together with Paolo Patelli I currently work on an archival research project rethinking the ‘logic’ of the Tillema Collections, collaborating with Research Center for Material Culture (fellowship), and generously supported by Creative Industries Fund in The Netherlands. Since March 2022 I am a PhD researcher at the University of Ghent, department of Architecture and Urban Planning, focussing on colonial housing politics and domestic cultures in the former Dutch East Indies, and since September 2022 I am an associated researcher at the a.pass Research Center in Brussels.

With Rob Ritzen I founded That Might Be Right an artistic and socially engaged organization dedicated to researching, developing and supporting alternatives to the present. From 2017 till 2021 I have been teaching history and theory of architecture and urbanism at the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and from 2018 till 2021, I worked as text and image editor for the online platform Archined.

Press

November 2021 / Book review on What Bungalows Can Tell
Pauline K.M. van Roosmalen, ‘Verhalen over koloniaal erfgoed: de bungalows in Kaliurang (Indonesië)’, Archined
https://www.archined.nl/2021/11/verhalen-over-koloniaal-erfgoed-de-bungalows-in-kaliurang-ind

October 2021 / Book review on What Bungalows Can Tell
Pauline K.M. van Roosmalen, ‘Erfgoed heeft vele vaders’, Indies Tijdschrift, No. 2, October 2021

Contact

Paoletta Holst 
mail (at) paolettaholst (dot) info 

Level Five
Rue Van Meyelstraat 49 1080 Molenbeek
www.levelfive.brussels
instagram – @levelfivebxl

Website design

Website design by
Dirk Reimes

Font design ‘Combine’ by Julie Patard