Bio
Paoletta Holst (she/them) is an artist and architectural historian based in Brussels. Their practice operates at the intersection of different disciplines to investigate the social, historical and political dimension of architecture and the urban environment. Their work is based on artistic/architectural research, and adopts different media, such as writing, photography and film, which translate into presentation methods that use forms of scenography and installation to activate and contextualize exhibited images and objects.
Since March 2022 they are a PhD candidate at Ghent University, department of Architecture and Urban Planning. Their PhD research focuses on late colonial architecture and domestic cultures in Java, Indonesia, through an critical and artistic mobilization of the ‘colonial archive’. Currently they are an artist in resident at WIELS in Brussels. They were an associated researcher at the a.pass Research Center in Brussels (2022-23), and at the Research Center for Material Culture (2020-22); and artist-in-residence at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht in (2016-17).
For several years they have been working with different people and in different formations on projects around the colonial history and coloniality. In 2019 they participated in the 900mdpl biennale in Kaliurang, Indonesia, resulting in the publication What Bungalows Can Tell (Onomatopee, 2021) co-authored by Mira Asriningtyas and Brigita Murti. Together with Paolo Patelli they developed an archival research project rethinking the ‘logic’ of the colonial Tillema Collections resulting in the workshop program Menyunting Arsip/Editing the Archive at Gudskul, Jakarta (2022), an exhibition at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam (2022) and an artistic film/documentary (forthcoming 2025).
With Rori Ritzen they founded That Might Be Right an artistic and socially engaged organization dedicated to researching, developing and supporting alternatives to the present. They are a founding member of Level Five, Brussels. From 2017 till 2021 they taught history and theory of architecture and urbanism at the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and from 2018 till 2021, they worked as text and image editor for the online platform Archined.
Press
October 2024 / Exhibition review on ‘Circulate – Photography Beyond Frames’ by Edo Dijksterhuis, titled ‘Ver voorbij een printje in een lijst”, published in Het Parool
August 2023 / Exhibition review on ‘Style Congo. Heritage & Heresy’ at CIVA, by Justin Agyin, titled ‘Een nieuwe blik op het archief: Art Nouveau herijkt’, published at Archined
https://www.archined.nl/2023/08/een-nieuwe-blik-op-het-archief-art-nouveau-herijkt/
May/June 2023 / Exhibition review on ‘Style Congo. Heritage & Heresy’ at CIVA, by Robby Fivez, published in De Witte Raaaf no. 223 https://www.dewitteraaf.be/artikel/style-congo-heritage-heresy/
November 2021 / Book review What Bungalows Can Tell, by Pauline K.M. van Roosmalen, titled ‘Verhalen over koloniaal erfgoed: de bungalows in Kaliurang (Indonesië)’, published at Archined
https://www.archined.nl/2021/11/verhalen-over-koloniaal-erfgoed-de-bungalows-in-kaliurang-ind
October 2021 / Book review What Bungalows Can Tell, by Pauline K.M. van Roosmalen, titled ‘Erfgoed heeft vele vaders, de bungalows van Kaliurang’, published at Indies Tijdschrift, No. 2, October 2021
Contact
Paoletta Holst
mail (at) paolettaholst (dot) info
instagram – @paolettaholst
Level Five
Rue Gabrielle Petitstraat 6 1080 Molenbeek
www.levelfive.brussels
instagram – @levelfivebxl
Website design
Website design by
Dirk Reimes
Font design ‘Combine’ by Julie Patard
