ABOUT

Ward Janssen is a curator, researcher, writer, and producer working in the field of visual culture, digital culture, contemporary art, and design. From 2008 on he has worked on exhibitions, film programmes, publications, articles, design projects, and art commissions.
In his projects he creates and produces exhibitions and projects presenting the work of a wide range of international artists and designers for festivals, art institutions and museums, with a specialization in artist commissions.

In his projects he has addressed a diverse variety of topics and phenomena on the forefront of innovative and activism driven media explorations in art and design cross overs, with subjects as: digital materiality in post internet art, digital art artifacts and trends, the cultural relevance of internet hypes, social media platform subcultures, privacy as a design subject, virtual reality and augmented reality innovation, design fiction and futurism ideologies, fashion media strategies for the new media age, film and design cross overs, digital animation, independent game culture, the changing genre of the music video as experiment for the post tv media landscape, art film as cinematic experience, short and feature films and documentaries as avant-garde statements, design as a self help discipline for the future, and most recently poetics in nature as subject in anti-innovation discourse reappreciation of wildness, and dystopia-innfluenced explorations of science fiction and technology-informed considerations of futurity.

Projects were supported by Mondriaan Fonds, Creative Industries Fund, Fonds 21, VSB Fonds, BankGiro Loterij, Het Cultuurfonds, Dutch Ministry of OCW, Municipality of Breda, Municipality of Almere, Province of Flevoland, Province of Noord-Brabant, AFK - Amsterdam Art Fund, Ammodo, KunstLoc Brabant, Cultuurfonds Almere, Filmfonds NL, Creative Europe - Culture, Creative Europe - Media, Eindhoven-Brabant Creative Capital of Europe 2018.

POSITIONS:
ALLUMINOUS light art festival - artistic director, 2022 - present
Next Nature Museum - external curator/development of 2024 and 2025 open call projects, 2024 - present
Other Futures festival & foundation - interim artistic director (collaboration with Manique Hendricks), 2022 - 2023
Floriade World Expo 2022 - curator of official art programme 2022 world expo, 2020 - 2022
M. Art Museum Flevoland pavilion - curator inaugural exhibition, 2021 - 2022
The Image Society - curator, researcher, 2017 - present
Cinekid Festival - director of MediaLab, 2017 - 2020
Stedelijk Museum Breda - curator, 2017
MOTI, Museum of the Image - curator, 2013 - 2016
House of Visual Culture - head of programme, 2011 - 2013
House of Visual Culture - head of marketing, 2011
Cicada Studio - curator, producer, art director, 2009 - 2011
FILM + DESIGN Festival - curator, producer, 2009 - 2010
International Film Festival Breda - programme coordinator, 2009 - 2010
International Film Festival Breda - programmer, 2008

ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES:
Raad voor Cultuur - Ministry of OCW for BIS funding (national) for period 2025-2028, monitoring committee Ontwikkelinstellingen/Institutions for Artistic Development, 2025 - present
Raad voor Cultuur - Ministry of OCW for BIS funding (national) for period 2025-2028, advisory committee Ontwikkelinstellingen/Institutions for Artistic development, 2024
Queer is Not A Manifesto foundation - board member, 2023 - 2024
Kunstfort Vijfhuizen - advisor, 2019 - present
Royal Academy of Art The Hague - advisor and external consultant for examinations for department Interactive/Media/Design, 2018 - present
Cultuurstimuleringsfonds Gemeente Haarlem - advisory committee, 2022 - present
Creative Industries Fund NL - national advisory committee Building Talent, 2022
Creative Industries Fund NL - national advisory committee Digital Culture, 2017 - 2020
Creative Industries Fund NL - national advisory committee Festivals, 2017
Fundraising for artists, projects and festivals, 2015 - present

Full resume available on request.