ASSEMBLE Curators’ Lab: Three days of exchange in LarnacA
11-13 June 2026
Larnaca became the meeting point for a truly international community of curators, artists and cultural organisations, as ASSEMBLE held its first in-person Curators’ Lab.
It was an opportunity for the programme’s Curatorial Fellows, project partners and invited experts to come together face-to-face. Our partner organisation Larnaka2030, established to lead Larnaca’s bid for the title of the European Capital of Culture (ECoC), was our host for the three days the Lab took place. With their help, we managed to visit different cultural spaces in the city of Larnaca and interact with local artists and gain a deeper understanding of the local scene.
A foundation for the fellowship
ASSEMBLE’s twelve-month Fellowship is built around curatorial practice in contexts of displacement, climate emergency and social transformation and the Curator’s Lab in Larnaca set the tone for that journey.
The programme was designed around conversation and participation: keynote sessions sat alongside peer-led practice sharing, collaborative mapping exercises, workshops and site visits, encouraging Fellows and partners to think together rather than simply absorb information.
The opening day looked outward: Yohann Floch from On the Move, mapped the European landscape of support for artists at risk, the policies, institutions and initiatives working to protect artistic freedom and sustain practitioners whose work has been disrupted by conflict or displacement. Conversations returned to a central idea: real resilience comes not from emergency response alone, but from building long-term, interconnected support ecosystems across institutions, funders and civil society.
Fellows in focus
At the heart of the Lab were paired presentations between each Curatorial Fellow and their mentoring partner organisation. UK Fellow Roya Ghassemi, mentored by D6’s Lead Producer Andrea Carter, shared work exploring extractive industries, environmental degradation and community resilience.
Mokia Dinnyuy Manjoh, working with Argyro Toumazou of D6:EU, spoke about identity, decolonisation and cultural sovereignty through the community-led work of SAVVY Kwata in Cameroon.
Fabio Quintero, paired with Ixone Sádaba of Moving Artists, presented Archivistas Salvajes, his project recovering Cuba’s overlooked visual heritage through amateur cinema archives.
And Maria Proshkovska, working alongside Lucy Nychai of the Congress of Cultural Activists, introduced Bodies & Landscapes, a research project tracing how war, displacement and ecological crisis reshape people’s relationships to land and memory.
Different geographies, different histories; yet the same threads kept surfacing: memory, migration, ecological transformation and a shared commitment to community-centred, collaborative ways of working.
Opening the doors to Larnaca
A public evening programme invited local artists, cultural professionals and residents to hear the Fellows present their work directly, followed by an informal networking event that let new connections take root. Local artists Antonis Tziarides, founder of the Mahallart Street Festival, and Eirene Constantinou, a visual artist and space-runner, led participants through Larnaca itself, connecting the Lab’s global themes to the city’s own layered, multicultural history. Site visits to community initiatives working under the Larnaka2030 framework, including Youth Makerspace, SYNOIKISMOS and Pathkia Pathkia, grounded the international conversation in local practice.
The second day moved into a participatory format facilitated by Artists at Risk Connection and guest co-facilitator, Alix Pornnn (Cite des arts internationale). Through mapping exercises and group reflection, Fellows and project partners traced the people, relationships and moments that had shaped their careers, a reminder that sustainable practice depends as much on peer networks, mentorship and trust as it does on funding.
What comes next
The Larnaca Lab was the first of three planned Curators’ Labs under ASSEMBLE, aiming to reach 170 participants across Larnaca, Bilbao and Lviv. It produced a shared vocabulary, a clearer mapping of where the gaps in existing support structures lie, and a set of working relationships between Fellows, partners and the Cypriot cultural community that will continue to develop across the programme.
The Lab confirmed that what ASSEMBLE is building – a fellowship structured around stability, peer exchange and long-term relationships rather than short-term intervention – responds to a real and documented gap in how the cultural sector supports displaced practitioners.
Find out more about ASSEMBLE here.
Larnaca became the meeting point for a truly international community of curators, artists and cultural organisations, as ASSEMBLE held its first in-person Curators’ Lab.
It was an opportunity for the programme’s Curatorial Fellows, project partners and invited experts to come together face-to-face. Our partner organisation Larnaka2030, established to lead Larnaca’s bid for the title of the European Capital of Culture (ECoC), was our host for the three days the Lab took place. With their help, we managed to visit different cultural spaces in the city of Larnaca and interact with local artists and gain a deeper understanding of the local scene.
A foundation for the fellowship
ASSEMBLE’s twelve-month Fellowship is built around curatorial practice in contexts of displacement, climate emergency and social transformation and the Curator’s Lab in Larnaca set the tone for that journey.
The programme was designed around conversation and participation: keynote sessions sat alongside peer-led practice sharing, collaborative mapping exercises, workshops and site visits, encouraging Fellows and partners to think together rather than simply absorb information.
The opening day looked outward: Yohann Floch from On the Move, mapped the European landscape of support for artists at risk, the policies, institutions and initiatives working to protect artistic freedom and sustain practitioners whose work has been disrupted by conflict or displacement. Conversations returned to a central idea: real resilience comes not from emergency response alone, but from building long-term, interconnected support ecosystems across institutions, funders and civil society.
Fellows in focus
At the heart of the Lab were paired presentations between each Curatorial Fellow and their mentoring partner organisation. UK Fellow Roya Ghassemi, mentored by D6’s Lead Producer Andrea Carter, shared work exploring extractive industries, environmental degradation and community resilience.
Mokia Dinnyuy Manjoh, working with Argyro Toumazou of D6:EU, spoke about identity, decolonisation and cultural sovereignty through the community-led work of SAVVY Kwata in Cameroon.
Fabio Quintero, paired with Ixone Sádaba of Moving Artists, presented Archivistas Salvajes, his project recovering Cuba’s overlooked visual heritage through amateur cinema archives.
And Maria Proshkovska, working alongside Lucy Nychai of the Congress of Cultural Activists, introduced Bodies & Landscapes, a research project tracing how war, displacement and ecological crisis reshape people’s relationships to land and memory.
Different geographies, different histories; yet the same threads kept surfacing: memory, migration, ecological transformation and a shared commitment to community-centred, collaborative ways of working.
Opening the doors to Larnaca
A public evening programme invited local artists, cultural professionals and residents to hear the Fellows present their work directly, followed by an informal networking event that let new connections take root. Local artists Antonis Tziarides, founder of the Mahallart Street Festival, and Eirene Constantinou, a visual artist and space-runner, led participants through Larnaca itself, connecting the Lab’s global themes to the city’s own layered, multicultural history. Site visits to community initiatives working under the Larnaka2030 framework, including Youth Makerspace, SYNOIKISMOS and Pathkia Pathkia, grounded the international conversation in local practice.
The second day moved into a participatory format facilitated by Artists at Risk Connection and guest co-facilitator, Alix Pornnn (Cite des arts internationale). Through mapping exercises and group reflection, Fellows and project partners traced the people, relationships and moments that had shaped their careers, a reminder that sustainable practice depends as much on peer networks, mentorship and trust as it does on funding.
What comes next
The Larnaca Lab was the first of three planned Curators’ Labs under ASSEMBLE, aiming to reach 170 participants across Larnaca, Bilbao and Lviv. It produced a shared vocabulary, a clearer mapping of where the gaps in existing support structures lie, and a set of working relationships between Fellows, partners and the Cypriot cultural community that will continue to develop across the programme.
The Lab confirmed that what ASSEMBLE is building – a fellowship structured around stability, peer exchange and long-term relationships rather than short-term intervention – responds to a real and documented gap in how the cultural sector supports displaced practitioners.
Find out more about ASSEMBLE here.
