CONFLUENCES: UNFOLDING THE INVISIBLE

2026
EDITION

New AECFest Supported Residency – Confluences: Unfolding the Invisible

The Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), in partnership with Ci.CLO – Plataforma de Fotografia and ARTJOG, has launched Confluences a new international residency programme in the field of photography and visual arts. 

Running from July 2026 to May 2027, Confluences is a long-term artistic development programme that brings together one artist from Portugal and one artist from Indonesia for a collaborative process of research, experimentation and intercultural exchange. Rather than focusing on the production of individual artworks, the residency is conceived as a shared space where artistic dialogue, mutual learning and co-creation shape the creative journey. Living and working together over an extended period, the artists are invited to exchange methodologies, challenge assumptions and allow collaboration itself to become a mode of artistic inquiry.  

Building on ASEF’s experience in developing hybrid residency formats, the programme unfolds across several interconnected phases. The in-person residency, hosted in Porto, Portugal, will take place from 7 September to 19 October 2026, followed by several months of curatorial accompaniment, artistic development and online exchanges leading to an exhibition presented as part of the Asia-Europe Cultural Festival (AECFest) 2027, in partnership with the Bienal Fotografia do Porto 2027, in May 2027.  

Developed within the Bienal’s curatorial framework, Silent Systems / Sistemas Silenciosos, the residency invites artists to attend to the often invisible structures that shape our ways of living, perceiving and relating to one another. Whether embedded in landscapes, infrastructures, memory, language or social behaviours, these silent systems operate beneath the surface of everyday life, influencing how we inhabit the world long before moments of crisis or rupture become visible. Confluences encourages the participating artists to approach these hidden dynamics not through fixed outcomes, but through sustained dialogue, collective reflection and artistic experimentation. In doing so, the residency becomes a space for imagining new relationships—between people, places and practices—as much as for creating new work.  

Following an international selection process led jointly by ASEF, Ci.CLO and ARTJOG, the two participating artists are: 

Timoteus Anggawan Kusno (Indonesia) 

Filipe Dos Santos Barrocas (Portugal) 

Confluences reflects ASEF’s continued commitment to supporting artistic mobility, long-term international collaboration and meaningful cultural exchange between Asia and Europe. By foregrounding process, reciprocity and sustained dialogue, the programme positions artistic practice as a way of making visible the relationships and systems that often remain unseen. The resulting works—and the conversations, encounters and shared experiences that shape them—will be presented during the Asia-Europe Cultural Festival (AECFest) 2027, in partnership with the Bienal Fotografia do Porto 2027, inviting audiences to experience not only the outcomes of the residency, but also the collaborative processes from which they emerged.  

Filipe dos Santos Barrocas is a visual artist and professor with a Ph.D. in Visual Poetics from ECA-USP. His work, which focuses on installations and is influenced by the performing arts, primarily addresses issues related to the expanded field of photography, its various media, memory, and history. His work has been exhibited in several shows across Portugal and at Rotterdam Photo in 2022. He was awarded the ProAC Expresso Lei Aldir Blanc Prize in 2020, through which he produced the film *Labirinto* (2023). His dissertation explored the relationship between photography and literature. He has been a member of the Photographic Printing Research Group since 2015. As an educator, he has taught photography at NAFIST, ECA, and SESC, and was also part of the Vocational Program of the São Paulo Municipal Department of Culture in 2020 and 2022.
Filipe dos Santos Barrocas is a visual artist and professor with a Ph.D. in Visual Poetics from ECA-USP. His work, which focuses on installations and is influenced by the performing arts, primarily addresses issues related to the expanded field of photography, its various media, memory, and history. His work has been exhibited in several shows across Portugal and at Rotterdam Photo in 2022. He was awarded the ProAC Expresso Lei Aldir Blanc Prize in 2020, through which he produced the film *Labirinto* (2023). His dissertation explored the relationship between photography and literature. He has been a member of the Photographic Printing Research Group since 2015. As an educator, he has taught photography at NAFIST, ECA, and SESC, and was also part of the Vocational Program of the São Paulo Municipal Department of Culture in 2020 and 2022.
Timoteus Anggawan Kusno is an artist-filmmaker working across cinema, installation, and moving-image environments. Moving through dream, memory, and the shadows of history, his practice traces colonial afterlives and the futures they continue to haunt. Kusno’s work has gained international recognition, being presented and collected by major cultural institutions. Similarly, his films have been screened at international festivals including the Berlinale, Locarno, IFFR, CPH:DOX, and DOK Leipzig, among others. His accolades include the Han Nefkens Foundation–Loop Barcelona Video Production Award (2021) and the VISIO European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images (2023), Alongside his artistic practice, Kusno shares his research through guest lectures, workshops, and public talks. He lives and works between Amsterdam (NL) and Yogyakarta (ID).
Timoteus Anggawan Kusno is an artist-filmmaker working across cinema, installation, and moving-image environments. Moving through dream, memory, and the shadows of history, his practice traces colonial afterlives and the futures they continue to haunt. Kusno’s work has gained international recognition, being presented and collected by major cultural institutions. Similarly, his films have been screened at international festivals including the Berlinale, Locarno, IFFR, CPH:DOX, and DOK Leipzig, among others. His accolades include the Han Nefkens Foundation–Loop Barcelona Video Production Award (2021) and the VISIO European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images (2023), Alongside his artistic practice, Kusno shares his research through guest lectures, workshops, and public talks. He lives and works between Amsterdam (NL) and Yogyakarta (ID).

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