Shimmer (2018–present) is a curatorial studio and exhibition platform based in Rotterdam that operates with an ever-changing studio-like mentality where knowledge arises through participation and experimentation.

Shimmer is a curatorial studio located in a former public transport building at the edge of the Port of Rotterdam, positioned between oil-riggers and wind-turbine installing ships. This contradiction, sunsets born of pollution, structures our adaptive outlook on art making and curatorial discourse. We operate as both studio and exhibition space, merging artistic and administrative practice into a 40 m² space. This intimacy fosters experimentation, curatorial responsiveness, and proximity to high-quality artistic work.

Founded in 2018 by Eloise Sweetman and Jason Hendrik Hansma, Shimmer has evolved into a hybrid cultural platform working across exhibitions, publishing, pedagogy, and institutional advising. We work in the space between micro-artist-run initiatives and larger institutional centres, allowing us to remain agile and rigorous, speculative yet structurally sound.

Artists and collaborators include Ruth Buchanan, Damon Zucconi, Laurel Schwulst and Sydney Shen (Perfume Area), Lisa Tan, Bernd Krauß, Malin Arnell, Louwrien Wijers, Lawrence Weiner, Kornkrit Jianpinidnan, Zarouhie Abdalian, Gwenneth Boelens, Liu Chao-tze, Joseph Grigely, Gordon Hall, Ian Kiaer, Shanta Rao, Elena Narbutaitė, Shanta Rao, Ma Qiusha, Kate Newby, Katie West, Ellen Gallagher, Dora Economou, Jo-ey Tang, Alexandra Phillips, Lee Kit, Ayo, Melvin Moti, Charlotte Posenenske, Kirstin Arndt, Mo Laudi, Becket MWN, Bea McMahon, Maaike Schoorel, Heman Chong, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Bik Van der Pol, Matt Hinkley, Liz Magor and Hana Miletić, Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, Cihad Caner, Daniel Giles, Lotus L. Kang, Tenant of Culture, Lee Kit, Katie Watchorn, Pam Virada, Daniel Gustav Cramer, Mike Kelley and Marlie Mul, among many others.

2018–present

Typeface a modified version of open-source 'Selectric'

Installation views by Jason Hendrik Hansma

www.shimmershimmer.org

… underscoring meaning, interrupting assumptions, and allowing the visual identity to remain adaptive. At times bold and underlined, most often utilitarian and understated.

Shimmer works with a modified typeface based on ‘Selectric’, developed by atelier Bek. Since its founding, we has continuously adapted the open-source font a digitised version of IBM’s ‘Adjutant’ character set. A typewriter of which the technical innovation in 1961 was to replace the historic character bars with an interchangeable print sphere the size of a golf ball.

For Shimmer’s identity, both the mono and roman weights were altered with raster-blocked punctuation: the period glyph is overlaid with a dark raster; the comma, exclamation point, question mark, colon, and semicolon are faintly rasterised; quotation marks and ellipses are rendered with a murky raster. An additional weight was created, fully blocked out in the same gradations of light.

This typographic interference mirrors Shimmer’s communication: underscoring meaning, interrupting assumptions, and allowing the visual identity to remain adaptive. At times bold and underlined, most often utilitarian and understated.

Alongside Shimmer's exhibitions, they run Shimmer Press, a focused effort to rethink documentation and publishing in context of a curatorial studio.

‘A Manual of Undoing’ was printed on A3-sized postersheets in PMS Silver and Black wet-on-wet offset. Its overlayed images document the in-between periods of exhibition-making: building up, transportation, deconstruction, etc.