Institute For Provocation

    The Institute for Provocation (IFP) is a Beijing-based workspace and think tank hosting residencies, research projects, workshops and lectures stretching the borders between art, architecture and design.

As a workspace, IFP focuses on the thinking process before or even beyond the actual creation of an artefact: the collection of dramaturgical information, the testing of different architectural scenarios, the summarizing of existing artistic vocabularies and realized projects, experimenting with new media or disciplines, and so on.

Cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural interaction serves as the Institute's main facilitator. Rather than similarities, IFP proposes differences (in culture, in vocabulary, in paradigms, in disciplines) as actual provocations of the research and thinking process of artists, architects and designers.

IFP sessions are a series of intimate lectures curated by architect Max Gerthel in the IFP workspace in Beijing, with the aim to contribute to the wider discourse on art, architecture and design in China. For each session we invite someone to present their recent work, followed by a talk with other invited guests. Our ambition is to create a forum for artists, researchers and designers based in or visiting China, to share and discuss their work.