Maider López: Polder Cup is ISCP’s inaugural ISCP alumni exhibition. In 2011, ISCP launched an annual solo exhibition series offering an ISCP current residents and one ISCP alum the opportunity to present a solo exhibition of work that has not been previously shown in the United States.

Maider López was a resident at ISCP in 2003 and is one of the most prominent artists from the Basque region. The exhibition Polder Cup will include videos, photographs and an installation based on the artist’s recent participatory project, a one-day football championship in Rotterdam. This project was a collaboration between the institutions SKOR and Witte de With, The Netherlands.

López often creates interventions in spaces, situations and architecture, in order to generate collective participation and activate citizenship. Polder Cup shows the potential for people to transform and adapt landscapes. López constructed a football field in the polders of Rotterdam, low-lying tracts of land intersected by water ditches. This altered terrain demanded that the players of López’s conceptual game invent new strategies and rules. Through this site-specific intervention, López formed new ideas of public and social space by way of the popular pastime of football.

Maider López (born 1975) lives and works in San Sebastian, Spain. Her exhibitions include the 51st Venice Biennale; CaixaForum, Barcelona; Guggenheim Bilbao; SCAPE Christchurch Biennial of Art in Public Space; Zendai MoMA Museum, Shanghai; Sharjah Biennial 9, Witte de With and SKOR, The Netherlands; Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem; Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Centre Pompidou Metz. She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Bilbao and received an MFA from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London.

This exhibition is curated by Kari Conte, Director of Programs and Exhibitions.