Jurenne Hooi, Chair of the Supervisory Board of Frascati:

As of 1 March 2027, after 25 years, Mark Timmer will be leaving Frascati. On behalf of the Supervisory Board, we thank Mark for his tireless dedication and his great significance to Frascati over the years. Through his passion and unwavering commitment, he has helped shape Frascati into a unique house for artists, staff and audiences alike, and has laid a solid foundation for the future.

We look back on our collaboration with Mark with deep appreciation, are sincerely grateful for everything he has meant to the house, and wish him all the very best and much inspiration in the next chapter.

Mark Timmer, Artistic Director Frascati:

After 25 years at the Gasthuis and Frascati, I am stepping down. This opens up space for a new artistic director, and for me to explore where and how my path will continue.

Creating space has been at the heart of the house all these years. Space in which artists can develop freely, in which work can emerge and find its own language, but can also show itself and relate to an audience.

The merger between the small-scale Gasthuis in West and Frascati in the city centre, 19 years ago, grew out of a clear ambition: to give the idiosyncratic, the radical and the unprecedented a place in the heart of the city and in the public domain. That remained my most important driving force: taking artists seriously in their search for something that does not yet exist, but is slowly taking shape.

A large part of my work at Frascati has consisted of creating and fighting for that space. Quite literally: resources and square metres in the heart of Amsterdam. But above all, mental space. The freedom to search, to develop and to fail, to meet audiences and to connect worlds. Along the way, our relationship with society has become increasingly important. Always grounded in the belief that art, precisely through freedom, can reveal something we do not yet know.

It has been an incredible privilege to work with so many artists. To see drive and dreams take shape, to see makers find their own way through doubt and resistance. Over the years, many of them developed their practice at the Gasthuis and Frascati and found their place in the Netherlands and beyond.

Over these years, I have learned that trust is a powerful engine. Trust in artists, in the work and in the people who together carry the house. For me, Frascati is ultimately a Gesamtkunstwerk, born from the imagination and drive of artists, staff, audiences and partners.

I am proud that this openness and trust have become deeply rooted in the house: openness to new makers, new languages and new ideas.

That is exactly why this moment feels right. Making space also means letting go. It gives Frascati the opportunity to reinvent itself. And it gives me the space to explore how I want to further shape my belief in the power of art.

I leave with great gratitude, pride and, above all, trust: in Frascati, in the people who carry the house, and in what is yet to come.