To Weave a Story
short residency programme and public exhibition,De Verffabriek, Gent~March, 2024
Conventional modes of storytelling revolve around the singular male Hero. Other characters, non-human life and the environment become intelligible only in their value as instruments for the Hero in his quest to overcome the conflict named plot. Firmly cemented in the idea of survival of the fittest, these conventions reaffirm the separation between man and nature, and with it the total mastery of the former over the latter. The natural environment becomes a backdrop for the Hero, ready to be used. In this manner, storytelling fails to portray the urgencies of the looming climate catastrophe meaningfully. At the same time, this separation anchors the idea of the gendered division of labour. Woman are relegated towards nature's side, in which they are comprehended based on their reproductional value. The triumph, or success, of the Hero, reflects the success of heteronormative society.
The story in which everything is instrumentalized is the story we inhabit today. As life is reduced to abstract units—such as atoms, organs, numbers or binary language—truths that cannot be comprehended by the quantified measure of success, fail to become intelligible. The queer subject, who is epistemologically interwoven to nonsense, antiproduction and unintelligibility does not fit within the typical Hero story. To become intelligible in this manner would mean to be translated to fit into the capitalist, heteronormative definition of success.
To Weave a Story sets out to find a diversification not only in the subjects of our stories, but to diversify the very way in which stories are formed, and told. Artworks form props, fictional characters, natural life and backdrops. These deconstructed elements of a story become building blocks in a workshop aiming to queer modes of storytelling. The outcomes of this workshop become the foundation for performance and oral storytelling sessions, through which the narrative of the exhibition keeps changing throughout the day. Each hour unveils a fresh narrative, weaving together the deconstructed elements in new ways, defying the conventional and illuminating the rich tapestry of plural perspectives.
(Sjoerd Beijers)
Co-produced and curated by
Natalija Gucheva & I
Artists
Aidan Abnet
Justine Grillet
Guillaume Jannes
Jochem Mestriner
Samuel White Evans
& Natalija Gucheva
Writers
Isa Vink
Jule Köepke
Jesse Kempkes
Babette Lagrange
& Sjoerd Beijers
This project is supported by Alles Kan & Stad Gent.
Photography by Johan Poezevara
Home Sweet Home
Workshop and exhibition moment, SecondRoom, Antwerp~November, 2023
What are some rituals that make us feel at home? What is inherently a home? And what does it consist of? Is it material or immaterial, a space or a body? What kind of ingredients constitute a home? Memories, people, emotions? Is it a shelter, or a sanctuary? Is it something we run from or confide in when things are difficult?
Within Western cultures, homes and houses are closely linked together. With the enclosure of the common land, communal structures have been replaced by private homes. This binary between the public and the private also encloses our relationship with others, to nature and knowledge.
In this workshop—with room for eight participants—we will explore different notions of what a home could be and what a home means to them. Ultimately seeking alternative kinships towards the essence of what a home is. By playing with the common signifiers of what constitutes a home, we aim to collectively imagine alternate views on what a home is, or could potentially be.
Through performance work and edible sculptures, the invited artists will help us rethink the communal aspect of the home. Paired to this, there will be a reading, in which we collectively reflect upon the material and seek new knowledge and conceptions to emerge. Through a combination of objects brought by the participants and materials we prepared, we will ultimately use these new ideas to build our home collectively.
This collectively built home will later open to the public in the form of an exhibition, further breaking this binary between public and private. Temporarily the cultural norms are subverted within the space and the home becomes an open place, a meeting ground and a place for collective reflection.
Co-produced and curated by
Natalija Gucheva & I
Performance by
Adriana Joëlle
Contributions by
Lorenço
Kyra Nijskens
Abel Hartooni
Beljita Gurung
Lizzy Jongedijk
Seppe-Hazel Laeremans
Jessica Marlieke van Egmond
Photography by Isaac Ponseele
Cosmovisions
Exhibition and performances,Medusa Offspace, Brussels~August, 2023
In the shared temporality of ecological mutation, humanity as a whole is forced to talk about the interdependencies of cultures on a global scale. As our realities become increasingly entangled, the Western urge to divide and classify becomes more and more incompatible with what is needed to tackle these urgent issues.In this group exhibition sculpture and performance interweave throughout the evening. New propositions are put forward and new relations between the works are established. Exploring alternative imaginaries around the Western division between man and nature, and the former's complete mastery over the latter.
A mysterious white figure stares into a mirror. Sharp white fangs, clinging around a poem. A tail—reminiscent of that of a horse—wagging slowly, as they delicately step through space.
Throughout the evening, the perceived linearity of time and progression is rejected—in favour of a reading in which future, present and past act contemporaneously—by reconnecting to forgotten practices and rekindling knowledges of spirituality, magic and natural worlds. The artists find themselves in a position analogous to that of the shaman. Negotiating with the invisible and seeking ways to restore the disrupted order through mediation with the realms of animals and nature. Through this, they seek, even if it is temporary, to unveil what is generally oppressed by the current cultural paradigm.
Awakening, delicately. A passage of rite, an offering, under treelike plastic structures. A heart-shaped pendant. The sound of dry branches, snapping. Dissonant spinal movements—mimicry.
(text by Sjoerd Beijers)
Co-produced and curated by
MaggZ & I
Artists
Che Go Eun
Tristan Bründler
Kyra Nijskens
Natalija Gucheva
Benjamin Schoones
Aidan Abnet
Alexis Gerlach
Adriaan de Roover
Anca Bârjovanu
MaggZ
DJ
kn1ps
This project is supported by the Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommisie (VGC) & À Fonds
