About Us (in continious process)
How can we use speculation to orgenize ourselves?
How can we use speculation to orgenize ourselves?
Presented at
︎ WP Zimmer
︎ Kunsthal Gent
︎ PXL Mad
︎ The Post Collective
︎ WP Zimmer
︎ Kunsthal Gent
︎ PXL Mad
︎ The Post Collective
“We are radical about everything we do
We want to live an artistic life regardless of it being our job
Why do we say this?
In our work we want to get as close as possible to be an artist all the time
This means
Also in how we organise ourselves”
About Us, Support Structures, Kunsthal Gent, Ghent, 2021
About Us
Script and collective exercises
2021 - (...)
![]()
![]()
![]()
pictures of different excersises, 2022 - 2023
Script and collective exercises
2021 - (...)
pictures of different excersises, 2022 - 2023
The research project 'Dialogical Landscapes, A speculative research on common ground(ing)'
investigates and problematizes the boundary between the artistic and the organizational domain within the arts, and the role of artistic imagination and collaboration within this.
From this research framework I am currently developing a form of conversation as an artistic and performative gesture, for groups between 4 to 12 participants, who are currently part of a collaboration (ie they are connected to each other as an organization or collective). It functions as an imaginary organizational structure (or a collective) that is established and disbanded in the course of the performance. The roles of different players can shift, and the group is challenged to think about their own cooperation.
What brings/holds us together?
The basis of this conversation performance consists of a script that is still changing, based on many interviews I did with existing self-organization collectives in Belgium and abroad. I mainly focused on specific themes that play a prominent role in these organizations (e.g. authorship, care or the use of space), which were then transformed in different ‘roles’. How do certain terminologies change meaning when an organization uses them? By selecting and mixing quotes from these interviews, a generic script is created that reads like a manifesto (‘About Us’) from an organization that never existed.
This script forms the starting point of the dialogical performance, and is read throughout the performance, critiqued and finally adapted by the group, in various 'rounds'. The ultimate goal of the performance is that the participants learn to look differently at (aspects of) their own organization by means of this script, and a shift occurs in the way in which people speak in the group. The quotations provide a catalytic effect that enables a group of participants to question their own collective through the words of other collectives.
Tryouts of the performance are organized in various organizations, including the collectives I have already worked with, but also De Kunsthal Gent, De Koer and WP Zimmer. All this is currently still in a testing phase, but through various tryouts I hope to find out which strategies work to have a fundamental conversation about collaboration which flows into an adaptation of the script.
'About Us' balances itself between a dialogue and a performance, an imaginary and a daily reality.
![]()
How to get there, Silent Discussion, About Us, presented at WP Zimmer, 2021
From this research framework I am currently developing a form of conversation as an artistic and performative gesture, for groups between 4 to 12 participants, who are currently part of a collaboration (ie they are connected to each other as an organization or collective). It functions as an imaginary organizational structure (or a collective) that is established and disbanded in the course of the performance. The roles of different players can shift, and the group is challenged to think about their own cooperation.
What brings/holds us together?
The basis of this conversation performance consists of a script that is still changing, based on many interviews I did with existing self-organization collectives in Belgium and abroad. I mainly focused on specific themes that play a prominent role in these organizations (e.g. authorship, care or the use of space), which were then transformed in different ‘roles’. How do certain terminologies change meaning when an organization uses them? By selecting and mixing quotes from these interviews, a generic script is created that reads like a manifesto (‘About Us’) from an organization that never existed.
This script forms the starting point of the dialogical performance, and is read throughout the performance, critiqued and finally adapted by the group, in various 'rounds'. The ultimate goal of the performance is that the participants learn to look differently at (aspects of) their own organization by means of this script, and a shift occurs in the way in which people speak in the group. The quotations provide a catalytic effect that enables a group of participants to question their own collective through the words of other collectives.
Tryouts of the performance are organized in various organizations, including the collectives I have already worked with, but also De Kunsthal Gent, De Koer and WP Zimmer. All this is currently still in a testing phase, but through various tryouts I hope to find out which strategies work to have a fundamental conversation about collaboration which flows into an adaptation of the script.
'About Us' balances itself between a dialogue and a performance, an imaginary and a daily reality.
How to get there, Silent Discussion, About Us, presented at WP Zimmer, 2021