Enough Room for Space is under construction until the autumn of 2025, our space is being expanded with additional spaces for research and production.
The ICC archive will be open for visits during this period. We do not have regular opening hours, but you're most welcome to make an appointment.
On the evening of 25 March, when the moon is full, the LUNÄ Talk will focus on transitioning from one energy to another, from one infrastructure to another. How can we envisage transitions without considering the need to bring history to a close before embarking on new projects? The history of energy is written as a race towards the new, towards renewal, without ever questioning the possibility of moving towards solutions of repair or transformation. It’s about turning pages and arguing that the future will be more efficient, appropriate, or cleaner. These political choices will be discussed over a few hours, involving the guest speakers and anyone else interested.
Participants:
Marjolijn Dijkman, artist and moderator of the LUNÄ Talk
Maarten Vanden Eynde, artist and co-host of the LUNÄ Talk
Fanny Lopez, historian of architecture and technology, co-curator of the Power Up exhibition
Clémence André, engineer in charge of urban planning and connections at Territoire d’énergie Hautes-Alpes
Marie Lechner, teacher-researcher at L’École supérieure d’art et de design d’Orléans, author and exhibition curator
Stéphanie Schmitt, partnership relations manager, UEM
With a written letter to the participants of the LUNÄ Talk to catalyze the discussion by Cara New Daggett (Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Virginia Tech, author of ‘The Birth of Energy’)
The evening will be dedicated to what has been described as “green colonialism,” the development of renewable energy futures that often involves the dispossession of communities and the degradation of ecosystems. The event will focus on the consequences of the extraction of lithium, a scarce resource that plays a key role in the so-called green transition necessary for a more sustainable world.
From a technical point of view, renewable energy is energy from “natural” sources that can be constantly replenished; things like wind, sun, waves. Without a doubt, these are important fossil fuel alternatives. But when commodity frontier dynamics are the entry point for analyzing energy and energy transitions, the notion of renewability comes into question. To define an energy transition in technical terms without addressing the people who could make a transition possible, or the root causes of climate change, environmental degradation, and global inequality leaves a foundational question unanswered: in addition to energy, what else is being renewed in today’s renewable energy frontiers?
Several contributions in the Issue look at how renewable energy reproduces — or renews — extractive, colonial, exploitative relations. The first three articles are grounded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the mining of cobalt, a mineral marked as key for the renewable energy transition, including Maarten Vanden Eynde’s conversation with artist, documentary photographer, and journalist Pamela Tulizo who is living and working in Goma, in North Kivu, D.R. Congo.
ICC/Institute of Colonial Culture is very pleased to welcome Pamela Tulizo for a month long residency supported by Goethe-Institut. Pamela Tulizo is an artist, documentary photographer and journalist, living and working in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, who incessantly and without limitations renegotiates the iconography of black African woman throughout history, by restaging and (digitally) manipulating their representation in popular culture and media outlets. She will work on her research project REGARD CROISÉ, which aims to include raw materials and historic objects in the mix of her poignant alterations of the perceived reality of African woman, while they metamorphose from carrying the burdens of the past into invincible Amazons of the future.
Manifesta 15 Barcelona has created a new framework for social and ecological research, actions and interventions that are being established with ten research participants across Barcelona. In the pre-biennial phase, the selected participants are investigating specific thematic components in the three interconnected nodes identified by the Manifesta 15 team. The collective working within the theme of imagining the future is the transnational collective On-Trade-Off, who explore will be focusing on energy, post-colonialism and the past and present of the industrial Besòs area.
This issue of Commodity Frontiers is about our collective backs and what human bodies can tell us about commodity frontiers. It’s about the regimented bodies that sustain capitalism, and the (same) unruly bodies that challenge its smooth development. The issue is about labor, sex, blood, reproduction, racialization, decarceration, community, metabolism, and memory. It’s about what bodies do, how they are unevenly incorporated into capitalist economies, and how they resist or contest incorporation.
Issue 5 features many contributions, including a conversation between neuroscientist, André Fenton and CF editor, Maarten Vanden Eynde, in which they consider memory as a possibly emerging frontier. Their discussion ranges from what, actually, memory is and where it resides, to if and how AI (artificial intelligence) can duplicate it. Fenton helps us see bodies (and memory) as dynamic systems, full of complex and only partially understood relationships, comprised of individual and impermanent pieces that constitute networked and enduring wholes. To this reader, the parallels between what neuroscientists study inside of our skin, and what historians and social scientists study outside of it are exciting. The conversation also offers some clues for how we might connect these inner and outer realms.
Jean Katambayi Mukendi will work at the Thami Mnyele Foundation in Amsterdam to prepare new work for the upcoming exhibition 'Charging Myths' of On-Trade-Off at Framer Framed.
Established in 1990, the Thami Mnyele Foundation runs since 1992 a unique three month artists-in- residence program in Amsterdam. The main objective of the Foundation is to advance cultural exchange between artists from Africa and the diaspora, the Netherlands and Amsterdam in particular.
“There’s nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.” —Octavia Butler
On-Trade-Off is an artist collective that works on the contemporary dimensions of a question as old, as mythical and as strategic as our relation to energy. Taking the recent run on lithium as a starting point, the project explores a wide range of issues in the history of electricity, from raw materials for technology industries to financial speculation. Charging Myths brings together the extremes of the world-spanning value chains, and abusive mining economies, from its exploitative mining economies to the seductive surface of products.
First residency of 'TRACER', an interdisciplinary group (Esther Mugambi, Emmanuelle Nsunda, Nizar Saleh, Sarah van Lamsweerde, Anne Wetsi Mpoma and Emily Hardick) who recontextualizes the colonial performance ‘Changwe Yetu’ through a panel of its decor made by artist Mwenze Kibwanga. 'Changwe Yetu' was composed of dances and musical acts from Rwandan, Congolese and Burundese artists and traveled to several cities in Congo and Belgium between 1956-59.
Now, in a reverse travelogue, the group follows this Mwenze's panel’s path back to the African continent, with stops in the form of creative and discursive residencies in Brussels, Antwerp and Lubumbashi, reanimating the set piece with a polyphonic and decolonial perspective.
The same mining companies and financial institutions that first started exploiting coal mines in Wallonia, moved to Limburg in Flanders, France and the Netherlands and later to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). They brought their technical expertise, but also their preoccupations about class and intellectual capabilities with them. Congolese miners were compared to miners in Wallonia, and the way in which working camps and factories were constructed came directly from mines sites like Bois-du-Luc in Houdeng-Aimeries. As part of On-Trade-Off, Alain Nsenga will look into the similarities between the different mining histories in order to develop new works relating to personal stories and memories from retired miners which he collected both in DRC and Belgium.
At Cc Strombeek Performing Objects will present the personal results of their artistic research between 2014-2022. The exhibition space will function as a kind of “depot” that will be activated during a public programme of activities. The current members are Pauline Hafsia M'barek, Sarah van Lamsweerde, Bie Michels, Alice De Mont, Marjolijn Dijkman, Rune Peitersen, Kristof Van Gestel, Dimitri Vangrunderbeek and Guy Woueté. The group usually meets in Drogenbos at the site of ERforS.
Participants in the exhibition program: Alice De Mont; Marjolijn Dijkman with Toril Johannessen, Henry Vega, Jan Willem Troost; Sarah van Lamsweerde with Dada Stella Kitoga, Esther Mugambi; Pauline Hafsia M'barek; Bie Michels with Liantsoa Rakotonaivo; Rune Peitersen; Kristof Van Gestel; Dimitri Vangrunderbeek with Wouter Krokaert; and Guy Woueté.
Vertical Atlas brings together the insights of a diverse group of internationally renowned artists, scientists and technologists from different backgrounds and places. From an investigation into the lithium mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo to maps of the fiber-optic submarine cables in the Atlantic and the ride-hailing platforms of China.
On-Trade-Off contributed 26 pages to this publication including two essays written, 'On-Trade-Off: Countering Extractivism' by Lotte Arndt & Oulimata Gueye and 'Concentrator' by Jean Katambayi.
This issue situates waste in the present and historical expansion of capitalism. The contributions to the journal ask questions about producing, managing, and theorizing waste. They examine equity issues around who is responsible for making waste, who is most intimately impacted by waste, and who is defined as waste, or as deserving of living among waste. They look at how patterns in the distribution of waste’s benefits and harms reproduce entrenched global and local inequalities. And they invite readers to ask what can be learned about capitalism - and perhaps about themselves - from studying how waste-in-capital is defined, produced, offloaded, recycled, valued, commodified, managed, experienced, countered, and unevenly invisibilized. In short, they open up “waste” as a material and discursive frontier, operating in service of capital accumulation, colonial expansion, and the maintenance of social hierarchies.
Issue 4 features several interviews, including Maarten Vanden Eynde's interview with Eli Carpenter, a Professor in Interdisciplinary Art & Culture at Umeå University in Sweden. They discuss her curatorial research in “The Nuclear Culture” project, the urgency of nuclear visibility, and notions of deep time responsibility and forgetting.
Username: Apophany is a report of Uncertainty Scenarios: Session #11 - Statistics; an activation of a drawing and text by Jean Katambayi Mukendi; an epic poem that traces the lines and curves, ebbs and waves, zeros and ones, of goddex Apophany.
The event starts at 16:30 with the launch, reading and activation of Username: Apophany by Florence Cheval in collaboration with Studio Purple Paw and Jean Katambayi Mukendi followed by drinks and a music set by Pauline Hafsia M'Barek from 17:30 to 20:00.
On-Trade-Off will participate in the 7th Lubumbashi Biennale with a presentation of works by Pamela Tulizo, Femke Herregraven, Gulda El Magambo and Alexandre Mulongo Finkelstein.
The 7th Lubumbashi biennale will interrogate toxicity as a condition of existence that has inextricably affected social worlds under the title ’ToxiCité’ or ’ToxiCity’. As a starting point, the theme will open the collective elaboration of a critical and transformative take on the social and cultural environment, in Lubumbashi and in the world.
How is technological innovation dependent on raw materials? This question is centre-stage in the exhibition Charging Myths by On-Trade-Off. This artists-collective traces the origins of lithium by starting from Manono (Democratic Republic of the Congo). The landscape of this former mining town is a relic of the colonial past. Today the town is getting ready to be a key player in the race towards green energy, following the nearby discovery of the world’s largest deposits of lithium ore.
On-Trade-Off maps production chains and unravels social, political and ecological aspects of the global economy. The exhibition presents new works that were developed during residencies and research in various locations, with Manono serving as shared point of departure. As a temporary collective, On-Trade-Off provides an artistic counterbalance to the logic of exploitation, by focussing on transnational exchange, knowledge sharing and fair practice.
With: Alexis Destoop, Marjolijn Dijkman, Pélagie Gbaguidi, Femke Herregraven, Alain Nsenga, Dorine Mokha (†2021) & Elia Rediger, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Musasa, Georges Senga, Tétshim & Frank Mukunday, Pamela Tulizo, Maarten Vanden Eynde
The first LUNÄ talk in the US with a brand new facsimile of the table around which the Lunar Society met on full moon between 1765 and 1813 in Birmingham, UK. LUNÄ will be inaugurated on the last day of the exhibition Ars Memoriae surrounded by the artworks. Drawing inspiration from the themes of Ars Memoriae, the topic will be memory devices - past and future, bodily and external, real and imagined. The featured speakers are André Fenton, a neuroscientist at NYU; Elaine Sullivan, a curatorial fellow at The Met; Congolese artist Musasa; Jennifer Tucker, a historian at Wesleyan University.
At the turn of the 21st century, human civilization is increasingly shaped by machines, networks, data, artificial intelligence, financial speculation, digital traceability and the commercial exploitation of our behavior. Ars Memoriae brings together ten artists from four continents who take inspiration from technology while simultaneously questioning the mainstream history of digital technological progress, offering alternative visions and new connections and speculating on the future implications of living in a technologically augmented reality.
Ars Memoriae brings together a diverse selection of artworks, each addressing memory in a unique way within the framework of the history and archaeology of media. By analyzing different layers of subsequent technological inventions, much like geological strata, the works in this exhibition elucidate new relations and previously obscured correlations that tell a new story about how we got here. Together, the artists draw a critical and alternative cartography of new media history.
With: Marjolijn Dijkman, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Lo-Def Film Factory (Francois Knoetze & Amy-Louise Wilson) + Joe-Yves Salankang Sa-Ngol, Mimi Onuoha, Tabita Rezaire, Analia Saban, Suzanne Treister, Maarten Vanden Eynde.
Curatorial concept: Oulimata Gueye and Maarten Vanden Eynde
Taking the recent run on lithium as a starting point, On-Trade-Off explores a broad range of questions surrounding the connections between raw materials, technological industries, financial speculation, and the history of electricity. How can we think beyond the dividing force of exploitative technologies today and, as artists, create new spaces for imagination, story telling, and connection across continents? As a collective we strive to reveal the blind spots in the dominant narrative about energy production and distribution by giving form to mutations and by exploring the imaginary potential of the very present moment.
The website, which is currently under construction, aims to present the work of the collective as well as the programme and various exhibitions in which OTO participates. Later, the website will allow members to access archives and research online with the challenge and main goal of being accessible from anywhere in the world and especially in countries like the DRC where data is expensive and access to electricity unequal. It is thus optimised to prioritise data and to be as light as possible. The consumption of the website is also specified in order to raise awareness of our consumption.
In this issue of Commodity Frontiers, contributors take up issues relating to animals, livestock, and livestock production through a commodity frontiers lens. Fueled by increasing (local, national, imperial, and global) livestock production “developments” and demands for livestock products—most notably (but not only) meat—and reinforced by technoscientific innovations, new livestock frontiers have emerged and spread across the globe. With livestock frontiers we mean both processes and sites in which animals are bred, reared, cured, traded, and commodified in novel ways, by re-allocating land, labour, capital, knowledge, and other resources, to enhance productivity and maximize gains. By doing so, livestock frontiers have changed human-animal and interhuman social relations, economic systems, and ecological landscapes in various and often unintended ways. Furthermore, livestock frontiers have become deeply entangled with frontiers in agriculture, securing the production of fodder crops such as soy and corn. These changes include, but are not limited to, the industrialization of livestock production that we discussed above.
Issue 3 features several contributions, including Maarten Vanden Eynde's interview with Christien Meindertsma, the Dutch designer who has researched and wrote a book called Pig 05049 which relates the many consumer products made from a pig called 05049. They discuss Meindertsma’s motivations for making the book and reflect on some of the challenges of promoting and brining about social change regarding meat (and other) consumption.
This new monologue, written by Lucas Catherine, was performed in the historic Castle of Drogenbos, the home of the Calmeyn family for many generations. In three languages, Calmeyn’s soliloquy was read by three different actors and performers. In Dutch by Kurt Vandendriessche, in French by Ophélie Mac, and in English by Martin Swabey.
Maurice Calmeyn, on whom the soliloquy is based, was a rare and open critic of King Leopold’s colonial project in the time, and the book (Au Congo Belge, 1912) he wrote after his travels to Congo in 1907 and 1908, caused much uproar and resulted in social exclusion. The book was suppressed severely and the original copy is still rare to find. This soliloquy aims to capture the essence of this book, to give an idea of the personality of Maurice Calmeyn and the message he tried to convey at the time.
The film ‘(Pas) Mon Pays, Part I and II’ together with the installation ‘The Copy’ will be shown at Enough Room for Space. The exhibition will also present archival material in relation to the history of the colonial monument in Mechelen and the proposed new inscription.
As the title indicates, ‘(Pas) Mon Pays, Part I and II’, is in two parts. The first deals with a colonial monument in Mechelen and Michels’ efforts to decolonize this statue with a group of Belgian citizens with Congolese roots. The second shows the artist’s visit to DR Congo and is based on her personal history. The film is an attempt to let the past encounter the present and see further into the future of the postcolonial situation, in both DR Congo and Mechelen.
This event will focus on the overall project On-Trade-Off with several contributors elaborating on their projects and their research. It will include presentations, discussions of the current topics on Transcontinental mining connections - coloniality and extractivism between Australia and the DRC.
First we start with a conversation between Alexis Destoop and Nicholas Mangan on their past and current film projects in relation to extractivism. Afterwards Marie Lechner will present her research on lithium mining in the Upper Rhine valley. The valley could hold in its geothermal waters enough lithium for more than 400 million electric cars, geologists have estimated, making it one of the world's biggest deposits.
In the second half there will be a discussion of the research material and experiences on site by On-Trade-Off members in relation to Manono in DR Congo. Several members of the collective will be present online and onsite including Alexis Destoop, Femke Herregraven, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Gulda El Magambo, Georges Senga, Maarten Vanden Eynde. This part is hosted by Lotte Arndt.
The day will end with the avant-première of 'Depth of Discharge' by Marjolijn Dijkman, a film in progress produced in the framework of On-Trade-Off.
Uncertainty Scenarios: Session #11 - Statistics focused on the use and presence of statistics and how these are increasingly present as a tool for research and study in different sectors of our contemporary society. Besides talks focusing on scientific uses of statistics the session highlighted how artists have used and / or responded to them within their practice.
After a year in which our presence in the global pandemic statistics was permanent, the session looked at how statistics allow us to study the past, understand the present and try to predict the future. During the session we will explore where fact and fiction meet within the statistical world.
In this context, the artist Jean Katambayi Mukendi wrote a text on the place of statistics in Congolese society: what they do not tell us, what is missing and finally the statistics that could help households to have access to more sustainable electrical installations for instance. What is the role of the state in the management of statistics ? It also reminds us that statistics need to be collected, managed, analyzed, archived and that this requires infrastructure, a certain budget and objectivity.
Uncertainty Scenarios: Session #11 will focus on the use and presence of statistics and how these are increasingly present as a tool for research and study in different sectors of our contemporary society. Besides talks focusing on scientific uses of statistics the session will highlight how artists have used and / or responded to them within their practice.
After a year in which our presence in the global pandemic statistics was permanent, the session will look at how statistics allow us to study the past, understand the present and try to predict the future. During the session we will explore where fact and fiction meet within the statistical world. Some contributions will consider how statistics allow us to dig into the hidden aspects of particularly complex phenomena, while others will question how they can manipulate and guide thoughts and opinions. Measurement processes that generate statistical data are often subject to error, and the presence of missing data or censoring may result in biased estimates. For this session we invited scientists, thinkers and artists.
Contributors: Florence Cheval, Antye Guenther, Koen Hufkens, Toril Johannessen, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Maya Van Leemput, Simon Ripoll-Hurier, Daniela de Paulis, Roy Smits, Oscar Santillán, Michiel Schwarz.
Due to limited seats please reserve: enoughroomforspace@protonmail.com
A presentation of the film ‘(Pas) Mon Pays, Part I and II’ together with the installation ‘The Copy’ that is currently on view at Enough Room for Space, will be open to the public from 13:30 to 18:00. At 14:00 a conversation between Bie Michels, Lucas Catherine and Nelson Makengo will take place about the representation of colonial heritage, both within monuments and archives, and their specific relation to memory and commemoration, hosted by Anne Wetsi Mpoma and Maarten Vanden Eynde.
Afterwards, starting at 16:00, a new monologue ‘Calmeyn in the Congo: On Elephants, Missionaries, and a Rubber King’, written by Lucas Catherine, will be performed in the historic Castle of Drogenbos, the home of the Calmeyn family for many generations, located on walking distance from Enough Room for Space. In three languages, Calmeyn’s soliloquy will be read by three different actors and performers. In Dutch by Kurt Vandendriessche, in French by Ophélie Mac, and in English by Martin Swabey.
Maurice Calmeyn, on whom the soliloquy is based, was a rare and open critic of King Leopold’s colonial project in the time, and the book (Au Congo Belge, 1912) he wrote after his travels to Congo in 1907 and 1908, caused much uproar and resulted in social exclusion, after which Maurice retreated in De Panne at the Belgian coast where he had a brief political career, founded two co-ops, a bakery, a grocery store and a public, non-catholic school. The book was suppressed severely and the original copy is still rare to find. He was an elephant hunter, but also an ecologist avant la lettre, became a communist and was the only civilian photographer in the trenches in Ieper during the first world war. The revenues as entrepreneur were used to help poor children to get an education and until his death he was a philanthropist, for instance as main producer of the social drama film Misère au Borinage of Joris Ivens and Henri Storck.
The archive of ICC will be open to the public and during the conversation cinematographer Nelson Makengo will introduce the new film ‘Le Vieux Kilo’ (working title) he is working on that is inspired by arguably one of the most iconic and striking objects in the collection of ICC: a hidden 9mm revolver in a bible translated in Kiswahili that was brought back to Belgium from Congo by a former White Father.
Commodity Frontiers Initiative explores the history and present of capitalism, contestation, and ecological transformation in the global countryside. Each themed issue includes articles and interviews with experts about studying and teaching commodity frontiers in theory and in practice. The Journal features reflections and reviews on the dynamics of capitalist expansion, social change, and ecological transformation on global as well local scales, in the past and at the present.
Issue 2: Stimulants have, in their own ways, played a leading role in shaping today’s globalised world. Their world-shaping power stems from their double role: as “agents” that stimulate bodies, and as things that “rouse and incite” capital. In this issue of Commodity Frontiers, contributions center on the histories and presents of some of the leading stimulant crops and the sites and processes of their cultivation, expansion, and transformations. Contributors variously consider stimulants from the perspectives of bodies and capital, sometimes touching on their overlaps.
In the framework of the 2nd Commodity Frontiers Initiative Journal with the theme of ‘Stimulants’ Maarten Vanden Eynde interviewed Roger M. Buergel and Sophia Prinz from the Johann Jacobs Museum, which owes its existence to the coffee and cacao trade, but more importantly is unique in its endeavour to lay bare the intrinsically interwoven histories of commodities. The museum is dedicated to the global interdependencies of our life-world that become especially clear when tracing the history of important trade goods and their transport routes.
Organised by Arts Catalyst as part of EURO—VISION, artists Audrey Samson and Francisco Gallardo (FRAUD) will be joined online by Dr Nishat Awan, Dr Btihaj Ajana, Olivier Marboeuf, Jean Katambayi Mukendi and Maarten Vanden Eynde (On-Trade-Off) for a collective conversation around contemporary modes of extraction and expropriation that go beyond natural resources to encompass data, labour, cultures and governance.
In dialogue with the invited artists and researchers, the event will explore how we might start to imagine post-extractive futures? What knowledges, practices and tactics can we mobilise in order to do so?
To you Dorine Mokha (1989-2021), member of our On-Trade-Off collective, we pay tribute to you.
_
Dorine turned the weakness of others into strength.
Elusive
Those who have seen will never forget
Those who have ignored fight with the square bark of judgement
Dorine combined openness, listening and gentleness with insistence, courage and enormous desire. One always had the impression that he was advancing with wings: carried by opportunities that he reclaimed in the Now, rather than waiting for them in a distant future.
It was hard to imagine the effort that this drive, which seemed so fluid, so graceful, must have demanded of him - resistance, uprightness, projection, of himself and of others, the refusal to give in to hatred, to remain in an assigned place. He had a dazzling ability to take flight, capable of connecting and detaching himself; of transforming every single interaction into yet new forms and potential openings.
Dorine achieved this by bringing vulnerability into play as a component of any innovative creation: setting foot in uncharted territory, knowing that this included shifting ground.... and going there anyway, with appetite, with curiosity, with finesse, and by making sharp choices.
Dorine tried to help us collectively remember his country's past, which has been written too often by others. He fought against the symptomatic amnesia of that history and tried to move towards a better future. An open and gentle future, that allows you to be who you want to be, move as you wish and love those you love. A fairer, more egalitarian world, where everyone can become president with no special rights for anybody. In the meantime, he himself has written history. He stood up and so many others looked up at him in awe. It is up to us, collectively, not to forget him and to keep his legacy alive.
We dance together.
Initiated by Philippe Mikobi and Maarten Vanden Eynde, ICC consists of a collection of artefacts representing colonial presence in Congo, mainly focusing on the period 1884-1960. There is hardly any tangible material left in Congo of that period, due to the hastily departure of most colonisers after the independence in 1960.
ICC is scheduled to officially open at the National Museum of Lubumbashi in the coming years. A selection of the collection of books, documents, personal and religious items and tools, equipment, photographs, letters and administration are made public in Drogenbos, Belgium at Enough Room for Space.
(Open on appointment only)
On-Trade-Off members Lotte Arndt, Pelagie Gbaguidi and Jean Katambayi will participate in a collective discussion hosted by 'Intersections of Care' on decolonial practices in art which unfolds in the context of the Open School section of the Wiels Risquons-Tout exhibition.
With: Zakaria Almoutlak, Lotte Arndt, Jean Katambayi and a poem by Pélagie Gbaguidi for On-Trade-Off, Olivier Marboeuf / Mangrove and The Post Collective.
Georges Senga and Gulda El Magambo undertook a third research trip to Manono, DRC. They continued to conduct a whole range of interviews with people ranging from artisanal miners, the director of the Ministry of Mines and Geology, the Luba chef among others. This material will be collected in the ‘OTO-Resource Collectif’, a collective archive of images, texts and audiovisual materials, made available to all participating artists for the production of new works.
On-Trade-Off is an ongoing artistic-research project that reflects on environmental and economic implications of the extraction and processing of Lithium, the main raw material needed for the global production of Green Energy.
Commodity Frontiers Initiative explores the history and present of capitalism, contestation, and ecological transformation in the global countryside. Each themed issue includes articles and interviews with experts about studying and teaching commodity frontiers in theory and in practice. The Journal features reflections and reviews on the dynamics of capitalist expansion, social change, and ecological transformation on global as well local scales, in the past and at the present.
Issue 1: Mineral Frontiers: Capitalism, Contestation, and the Transformation of the Global Countryside. Maarten Vanden Eynde & Marjolijn Dijkman (Enough Room for Space) are the editors of the journal's section Creative Frontiers. For this issue Lotte Arndt and Oulimata Gueye introduce an article on the transnational artist’s collaboration, On-Trade-Off, which critically examines extraction, power structures in global capitalism and the global art world, and searches for alternatives. (This is a pre-publication version of the piece that will appear in the upcoming Vertical Atlas book produced by Digital Earth in collaboration with Het Nieuwe Instituut.)
Dorine Mokha is selected for the Digital Earth Fellowship to further develop his project developed in the context of On-Trade Off. Dorine Mokha weaves together a personal and national history of the Congolese lithium mines to reflect on the economic and social political inequalities.
Mokha will look into collective memory, forgotten, forbidden stories, oral and written archives around the site of the Gécamines Mining Company and the Manono lithium project open-pit mine. Lithium is a planetary commodity for the ‘digital revolution’ and multiple products, such as the Tesla car. While earth’s collective memory is being stored in memory drives powered by lithium batteries, Mokha aims to fight the local and planetary amnesia of the histories and memories connected to the sites of extraction for the minerals in the mobile phones we carry in our pockets.
His project, (Dis)Charged is a research and performing arts project, in which he will combine music, dance, spoken word, and visual components.
Nelson Makengo, a cinematographer from Kinshasa, DR Congo, was in residence at ERforS during which he started working on a new photo series called ‘Troon’ and a new documentary film called ‘Le Vieux Kilo’(working title), that takes one of the most iconic items from the collection of ICC as departure point. A bible translated in Kiswahili, containing a hidden 9mm revolver, was given to ICC by a former Belgian White Father.
Several interviews were conducted and a plan has been developed by Nelson to travel to the former mission in Kilo Moto of the priest, the infamous goldmine in the East of Congo in 2021.
As part of ELIXIR we're now producing apple cider with fruit of the public orchard surrounding the FeliXart museum (located around the corner of ERforS HQ).
Felix De Boeck, an early modernist Belgian painter, made his living from his orchard. As a result he was working independently as an artist without the pressure to sell his works. The orchard is maintained by the Province but it's resources are scarcely used; most of it becomes fallen fruit. Elixir will harvest some of these fruits and transform this resource during public events into all sorts of products which will be used for upcoming events of Enough Room for Space.
A jury chose and invited six candidates for the Venice Biennale and the interpretation of the Belgian pavilion in 2022. The Flemish Community recently adapted the selection procedure: from now on, curators will present an exhibition concept that contributes to the international discourse.
These included: Zoë Gray, Christophe Slagmuylder, Hilde Teerlinck, Heidi Ballet, Enough Room for Space and Till-Holger Borchert & Michel Dewilde.
Update June 2020: The jury selected the proposal of Hilde Teerlinck with a solo exhibition by Francis Alÿs.
Enough Room for Space developed a proposal together with Picha (DRC) in relation to the project On-Trade-Off involving: Alexis Destoop, Marjolijn Dijkman, Pélagie Gbaguidi, Femke Herregraven, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Dorine Mokha, Musasa, Georges Senga, Maarten Vanden Eynde.
Uncertainty Scenarios – Session #10: What to do with our Brains? -- About the Pleasures and Pain of Brain Alteration.
To place the essence of personhood into the MIND is a concept deeply ingrained into Western Philosophy. It might be one reason for our centuries long philosophical obsession with (rational) thinking as an activity of higher purposes and our desires to manipulate and enhance the brain as the host of these activities.
In the 20th century these obsessions were amplified with new approaches to brain alteration. This is exemplified in cases of mind control enthusiasm in the 1950s/60s to consciousness expansion techniques of the counter cultures in the 1960s/70s, blending frictionlessly into apolitical ‘mindfulness’ tools so suitable for our neoliberal times.
In Uncertainty Scenarios - Session #10 we will discuss different perspectives regarding the brain and how it has been a target of alteration, augmentation, manipulation and control.
Contributors: Felix Drücker; Antye Guenther; Flora Lysen; Susan MacWilliam; Pádraic E. Moore; Simon Ripoll-Hurier; Ties van der Werff.
On-Trade-Off: The Weight of Wonders is an artistic trajectory initiated by the artists' initiatives Picha (DRC) and Enough Room for Space (BE). With: Sammy Baloji, Marjolijn Dijkman, Jean Katambayi, Musasa, Georges Senga, Daddy Tshikaya, Maarten Vanden Eynde.
The starting point for the research project On-Trade-Off is the raw material lithium. A naturally occurring element (number three on the periodic table), lithium is currently considered to be ‘the new black gold’ because of its crucial role in the global transition towards a ‘green and fossil fuel free economy’.
One month residency period of Georges Senga to develop his individual artistic project within the collaborative research project On-Trade-Off. The starting point for the research project On-Trade-Off is the raw material lithium. A naturally occurring element (number three on the periodic table), lithium is currently considered to be ‘the new black gold’ because of its crucial role in the global transition towards a ‘green and fossil fuel free economy’.
Georges Senga (member of Picha) and Marjolijn Dijkman (co-founder of Enough Room for Space) will introduce ‘On-Trade-Off’, an artistic trajectory initiated by the artists’ initiatives Picha (Lubumbashi, DRC) and Enough Room for Space (Brussels, BE) and some of the works they have developed within this project.
On-Trade-Off: The Weight of Wonders is an artistic trajectory initiated by the artists' initiatives Picha (DRC) and Enough Room for Space (BE). Together with a public program, the exhibition shows works by Sammy Baloji, Marjolijn Dijkman, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Musasa, Jean Katambayi, Georges Senga and Daddy Tshikaya.
The starting point for the research project On-Trade-Off is the raw material lithium. A naturally occurring element (number three on the periodic table), lithium is currently considered to be ‘the new black gold’ because of its crucial role in the global transition towards a ‘green and fossil fuel free economy’. Focusing on this one chemical element (Li3) allows the project to zoom in on particular social, ecological, economic and political phenomena that characterize the production processes currently experiencing rapid growth.
Glowing in the Dark Again - Featuring Uncertainty Scenarios, Stone Orgy and other special guests. This evening consists of a collage of screenings, readings and live music performed for one night only in response to Orgonomics. The event in two parts consists of a collage of readings and screenings that relate to the ideas of Wilhelm Reich.
Curated by Pádraic E. Moore.
LUNÄ TALK, hosted by Cargo in Context & Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond, as part of the exhibition ON-TRADE-OFF; THE WEIGHT OF WONDERS. In this Amsterdam edition experts with different scholarly backgrounds will focus on the ecological, social and economic consequences of the extraction and processing of lithium and cobalt. They will look both at the history of electricity and the current use of raw materials from the DRC for electronics and energy storage.
With contributions by: Patricia Fara, historian of science University of Cambridge, UK; Esther de Haan, manager and researcher at SOMO, Amsterdam, NL; Dries Bols, Ceo Lifepwr, Antwerp, BE; Raf Custers, historian, journalist and author, Brussels, BE
Hosted by: Marjolijn Dijkman and Maarten Vanden Eynde
What are the human, environmental and economic consequences of mining in Katanga, in DR Congo? In their films 'Pungulume' and 'Mangeurs de Cuivre', artists Sammy Baloji (DRC) and Bodil Furu (NO) highlight the role of and craving for resources in the turbulent history of civil wars and conflicts in DRC.
On Sunday 8 December Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond will show these two films in collaboration with Cargo in Context. Between the two screenings, curator Rosa Spaliviero (Picha) will have a conversation with anthropologist Filip De Boeck (KU Leuven, BE) to further discuss the topics addressed in the films.
Digital Earth Talks brings together artists, scholars and designers from Africa, Europe and Asia to explore how technology influences not only interpersonal relationships but also contemporary geopolitics and our understanding of the world. How do digital technologies shape the way we map and understand space in different regions? How have diverse worldviews, shaped by social and spiritual concerns, affected the way technologies have been developed and implemented across the globe? These and other questions will be explored by a rich two-day programme of talks, screenings, panel discussions and performances.
Maarten Vanden Eynde & Jean Katambayi, Digital Earth Talks, Dubai, UE (2019)
Contributors: James Bridle, Federico Campagna, Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, Arianne Conty, Wael Eskandar, Vladan Joler, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Brendan McGetrick, Nanjala Nyabola, Nishant Shah and Maarten Vanden Eynde. Discussions are moderated by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Nadia Christidi, Nada Raza and Nishant Shah.
Part of the ongoing artistic research project On-Trade-Off 'Tesla Crash', made by Jean Katambayi, Sammy Baloji, Daddy Tshikaya is a handmade 1:1 model of the notorious Tesla Model S in copper wire using a special weaving technique inspired by miniature wire car toys made by children in DR Congo.
Reenacting a spectacular experiment with a selfmade Tesla coil, the performative act 'Charging Tesla Crash', developed in collaboration with Marjolijn Dijkman, returned to the utopian ideas of Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) about wireless and available energy for everyone around the globe. The performance reflects the so called 'green energy revolution' and global inequalities present today.
The 6th edition of the Lubumbashi Biennale, entitled Future Genealogies, Tales From The Equatorial Line, probes the possibilities of repurposing the cartography of the world. One of the seven African countries crossed by the Equator, the Congo claims the longest segment of the parallel on the continent. This places the region not only at the heart of Africa, but also at the bisecting line of the globe, at the zone of intersection between southern and northern hemispheres. By asserting this position, the Biennale repeals the modern fantasy of the Congo as “irrelevant locale on the periphery of cultural history” to reclaim its profound entanglement with the world and its globally central position, both past and present.
The concept of the Biennale is to take the Equator’s imaginary line not as one of demarcation—the majestic Congo River disregards it by straddling it twice—but rather of imbrication. At its closest a place where earth gravity alleviates and where the poles’ magnetic attractions balance each other, the equatorial latitude opens the possibility for narratives that respond to alternate compasses, recognizes new centers of gravity and where de-polarized stories can unfold.
Alexis Destoop and Gulda El Magambo undertook a second research trip to Manono, DRC. They continued to conduct a whole range of interviews with people ranging from artisanal miners, the director of the Ministry of Mines and Geology, the Luba chef among others. This material will be collected in the ‘OTO-Banque Collectif’, a collective archive of images, texts and audiovisual materials, made available to all participating artists for the production of new works.
On-Trade-Off is an ongoing artistic-research project that reflects on environmental and economic implications of the extraction and processing of Lithium, the main raw material needed for the global production of Green Energy.
On-Trade-Off is an ongoing artistic-research project that reflects on environmental and economic implications of the extraction and processing of Lithium, the main raw material needed for the global production of Green Energy.
The installation On-Trade-Off consists of a presentation of Le Vide / The Void by Georges Senga, Future Flora: Manono by Maarten Vanden Eynde and a display case with On-Trade-Off research materials.
On-Trade-Off: Routes and Roads is a lecture performance by Alexis Destoop and Mi You. The ongoing artistic research project On-Trade-Off investigates the emergence of lithium – a volatile and unstable metal known as the “new black gold” – in the current energy transition to a green economy. The closure of the major mining operations in Manono, a town in the Tanganyika Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the early 80s, left an altered landscape whose logistical equipment has slowly fallen into disarray. Recent geological exploration has confirmed vast amounts of lithium to be found in the abandoned mining pits, making for new interest and investments from foreign corporations, which could alter the town’s destiny.
How can we imagine the unbelievably long lifespan of radioactive waste? And how do we make it clear to future generations that they are on a disposal site? A few artists worked with these and other questions. During the open house of ONDRAF/NIRAS you will discover the result of their creative exercise in the Installation for the production of monoliths (IPM).
With: Alexis Destoop, Andy Weir, Commonplace Studio, Jesse Howard & Tim Knapen, Thomson & Craighead, Maarten Vanden Eynde.
The 2019 Contemporary Art Days Summit will focus on the sustainability of art organisations.
In order to highlight the interaction between larger and smaller actors and the value of small and medium-sized art activities, the field of art has been described as an ecosystem. The Contemporary Art Days Summit will invite participants to discuss art field sustainability beyond the idea of value. Which relationships between art actors need to become more sustainable? Which platforms can we use or develop to enable us to further our artistic activities? What structural changes are required in order to meet the art field’s current and future challenges?
Speakers: Kerstin Bergendal, Copenhagen/Gothenburg, On-Trade-Off (Picha & Enough Room for Space with arp:), Brussels and Lubumbashi, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, Francis McKee, Center for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Mustarinda/HIAP, Kainuu/Helsinki.
Initiated by Philippe Mikobi and Maarten Vanden Eynde, ICC consists of a collection of artefacts representing colonial presence in Congo, mainly focusing on the period 1884-1960. There is hardly any tangible material left in Congo of that period, due to the hastily departure of most colonisers after the independence in 1960. The ICC will officially open at the National Museum of Lubumbashi in 2021.
ICC is looking for artefacts, documents and photographs representing the life and work in Congo of former European colonists, or their children and grand children. Ranging from clothes, personal and religious items to tools, equipment, photographs, letters and administration, ICC welcomes any suggestions for materials, books and documentation that represents this historic period.
Please contact erfors@gmail.com for inquiries or donations to the collection.
Georges Senga wins summer award 2019! In preparation of the exhibition On-Trade-Off: The Weight of Wonders at Cargo in Context in Amsterdam, Georges Senga is offered a Full Residency at Thami Mnyele. Full Residencies are awarded competitively to artists from the whole of Africa. The Thami Mnyele Foundation offers mostly two Full Residency Program scholarships per year. Applicants are evaluated by an independent committee of art professionals, who are appointed by the Board of the Foundation. Those selected are offered accommodation and a studio space for a three month period.
On-Trade-Off is an ongoing artistic-research project, initiated by Picha (Lubumbashi, D.R. Congo) and Enough Room for Space (Drogenbos, Belgium) that reflects on environmental and economic implications of the extraction and processing of Lithium, the main raw material needed for the global production of Green Energy.
During PeriFeria, ERforS will welcome you in their Head Quarters in Drogenbos and present works relating to On-Trade-Off, initiated by Picha (Lubumbashi, D.R. Congo) and Enough Room for Space in 2018. On-Trade-Off is an ongoing artistic-research project that reflects on the environmental and economic implications of the extraction and processing of Lithium, the main raw material needed for the global production of Green Energy.
Continuous screening of Avec Le Vent by Raf Custers, 2013 (35 min.) , a documentary that highlights the progress of the mining industry as experienced on a daily basis by the Congolese.
PeriFeria Festival allows you to discover the outskirts of Brussels and its particularities in an unconventional way. Together with local residents, neighborhood organizations, designers, researchers and artists, City3 has created an exciting program of workshops, guided tours, artistic interventions and made-to-measure activities. For the 4rd edition, PeriFeria ventures into the fascinating southern periphery of Brussels.
Jean Katambayi, Maarten Vanden Eynde and Gulda El Magambo undertook a collective research trip to the Manono mining area and collected raw materials and audio/visual documentation. They conducted a whole range of interviews with people ranging from artisanal miners, the director of the Ministry of Mines and Geology, the Luba chef, the head of Manono Abbey among others. This material will be collected in the ‘OTO-Banque Collectif’, a collective archive of images, texts and audiovisual materials, made available to all participating artists for the production of new works.
On-Trade-Off is an ongoing artistic-research project that reflects on environmental and economic implications of the extraction and processing of Lithium, the main raw material needed for the global production of Green Energy.
Coltan as Cotton is a single, drawn-out continuum lasting more than a year, focussing on ecology, inequality, de-growth, solidarity and racism as major themes through films, installations and performances.
The biennale consists of three main phases: 11 - 12 January, 17 - 19 May and 18 - 20 October 2019
With: Daniela Ortiz, Cadine Navarro, Picha & Enough Room for Space, Saddie Choua, Greyzone Zebra, Fallon Mayanja, Black Speaks Back, The Black Archives, Black(s) To The Future, Monique Mbeka Phoba, Laura Nsengiyumva, Coyote, Transnational Alliance, Emmanuel Iyamu, Seckou Ouologuem, Amandine Gay.
Two artist initiatives, Picha and Enough Room for Space, are developing an experimental research project, called On-Trade-Off, that will be presented during all three public moments of Contour Biennial.
Opening with the premiere of 'The Voters and the Politicians' a new film by Rune Peitersen, a conversation between Rune Peitersen and Wouter Hillaert about 'The Voters and the Politicians' and the related political issues addressed, and a participatory event No Wo.man is an Island hosted by Erika Sprey and Rune Peitersen.
The Voters and the Politicians is taking its outset in a personal experience - his first conscious contact with the democratic system during a political demonstration as a teenager in Denmark – Peitersen attempts to analyse the relationship between voters and politicians in Western democracies through a series of iconic situations and political archetypes.
On the eve of the European elections, you're kindly invited to participate in the staged polylogue No Wo.man is an Island hosted by Erika Sprey and Rune Peitersen. Moving through space and assuming shifting roles we will speak in tongues about one of the central questions that haunt these elections: is a (new) future possible for the EU? For once not seeking sleek solutions or half baked compromises, we will entangle ourselves in the different strands of the Gordian knot and stretch these to their extremes, as we dig ourselves deeper in our post-factual truths that may or may not untangle new vista beyond the EU.
This LUNÄ Talk, held as part of On-Trade-Off, will focus on the environmental, social and economic implications of the extraction and processing of lithium. In the discussion, we will look at the history of energy and address the importance of raw materials from D.R. Congo in both the industrial and technological revolutions. At the same time we will address experimental models of sustainable energy production and future prospects for lithium mining in D.R. Congo.
A decolonial tour through the newly rebuilt AfricaMuseum in Tervuren (BE) by Anne Wetsi Mpoma. Wetsi is an activist, journalist, curator and was a member of a group of 6 experts appointed to participate to the consultation of the African diasporas which was established by the Royal Museum for Central Africa (AfricaMuseum) and the latter. The group withdrew from the process after they felt their advises were not taken seriously. During the tour we discussed the difficulties she and the group encountered in the process, the museum as a whole, elements of the exhibition design and specific objects on display.
…they could watch themselves. No one who ever came to know himself with the detachment of an observer, is ever the same again. Edmund Carpenter, Oh, What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me!
Following a research and development period partnered with the Musée des civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée (Mucem), Justin Balmain utilised Enough Room for Space as an opportunity to nurture and expand upon production undertaken in Marseille, France. Interacting directly with a maleific object that remains in archival limbo in the Mucem collection, Balmain worked with the museum staff towards addressing ideas of the value of objects within cultural and capital contexts: access, commodity, archival and conservation practice, along with the complex issues this particular object raises: superstition, optics, art history, the occult, class and hierarchy within museological contexts.
As part of ELIXIR we're now producing apple cider with fruit of the public orchard surrounding the FeliXart museum (located around the corner of ERforS HQ).
Felix De Boeck, an early modernist Belgian painter, made his living from his orchard. As a result he was working independently as an artist without the pressure to sell his works. The orchard is maintained by the Province but it's resources are scarcely used; most of it becomes fallen fruit. Elixir will harvest some of these fruits and transform this resource during public events into all sorts of products which will be used for upcoming events of Enough Room for Space.
Produced with: Arne Skaug Olsen, Amélie Bouvier, Maarten Vanden Eynde and Marjolijn Dijkman
Thanks to: Felix Artmuseum, Drogenbos, Be and Regionaal Landschap Pajottenland & Zennevallei
Initiated by Picha (Lubumbashi, DRC) and Enough Room for Space (Brussels, BE), the point of departure for the research project On-Trade-Off is the raw material Lithium, the lightest existing metal. A naturally occurring element (number three on the periodic table), Lithium is currently considered to be ‘the new black gold’ because of its crucial role in the global transition towards a ‘green and fossil fuel free economy’. Event with film screenings, artists talks and a round table discussion relating to the consequences of Lithium mining in D.R. Congo.
Time: 14:00-17:00
With: Lotte Arndt, Sammy Baloji, Marjolijn Dijkman, Femke Herregraven, Jean Katambayi (virtual), Rosa Spaliviero, Maarten Vanden Eynde.
On the occasion of the finissage of Alice De Mont's exhibition 'A Series of Characters', Arno M. Feld will give a lecture on 'Triangular Art-Coaching in Business Environments'. Arno M. Feld, the alter ego of Christoph Baum, is an art coach who uses art and creation as a tool to enhance employees’ creativity, innovativeness and success rate. This lecture is part of De Mont's research on the function of the alter ego in artistic practice.
De Mont and Baum made the video lecture ‘Erfolg durch Kunst’ together which is on display in the exhibition 'A Series of Characters'. Their second collaboration developed for the finissage involves a scenography developed by De Mont to transform Feld's lecture into a performance. Feld's lecture will be preceded by a brief introduction by performance artist Johanna Sarah Schlenk. After the lecture by Feld, an informal conversation will take place between Alice De Mont, Christoph Baum, Johanna Sarah Schlenk and the public on the use of an alter ego as an artistic tool.
Time: 15:00-20:00 (start talks 16:00)
The exhibition ON-TRADE-OFF: Green Gold presents several works that take as a starting point the extraction and transformation process of lithium - third element periodic table of elements. Nicknamed 'green gold', lithium is both a fundamental resource for the ecological transition into a fossil fuel free economy, but also an element at the heart of a virulent industry that is harmful for the environment. Enabling the mass production of lithium-ion batteries used by smartphones or cars, it becomes a convenience, a motto, a green label. The "new black gold" then becomes currency, transforming in fact into "green gold".
With: Sammy Baloji, Jean Katambayi, Musasa, Georges Senga, Daddy Tshikaya, Maarten Vanden Eynde.
The ongoing research and work of Alice De Mont focuses on the construction of personalities by means of the creation of characters and alter egos. These characters function as a method to solve (artistic) problems. A character; a living and thinking thing, has the capacity to embody a problem, to bring in nuances, to change it and to accept inconsistencies. In the past year De Mont developed her alter ego Subject 23; a personality with an artistic practice which explores the relation between environment and human nature.
During a residency at Air Berlin Alexanderplatz in 2018, De Mont had the chance to work with two existing alter egos of other people as part of her current research. Between 2012 and 2017, Lena Chen developed an alter-ego called Elle Peril; a nude model, in order to cope with the trauma of revenge porn. Christoph Baum explores the role of an art coach. In the video-lecture (Erfolg Durch Kunst), his alter ego called Arno M. Feld, explains how to be successful in the arts.
On the 2nd of March we hosted Uncertainty Scenarios - Session #8, a gathering with a contributions by Maarten Vanden Eynde, Pádraic E. Moore, Steeve Sabatto, Cécile Massart, Daniela De Paulis and Olivier Weber. The session was accompanied by a specially prepared menu for UV light with uranium glass ware and by a part of the 'Uncertainty Scenarios - Playlist' with music influenced by the Atomic age arranged by Amélie Bouvier and Marjolijn Dijkman.
Participants of Session #8: Marjolijn Dijkman, Amélie Bouvier, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Antye Guenther, Pádraic E. Moore, Daniela De Paulis, Maxime Bondu, Simon Ripoll-Hurier, Emma Perrochon, Olivier Weber, Steeve Sabatto, Cécile Massart, Alexis Destoop, Florence Cheval.
During this residency Maxime and Simon have developed their collaborative project ' The Call', for which they are researching the possibilities of several vocal transmissions into outer space, containing all the possible phonemes of the human species. The project 'The Call' will be presented at the end of 2019 at Enough Room for Space opening on the 7th of December.
Swimming Pool is hosting a double lecture by Marjolijn Dijkman (Co-Founder of Enough Room for Space, Brussels, BE) and Paul O’Neill (Director of Publics, Helsinki, FI). This event is part of the Public Program of the Curatorial School, which Swimming Pool organises this year. Curatorial School main’s interest lies on the potentials of independent curatorial activity towards creating spaces.
Their public program aims at exploring agency of project spaces, and how such initiatives can move society. They also reflect on their irregularity (which consists in a low level of institutionalisation, shared economy, as well as DIY culture) and how this allows for new types of institutionalisation that correspond to how our environment is structured today.
On the 29th of November we hosted Uncertainty Scenarios - Session #7 at the ERforS HQ, a gathering of people related to the project 'Uncertainty Scenarios' contributions by Wesley Meuris, Daniela De Paulis, Matthew C. Wilson (virtually) and Pádraic E. Moore.
During the Initiation Phase organised by kunstencentrum nona, curator Nataša Petrešin Bachelez will introduce her approach to this edition of the Biennale. Next, the graphic studio OSP from Brussels will present its methods and procedures for working on the Biennale’s platform. After this presentation a heart-to-heart conversation will be held between participating artists Ana Vaz, Clémence Seurat, Maarten Vanden Eynde, and Sammy Baloji. This is the first in a series of conversations that will be held throughout the year.
Maarten and Sammy will introduce ON-TRADE-OFF a project initiated by Enough Room for Space and Picha with presentations at the upcoming 9th Contour Biennale.
Digital Earth is a 6 month-long fellowship for artists and designers based in Africa or Asia, working across a variety of media, who would like to investigate our current technological reality. ‘Digital Earth’ refers to the materiality and immateriality of the digital reality we live in – from data centers to software interfaces, and rare minerals to financial derivatives.
Jean Katambayi received a Digital Earth fellowship to work on a research project that starts with the production of a copy on 1:1 scale of the notorious Tesla Model X with recycled copper wires using a special weaving technique. He thereby wants to draw attention to the economic inequalities within Congolese social classes, which he believes will grow even more through the environmental impact of the so-called “green revolution” and capitalist mining industry. The work will be developed in close collaboration with Sammy Baloji and Daddy Tshikaya and is part of the project ON-TRADE-OFF, initiated by Enough Room for Space and Picha (Lubumbashi, DRC).
Residency and working period at Picha in Lubumbashi, D.R. Congo in the framework of the long term research project On-Trade-Off. With Jean Katambayi, Daddy Tshikaya, Musasa and Maarten Vanden Eynde. During the residency period Jean Katambayi and Daddy Tshikaya made a scale model of the famous Tesla X, using copper wires and other recycled materials. Maarten Vanden Eynde worked together with the Lubumbashi based painter Musasa on the creation of painted wall charts, inspired by old educational charts. The charts summarise the origin, use and influence of Lithium and other pivotal elements like copper, gold and uranium.
13 October - 17:00 Artist Talk with Jean Katambayi, Daddy Tshikaya, Musasa and Maarten Vanden Eynde at Picha.
The artist initiatives Picha and Enough Room for Space are developing an experimental research project, called On-Trade-Off. To be understood as a collective artistic trajectory, the project looks both at the importance of one specific raw material, called lithium, for the transition into a green and fossil fuel free economy, and the influence its extraction and transformation has on everyone and everything involved, ranging from the miners who take the lightest metal in existence out of the ground, to the produced batteries that power cars, homes and potentially the entire planet.
Elixir harvests heritage fruits and transforms this resource during public events into all sorts of products that are served during events of Enough Room for Space. The public orchard surrounding the FeliXart Museum (5 HA) consists of many different sorts of fruit and nut trees and other edible plants. The orchard was once owned by Felix De Boeck, an early modernist Belgian painter who used it to make his living and work independently without having to sell his work. The public orchard of FeliXart Museum is located around the corner of the Enough Room for Space HQ.
We'll make pizza's in the renovated bakehouse of Felix De Boeck. (Time: 15:00 - 21:00)
Raewyn will be in residence within the framework of Uncertainty Scenarios, and will create a series of animations in and around the residency site. The animations will be made up of moments in time of small-scale biopolymer interventions. The biopolymer medium is fugitive and highly sensitive to the surrounding conditions.
Raewyn will use the medium in proximity to the Senne valley which will engage the Brettanomyces Bruxellensis wild yeast as an agent within the film. The sensitivity of the biofilm makes it analogous to the light sensitivity of celluloid film. Measuring or graphing other forms of light and atmosphere to create some kind of “biograph”.
An exhibition by Guy Woueté with an accompanying screening by Maxime Jean-Baptiste, both working with personal and subjective narratives in response to the representation of contemporary migration and colonial histories.
On Guy's journey that took him from Antwerp to the Jungle of Calais and back, he wrote his own subjective story of this larger collective moment. All the images, texts and objects collected by Guy became part of his personal story within the context of the significant history of the jungle of Calais. The work reflects on the question of the collective that is being shared within an artists book and this exhibition.
'Nou voix' by Maxime Jean-Baptiste is an autobiographical video departing from the participation of Maxime's father, as a Guyanese figurant, in the movie 'Jean Galmot aventurier' (1990), which deals with the history of French Guiana. By re-enacting a part of the film, Maxime and his father try to unravel other voices that have been unheard in the original French film.
Finissage 8 September - 17:00: Laura Nsengiyumva will start a conversation with Guy Woueté and Maxime Jean-Baptiste about the related themes in their practice to be followed by a conversation with the audience.
Uncertainty Scenarios will host a session focusing on the Sun, its influences and repercussions of radiation on the future. The impact of the Sun on life on Earth has been recognised since prehistoric times. Our main star illuminates our planet with a duality of darkness and light. The Sun has been regarded by some cultures as a divinity, having influence on the course of our future by predicting misfortune or promising rising prospects. The Sun has supported the evolution of life but can also become a destructive force within the changing climate of our planet. It's energy is more than sufficient to supply us with all we need, but at the same time one big solar storm can wipe out vital life supporting technologies like electricity and Internet networks.
The conversation will include contributions by: Amélie Bouvier, Cosco (Louis de Cordier), Alexis Destoop, Marjolijn Dijkman, Kris Dittel, Toril Johannessen and Pádraic E. Moore.
This session is accompanied by the finissage of the solo exhibition by Amélie Bouvier, a continuous screening of ‘Non-conservation of energy (and of spirits)’ by Toril Johannessen and a presentation by Kris Dittel and Marjolijn Dijkman of the recently published publication 'Radiant Matter'.
Amélie Bouvier presents the second solo exhibition at Enough Room for Space within the framework of the ongoing project Uncertainty Scenarios. Amélie Bouvier has developed a strong interest in aerial and outer space imagery and its ramifications on our perception and use of history, geography and power. While the aerial and outer space views are a magnificent instrument in the evolution of human knowledge, it also suggests a potential absence of limitations, which filled with unpredictability our close futures. Finnisage: 9 June 2018.
The performance lecture 'Alice and Bob (future perfect)' by Antye Guenther speculates about the futuristic potential of ceramics, about the possibilities of hybrid intelligence & ways to communicate into the future, and about how our modes of thinking going to change facing rapid technological progress. "Natural ceramic masses are a mix of quartz, feldspar, clay minerals and kaolin: substances that all consist of silicon as a basic element. At a specific time in the future museums all over the world will likely be forced to surrender all their ceramic objects, even the oldest items, to supply the production of semiconductor silicon."
- (Excerpt from the performance lecture).
During this event there will be a continuous screening of the video work 'First Dawn' by Aurélien Dupuis.
Enough Room for Space hosted the press conference of Cavaria and Holibihuis Vlaams Brabant on the 17th of May. For the third year, ERforS flied the rainbow flag together with cultural institutions, in hope of a more openly tolerant Commune of Drogenbos we can be proud of.
This year, after an intense citizens' initiative (instigated by ERforS) Drogenbos will participate from now on to fly the rainbow flag during IDAHOT an action initiated by çavaria and Holibihuis Vlaanderen, and implement some of their suggestions for new inclusive gender neutral policies in our commune and start a local sensibilisation campaign against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. (IDAHOT is The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia).
The video ‘Cast Witnesses’ is based on a series of performances that took place at Playground (organised by STUK and Museum M, Leuven, Belgium) and the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam, in which a group of replicas of Greco-Roman sculptures were rescued from obscurity. In this video-based episode of the project, a small group of researchers attempt to heal the phantom pains of their mauled counterparts through self-designed therapeutic rituals. Screening continuously from 18:30 - 20:30.
Geert Belpaeme hosted another workshop with the members of 'Performing Objects' exploring the relation between the body and architecture. 'Performing Objects' experiments with objects and their possibilities to act as an interactive performer towards its users or audience.
Software engineer Julien Griffit and artist Maarten Vanden Eynde are developing a new installation for the upcoming exhibition Artefact: This Rare Earth - Stories from Below. Their collaboration is part of Uncertainty Scenarios, a collective experimental research project that explores the ways people throughout history have tried to speculate, predict and anticipate the future and different attitudes that go along with this. Julien will reside during several short residency periods throughout 2017 and 2018 at Enough Room for Space.
During a two day group visit to Paris we visited several exhibitions in the city and met with curator Lotte Arndt and artist Candice Lin to discuss their exhibition project 'A Hard White Body' at Bétonsalon and it's relation to the project Performing Objects. Performing Objects experiments with objects and their possibilities to act as an interactive performer towards its users or audience.
Artists Talks by Alicia Velázquez and Wouter Krokaert on Sunday the 5th, and a seminar exploring the theme 'Performing Objects' the 6th - 7th. The seminar focusses on objects, how they relate to people and space, and how they could stimulate processes of transformation, interaction and creation. Amongst others Bie Michels will present the process of End to End and the group of participants will collectively activate the performance on site.
Amelia Wallin has been in residence in Brussels to meet artists and conduct research for her upcoming exhibition “More Than Mere Jelly” (working title) in the spring of 2018 at the Centre for Curatorial Studies (CCS) Bard, upstate New York. Coinciding this period, Justin Balmain has been working on the research for a new upcoming film project to be produced in France in 2018-2019. The video work 'The Symbol for Silence is Called Zero' by Justin Balmain was installed for a whole-night screening event with invited guests.
Alexis Destoop and Maarten Vanden Eynde, both involved in Triangular Trade, participated in a field trip organised by Nuclear Culture and will continue their research into uranium. Research trip and in depth introduction looked into the history of Belgian's nuclear industry, properties of radiation, the HADES research lab in Mol, and the test architecture for the Low Level waste site at Dessel, Belgium.
With Jantine Schröder (SCK-CEN), Sigrid Eeckhout (ONDRAF/NIRAS), Maarten Van Geet (ONDRAF/NIRAS), Christoph Depaus (ONDRAF/NIRAS), Ils Huygens (Z33), Ele Carpenter (Nuclear Culture), Maarten Vanden Eynde, Alexis Destoop, Tuur Van Balen, Alison Craighead, Jon Thomson.
Visit of SCK•CEN, ISOTOPOLIS, ESV Euridice and nuclear village of Mol / Atoomdorp Mol, Belgium
A video recording of 'Water Find its Own Level' by Alejandro Alonso Diaz as part of the project Uncertainty Scenarios is now online on Vimeo. The title of this lecture, 'Water Finds its Own Level', is a simple, direct statement introducing a set of questions connected to the notion of liquidity, as a means to explore what we can understand as material uncertainties.
Recorded at ERforS HQ on the 6th of January 2017. 'Water Finds its Own Level' is part of a series of off-site talks and presentations, developed by fluent in collaboration with a group of international partners. Uncertainty Scenarios is a collective experimental research project that explores the ways people throughout history have tried to speculate, predict and anticipate the future and different attitudes that go along with this.
After the intense 7 days full of vibrant conversations at Place de La Monnaie in Brussels as part of the Performatik Biennial 17, two installations are installed respectively at Kaaitheater and Verbeke Foundation. At the atrium of Kaaitheater you'll find a large wall installation with portraits of all the couples that participated and quotes from the conversations, and the sculptural mobile home found a place at Verbeke Foundation where the posters and t-shirts are still available as well.
The Temporary Telecommunication Union, a performative film installation, is part of a project by Simon Ripoll-Hurier called Diana. Sometimes, 'birders' try to attract birds by mimicking their calls. Other times, 'paranormal investigators' try to communicate with ghosts. From time to time, 'radio hams' make contacts, talking in a coded language and following obscure protocols. These characters and many more are building an ocean of interferences in which the background noise seems to take the first role. The composite assembly thus convened is called the Temporary telecommunication union.
Uncertainty Scenarios - Session #4 will relate to astronomy, cosmology, radio transmission and the search for extraterrestrial life (SETI); its visions of the future in history and its strong speculative ideas spread in our contemporary times: a topic of common interest in the work and research of several Uncertainty Scenarios’ participants. This session is an informal and participatory event where the audience is invited to join the discussion.
With: Maxime Bondu (Artist); Julien Griffit (Technologist / Programmer); Simon Ripoll-Hurier (Artist / Film maker); Daniela De Paulis (Artist); Amélie Bouvier and Marjolijn Dijkman (Artists / Initiators of Uncertainty Scenarios); André van Es (SETI-Philosopher / Engineering Project Manager at SKA (Square Kilometre Array)).
'LUNÄ Talk: Triangular Trade - Cotton' will concentrate on the influence of cotton production and trade in relation to the abolition of slavery and colonisation / decolonisation, both historically and as an ongoing influence on contemporary global economy. The overall project Triangular Trade investigates the influence of transport and trade of pivotal materials (like rubber, oil, ivory, copper, cotton, gold and uranium), but also people, on exponential economic growth, the creation of nations and other power structures.
Invited contributors: Helen Elands (art historian, independent researcher, London, UK), Wouter Elsen (Independent video- and photojournalist, co-creator of The Cotton Connection documentary, Ouagadougou, BE / BF), Dr. Patricia Fara (Historian, Eighteenth-century natural philosophy and cultural history of science, University of Cambridge, UK), Remy Jungerman (Artist, based in Amsterdam, SR / NL), Karin Lurvink (Post-doc researcher on the economic impact (direct and indirect, immediate and long-term) of 18th & 19th-century Dutch Republic transatlantic slave-based activities, University of Amsterdam, NL), Prof. Dr. Eric Vanhaute (Professor Economic and Social History and World History, Ghent University, BE), Maarten Vanden Eynde (artist and initiator of ‘Triangular Trade’) and Marjolijn Dijkman (artist and co-host LUNÄ Talk).
Sadly enough our beloved commune Drogenbos is one of the two communes in Flanders and Brussels that doesn't participate in the action of the Holebihuis Vlaams-Brabant from Leuven to hang a rainbow flag in support for The IDAHOT (The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia).
For the second time Enough Room for Space, this year together with FelixArt Museum and De Muze hang the flag on the cultural institutions in Drogenbos, in hope of a more openly tolerant Commune of Drogenbos we can be proud of!
Objections combines the idea of ‘objects’ with the meaning of ‘objection’ as an act of resistance. How can we give neglected objects a new life? How can we renew our ways of approaching things? Which force and resistance reside in objects?
For this iteration of the project End to End performed at the finissage of Objections, the group will work with the museum objects from the MSK itself. They will mainly use objects from the backstage of the museum, part of the museum infrastructure. For the project End To End the experimental group Performing Objects is inspired by Lean Management, a form of factory management developed by Toyota in Japan. This session will be led by Lauren Grusenmeyer and Ann De Keersmaecker.
Artists talks by Bianca Baldi and Sarah van Lamsweerde, who will respond to the notion of Performing Objects within their practice. Performing Objects experiments with objects and their possibilities to act as an interactive performer towards its users or audience.
The video installations of Bianca Baldi bring to the fore overlooked narrative strands and the hidden structures of power. In her work, through the focus on specific cultural or sociological artefacts, historical plots reveal complex webs of political, economic and cultural influences.
Sarah van Lamsweerde works across theater and visual arts, exploring the range between (unfamiliar) languages and mass media phenomena to rethink presence and perception within the experience of art.
Jean Katambayi (b. 1974, lives and works in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo) has been obsessively studying the energy flows that govern our world, both physical and spiritual. His pieces and drawings are like studies that reveal the imbalanced nature of the world and the forces within it. Open on appointment.
"Without its Eurocentric distortions, decolonization would be at the center of the narrative we tell about the twentieth century - and this retelling would allow us to see that global capitalism today is most fundamentally shaped by the struggle for independence." from 'Empire of Cotton, A Global History' by Sven Beckert.
Take a seat at the LUNÄ table for a discussion about social, political, and ecological (in)dependence. Material aspects are also relevant: especially in relation to cotton, they form a constant theme throughout colonial history and the power structures that dominate today’s world.
Invited contributors: Prof. Sven Beckert (historian, Harvard University, US), Prof. Peter Pels (anthropologist, Leiden University, NL), Christine Chivallon (anthropologist, CNRS, Bordeaux, FR), Helen Elands (art historian, independent researcher, London, UK), Marjolijn Dijkman (artist and initiator of LUNÄ Talks), Maarten Vanden Eynde (artist and co-host) and Alioum Moussa (artist and co-host).
Last summer 2016, the Belgian Maarten Vanden Eynde and the Cameroonian Alioum Moussa have been building a two-part mobile structure, of which one side is the other’s opposite yet the structures depend upon one another to stay in balance. During Performatik17, they located at La Place de la Monnaie / Muntplein in Brussels every day with their mobile house. You are invited to visit them in pairs for a discussion about what dependence and independence mean to you – at a personal, political and artistic level. The project will be translated into a growing photo exhibition at Kaaitheater.Follow on instagram and twitter: #IN_DEPENDENCE17 / @IN_DEPENDENCE17
The launch will be accompanied by a presentation with images of the process of 'End To End / Raversijde', a film screening of 'Semiophores' by Pauline M'barek and a performative intervention ‘Physical experiments at the supermarket #4’ by Edwin Deen at the night shop in the centre of Drogenbos explores and shows the ‘hidden nature’ of seemingly unnatural/artificial, human made things. M’barek’s work operates in the transitional space between knowledge and perception, the observer and the observed, the shown and the hidden.
For the project End To End the experimental group Performing Objects is inspired by Lean Management, a form of factory management developed by Toyota in Japan. 'End to End' is a working method which structures a collective process within which objects are constantly being transformed. Variations of the project 'End To End' have so far been on display in China (2015) and Madagascar (2016) and in Belgium (2016).
LUNÄ is a copy of the original table of the Lunar Society, an 18th-century group of British industrialists, scientists, poets, and writers. They used to hold inspiring meetings – mostly during full moon – to explore the ways in which science, technology, and art could serve society. A newly produced facsimile of the original table has been produced in China for the 11th Shanghai Biennial. A series of five LUNÄ Talks are organised every full moon during the period of the biennial and are hosted by Chinese curator Liu Tian.
Triangular Trade investigates the influence of transport and trade of pivotal materials like rubber, oil, ivory, copper, cotton and uranium, but also people, on exponential economic growth, the creation of nations and other power structures. The project traces back the origin of the different materials and follows their (r)evolutionary path as they are processed and transformed into 'world changing wonders'.
Artists talks with Pauline M'barek and Edwin Deen who will introduce their work in relation to 'Performing Objects'.
Pauline M’barek not only draws on sensory perceptions—such as sight, touch, and hearing—but also on the medium through which an assumed reality is manifested or shown: the frame of an image, the pedestal for an exhibited object, the supporting framework of a construction.
Edwin Deen is interested in physical and cultural processes and the use of everyday objects and base materials. ‘Physical Experiments Live’ is a continuous performance series through which he explores and shows the ‘hidden nature’ of seemingly unnatural/artificial, human made things.
One time Screening of The Unity of All Things / 物之合 , by Alexander Carver and Daniel Schmidt, 2013 | 97 min. at La Loge for 'Present Club'. Proposed by members part of the experimental research project Uncertainty Scenarios.
The Unity of All Things is a work of experimental science fiction about the construction of a particle accelerator on the U.S./Mexico border, and is grappling with questions of self and other by employing particle physics as a metaphor for the morphing nature of human identity. The film engages the utopian impulses of the genre, not through the imagining of another world, but through the rendering of this world as Other. All subjects are treated as alien, or as radical others, who search for, or advance different ideological, psychological, or sexual ideals of belonging. Subjects oscillate between the contemplation of past societal traumas and idealisations of futurity that refuse to synthesise or resolve, but instead reveal a troubling satire of the present.
Old traditions don’t seem to work anymore while new ones haven’t yet established. The pertaining state of uncertainty becomes uncomfortable. Rapid advancement of formal acceptance of otherness causes alienation and a renaissance of nostalgia. Black swans, elephants, jellyfish, (white) ravens, etc. are used not only as the metaphors to highlight possible emerging issues, but as alter-egos for the protection of otherness. They represent the internalised and externalised challenges and potentials that keep futures rich.
Fusing futures, aesthetics and critique, Agence Future and Avenir Institute invite you to participate in an experience of creating the (un)familiar Other, that speaks of reality and ways of writing yesterday, today and multiple tomorrows.
The amount of spaces are very limited, please make sure to RSVP asap.
The title of this lecture is a simple, direct statement introducing a set of questions connected to the notion of liquidity, as a means to explore what we can understand as material uncertainties. Paying special attention to the realm of water, and more specifically to this of the ocean, 'Water Finds its Own Level' takes interest in researching the idea of what it means to jointly conceive ‘liveable ecologies’ in the wake of the Anthropocene and within advanced-capitalist societies; the politics of location in coming to grips with inter-agentivity, intersectionality and multi-species thinking and becoming with other modes of being in the world. Coinciding with the lecture we will present a film and sound installation by David Ferrando Giraut.
Bie Michels will present results of her working period in Madagascar last summer for the ongoing project ‘Bricks in Madagascar’ and Anja Veirman will introduce ritual textiles from Mali. Anja Veirman is an art historian with a special interest in art and divination.
Performing Objects experiments with objects and their possibilities to act as an interactive performer towards its users or audience. This project researches different ways artists can anticipate this process during the conceptualisation and the conception of their work. The artworks made for this project will possibly manifest themselves in different locations outside the regular arts contexts.
(Start 14:00h.)
KASK lecture in Ghent, BE. Introduction to Enough Room for Space by Maarten Vanden Eynde. This KASK Lecture takes place on Thursday 1 December in the anatomical auditorium of the Cloquet building on the Bijloke campus, and is open to a wide audience. It is free of charge.
On the 27th of November we hosted Uncertainty Scenarios - Session #3 at the ERforS, a gathering of people related to the project Uncertainty Scenarios with a contribution by John Ryan Brubaker, Sol Archer, Sofia Lemos & Elias Heuninck, and Maxime Bondu.
Uncertainty Scenarios is a collective experimental research project that explores the ways people throughout history have tried to speculate, predict and anticipate the future and different attitudes that go along with this. The project creates a common ground for a group of artists that all share interest in the concerns of the project and aims to establish a context for the development of new works.
Theo Atrokpo from Benin will give a performance lecture where he will give insight into the world of Vodun with an introduction into its rituals, charms and performative objects. During this intimate evening event, Theo Atrokpo will present the objects used and worn at Vodun ceremonies like raffia, beads, sceptres, bells or the apklè. He will also present some medical magic ingredients like atakun, which has medicinal and esoteric virtues: its chewed seeds will incite the spoken words. Besides this he will introduce some incantations and Vodun chants.
(Due to limited seats available please reserve before the 20th of November)
Maxime Bondu his practice involves speculation based on confirmed data in the present, past or anticipated in the future. Made of reconstructions and simulacra, Bondu's work is an invitation to grasp this element of relentless uncertainty, which is part and parcel of our reality. During his stay Maxime will be working on a new project in progress in collaboration with Simon Ripoll-Hurier.
For the project End To End the experimental group Performing Objects is inspired by Lean Management, a form of factory management developed by Toyota in Japan. For the continuation of the project during the exhibition 'Private Tag' some members of the group will develop an installation as an artistic interpretation of an assembly line where systems of interaction between man and things will be investigated.
Objects will be transformed and manipulated during performative acts, outlined in a score that leaves space to free interpretation, reflecting both on factory work and on the creative process of the artist. During the performance the group-members are constantly searching for a harmony between efficiency, planning, improvisation and reflection. Through the techniques of Lean Management, they try to give structure to their performance in which they have to collaborate and handle objects and vice versa.
fluent invited 'Uncertainty Scenarios' to contribute to 'Techniques to make you doubt', a two-day seminar that aims to create a collective experiment that investigates ways through which humans have tried to speculate, predict and anticipate the future, as well as its potential relationships with socio-political and ecological current issues. Collectively we will reflect on methodologies used to predict the future, strategic thinking, planning and risk management, divination and spiritual forecasts in relation to cultural management and current curatorial and artistic practices.
Contributors: Sonia Fernández Pan, Sabel Gavaldon, Hanna Laura Kaljo, João Laia, Fran Meana, Enough Room for Space, Borbala Soos, Jochen Volz and Benjamin Weil.
Elixir harvests heritage fruits and transforms this resource during public events into all sorts of products which will be used for upcoming events of Enough Room for Space. Felix De Boeck, an early modernist Belgian painter, made his living from this orchard, as a result he was working independently as an artist without the pressure to sell his works. The public orchard surrounding the Felix Art museum (5 HA) consists of many different sorts of fruit and nut trees and other edible plants. The orchard is maintained by the Province but it's resources are scarcely used; most of it becomes fallen fruit. The public orchard of Felix Art Museum located around the corner of the Enough Room for Space HQ.
During this residency period, Maarten Vanden Eynde (BE) and Alioum Moussa (CM) are building a two-part mobile structure, of which one side is the other’s opposite, yet the structures depend upon one another to stay in balance. During Performatik17, they will visit a different location in Brussels every day with their mobile house. You are invited to visit them in pairs for a discussion about what dependence and independence mean to you – at a personal, political and artistic level. The project will be translated into a growing photo exhibition at Kaaitheater. Moussa and Vanden Eynde originally created the project for SUD2010, the triennial art event in Douala (Cameroon), whose starting point was the 50th anniversary of independence being marked by 17 African countries.
A full day workshop activating 'End to End', a performance developed by the group Performing Objects and inspired by Lean Management, kicked off Bie Michels' residency and participatory project in Madagascar. The seven participating artists from Madagascar worked mostly on little transformations of the collected objects by improvisation.
The second LUNÄ Talk in Drenthe this year takes place at ASTRON. On the table lies the question of how science, philosophy and religion relate to each other, focusing on topics such as ‘deep evolution’, the (re)writing of history and speculative future developments in astronomy, SETI research, anthropology, philosophy and religion. Among the guests: Professor Michael Garrett, Professor Anthropology Peter Pels, visual artist Daniela de Paulis, philosopher of religion and theologian Taede A. Smedes, artist Marjolijn Dijkman.
In Madagascar, the ancient process of making bricks is still omnipresent. The small portable brick, one of the oldest objects (+/- 5000 years old) is very interesting as a starting point for her research. It’s an object that becomes part of a building and therefore part of an environment. Exactly fitting into the human hand, it is the bearer of human scale and intimacy. Bie Michels will take on the dialogue and immerse herself in local situations and let events/actors co-determine the choices she will make, to achieve a multimedia art installation. The first workshop to develop this project will be based on the performance ‘End to End’ that she developed with ‘Performing Objects’.
July 2016: Bie Michels will travel to Madagascar to further develop this workhop on site in collaboration with CRAAM (centre de ressources des arts actuels de Madagascar).
The installation is part of Transgression/Transition: an exploration of the Senne and its surroundings, an ongoing research project by Paoletta Holst on the Belgian Senne river. The project started in April 2015 and has known several moments of exploration and presentation since. These photographs represent the Senne and its surroundings in the colors of the regional area destinations as defined by the Belgian regional spatial planning institutions.
During this session we will rework and rethink the performance score End To End developed for Assembly Line projects in Shanghai for possible continuation of the project. For the project End To End the experimental group Performing Objects is inspired by Lean Management, a form of factory management developed by Toyota in Japan. They learned about Lean Management during a workshop in the Central Recycle Plant in Antwerp.
We’re very pleased to announce that Enough Room for Space is involved as one of the advisors for the first theme of Prophecies by the Art Department: Phase 1 of Node Center in Berlin. The advisors for this project are Etzel Cardeña, Marjolijn Dijkman (Enough Room for Space) and Rasheedah Phillips. They will be meeting together to guide the general direction of Prophecies by lending their expertise to brainstorm ideas, review the open call and share recommendations for potential topics that could be covered within the theme of Prophecies. In this project Node Center will explore how artistic approaches to predictions of the future have shaped us today. Here, they’re looking at art in a broad sense, crossing science fiction, popular culture, film and music as well as, of course, visual art.
This LUNÄ Talk discusses current research topics in astronomy, geology and archaeology and the imagination of these fields in the arts. Among the guests include curator of Zone2Source Alice Smits, astronomer Roy Smits from ASTRON / Camras, curator archaeology Jaap Beuker from the Drents Museum, artist Maarten Vanden Eynde, physical geographer Enno Bregman (Province Drenthe & Utrecht University) and artist / initiator Marjolijn Dijkman.
This LUNÄ Talk discusses different approaches towards and interpretations of the theme of Inhabiting Time and is initiated in collaboration with Ecole Mondiale. All guests will be seated at a replica of the oval table which was used by the Lunar Society in Birmingham (1765-1813), a society of scholars, amateur scientists, poets, industrialists and artists. They were inspiring meetings on how science, technology and art could serve society, social change included.
Annette Schemmel provides a highly illuminating case study of the major actors, discourses and paradigm that shaped the history of visual arts in Cameroon during the second part of the 20th century. Her book meticulously reconstructs the multiple ways of artistic knowledge acquisition - from the consolidation of the "Système de Grands Frères" in the 1970s to the emergence of more discursively oriented small artists’ initiatives which responded to the growing NGO market of social practice art opportunities in the 2000s. Based on archival research, participant observation and in depth interviews with art practitioners in Douala and Yaoundé, this study is a must read for everyone who wants to better understand the vibrant artistic scenes in countries like Cameroon, which until today lack a proper state-funded infrastructure in the arts.
Research period for Triangular Trade by Marjolijn Dijkman and Maarten Vanden Eynde in New Mexico and Arizona to look for remnants of the coinciding Space Age, Atomic Age and Computer Age.
Triangular Trade investigates the influence of transport and trade of pivotal materials like rubber, oil, ivory, copper, diamonds, gold, cotton and uranium, but also people, on exponential economic growth, the creation of nations and other power structures. The project traces back the origin of the different materials and follows their (r)evolutionary paths as they are processed and transformed into 'world changing wonders'.
Report by Maarten Vanden Eynde of a research trip for the development of the project Triangular Trade. For centuries, goods and people, for a long time considered as commodities as well, have been shipped around the world. Triangular Trade focuses on the trade between Africa, Europe and America, i.e. the North Atlantic trade route. For this initial research phase the triangle was narrowed down to the Kingdom of Kongo (representing Africa), New Orleans – and the Southern States (representing America), and Belgium (representing Europe). In the search for traces of African culture in the Southern States has is looking at material remains and influences.
To continue to explore links and connections with other international research groups, 'Performing Objects' will meet with the members of 'The Disembodied Voice' from London who will come over for 4 days to Brussels. Through critical engagement, discursive processes and production 'The Disembodied Voice' set out to investigate the relationship between the disembodied voice and contemporary visual culture.
Alioum Moussa (based in Yaounde, CM) and Maarten Vanden Eynde (BE) will continue to work on their collaborative project In_Dependance for the upcoming Performatik Biennial in Brussels initiated by Kaaitheater. The project started in 2010 and took the 50th anniversary of the independence of 17 African countries as a starting point, the project’s aim is to inspire dialogues about a variety of notions of independence, be they individual, political or artistic.
Maxime Bondu his practice involves speculation based on confirmed data in the present, past or anticipated in the future. Made of reconstructions and simulacra, Bondu's work is an invitation to grasp this element of relentless uncertainty, which is part and parcel of our reality.
Artist Talk by choreographer Camilla Monga amongst others on her piece Quartetto per oggetti, a choreography using objects as choreographic tools. Monga uses common objects that removed from their daily context, become the basic tool to define a range of physical possibilities. Their functions determine patterns whose directional components are unpredictable, but serve as the basis for expansion and variation of rhythm.
Uncertainty Scenarios - Session #2 hosted an informal presentation of Maya van Leemput introducing the work of Agence Future (AF). The goal of AF is to support foresight and futures exploration in Flanders, Belgium, Europe and the world and to involve a diverse public in foresight activities. AF pursues projects, activities, research, events, communication, education, creation, production, experiment and publication on the subject of (images of the) futures.
During its two day participation in the biennial Performing Objects will organise a one - day intimate workshop and a one day public performance. For their workshop in Oslo they invite 8 artists, curators, art students and others with an interest in 'objects and their possibilities to act' to take part.
A visit to the studio of Dimitri Vangrunderbeek where he will give some insight into his relation to the studio and his way of working where normal objects - such as chairs and lamps - and spaces acquire a completely new meaning. Afterwards an artist talk by Ermias Kifleyesus who will elaborate on his use of telephone booths in Brussels and in other places in the world as part of his artistic process.
Performing Objects will participate in the exhibition Prototypes, Duplicates and Cast-offs of Assembly Line Project Studio (ALPS), a mobile art platform focusing on themes of industrial production, urbanization, globalization and migration. For the project End To End the group is inspired by Lean Management, a form of factory management developed by Toyota in Japan. Some members of the group will make and perform an installation as an artistic interpretation of an assembly line where systems of interaction between man and things will be investigated and the group-members are constantly searching for a harmony between efficiency, planning, improvisation and reflection.
Pedagogic exchanges amongst profiled visual artists and academic teachers are in the focus of this second colloquium in Yaoundé. The invited experts will critically assess pedagogic attitudes by means of lectures, film screenings and discussions and thus contribute to a skill enhancement of the participating art teachers, artists, art historians and art critics.
Detour Zenne is a walking tour through Drogenbos and adjacent communities that will try to follow the course of the Senne in search for its surrounding histories and spatial realities. Be prepared for a firm and adventurous 10 km walk along different sites and insights, stories and storytellers ending at ELIXIR the yearly harvest feast of Enough Room for Space.
Our yearly harvest feast in the public orchard of Felix Art Museum located around the corner of ERforS HQ from 15:00 - 22:00h. We'll be making apple & pear liquor and juices and bake bread & pizzas in the old bakehouse of Felix De Boeck.
> Cancelled due to bad weather, we'll meet at ERforS HQ, still welcome!
This LUNÄ Talk discusses the question of how science and fiction relate to each other, focusing on topics such as immortality, robotics, extraterrestrial life and the imagination of these themes in the arts. On this special full moon evening after a Super Blood Moon Eclipse, all the guests will be seated at LUNÄ, a replica of the oval table which was used by the Lunar Society in Birmingham in the 18th century. With: Anke Bangma, Dirk van Delft, Marjolijn Dijkman, George van Hal, Jaap van de Herik, Maarten Lamers, Peter Pels, Dorien Zandbergen.
Performing Objects experiments with objects and their possibilities to act as an interactive performer towards its users or audience. This exhibition is a dialogue between the artists who are regularly involved in the project Performing Objects and guest artists we have invited in relation to our interests. The exhibition will present video works, installations, sculptural works and there will be performances happening during the three days. The exhibition will take place at the head quarters of Enough Room for Space (including its project space, the guests accommodation, the studios) and expand outside in the surrounding public space.
With: Céline Butaye, Alice De Mont, Marjolijn Dijkman, gerlach en koop, Toril Johannessen, Frank Koolen, Nicolás Lamas, Bie Michels, Anouchka Oler, Odilon Pain, Anne Marie Sampaio, Bas Schevers, Alina Tenser, Nico Van Dijck, Kristof Van Gestel, Dimitri Vangrunderbeek, Herman Van Ingelgem, Lorelinde Verhees.
Transgression/Transition, an exploration of the Senne and its surroundings is a walk along the 103 km long course of the Belgian Senne river that has its source is in Soignies (Wallonia) and flows at Heffen (Flanders) into the river of the Dijle to finally reach the Schelde and the North Sea. The Senne flows through the three Belgian regions -Wallonia, Brussels Capital Region and Flanders- and passes the city of Brussels and some thirty villages. The river has no existing trail that follows its course. At certain points it flows underground or along private property.
Talk with Marjolijn Dijkman and Mark von Schlegell (writer and critic, Cologne). Followed by a music set compiled by Marjolijn Dijkman and Amelie Bouvier from the Uncertainty Scenarios Playlist. This playlist is a growing compilation of great songs from different periods of time relating to the future, ranging from deeply pessimistic to highly optimistic.
Video recording of the talk by Michiel Huijben. From the verticality of the body as resembled in Greek columns, to people eating and dating walls and other built structures, this talk proposes that buildings share more similarities with us (and vice versa) than we are usually inclined to think.
This collective working period will develop new ideas for our upcoming participation in the exhibition 'Liu Shui Xian' (Assembly Line) in Shanghai. We will use objects from the central recycling plant in Antwerp and learn more about the process of recycling and the management of the goods and employees at the plant which are inspired by Lean manufacturing.
Presentation and discussion of Jean Katambayi's work 'Trotation', a Utopian but very tangible attempt to introduce global equality by implementing a third spin to the earths rotation, which has just been bought by the Friends of the M HKA museum in Antwerp. He will also bring his enchanting sketchbook and talk about his preoccupation with the energy flows of the world and our future with in.
These LUNÄ talks are developed by Marjolijn Dijkman in collaboration with fig-2. LUNÄ is based on the Lunar Society of Birmingham, which was formed from a group of amateur experimenters, tradesmen and artisans who met and made friends in the Midlands in the 1760s. At fig-2, LUNÄ will specifically focus on the notion of the future investigating modes in which the idea of future is seeded in our society today.
With: Ramon Amaro, Rebecca Bligh, Stephen Boyd Davis, Owen Cotton-Barrat, Caroline Edwards, Mark Fisher, Jay Griffiths, Cathy Haynes, Ken Hollings, Magda Osman, Emily Penn, Mary Margaret Rinebold, Philip Sheldrake, Murray Shanahan, Maarten Speekenbrink, Jamie Ward and many others.
Introduction to 'A New Chart of History' made by Lunar Man Joseph Priestly in 1765 and 1769, who developed one of the first linear timelines of history as we now commonly know. At the LUNÄ Talks in London in fig-2, Stephen introduced some of the interpretations by Joseph Priestley in relation to the session 'Time and Progress'.
From the verticality of the body as resembled in Greek columns, to people eating and dating walls and other built structures, this talk will propose that buildings share more similarities with us (and vice versa) than we are usually inclined to think.
On the 1st of May we celebrate our 10 year anniversary!
Thanks to everybody who has been involved in our projects and events over the last ten years and all those who have supported and followed us.
For The Fair Deal, ERforS has established a partnership with Galeri NON from Istanbul and the artists Goldin + Senneby. During the fair, the work M&A is introduced, but it will only be activated when sold. If that happens, a certain percentage of the revenue is used to speculate on the stock market using a “Merger Prediction Strategy”, specially developed for this project by a New York-based investment banker to identify early signs of mergers and acquisitions. Simultaneously, and by means of the generated profit an actor is hired to rehearse a scripted speculative scene relating to the “Merger Prediction Strategy”. The rehearsals will continue as long as the trading budget lasts.
This third workshop will experiment with scores proposed by the involved artists and develop new ideas for our upcoming participation in the exhibition 'Liu Shui Xian' at Fei Contemporary Art Center in Shanghai in the end of October 2015.
During this first public event of Uncertainty Scenarios, the involved artists will introduce existing and works in progress. The evening will contain a series of presentations by the artists alongside a temporary installation in the exhibition space.
Participants: Maxime Bondu, Amélie Bouvier, Marjolijn Dijkman, Myriam Mihindou and Maarten Vanden Eynde
Heike Langsdorf will guide the second performance workshop part of Performing Objects. The workshop will explore experimental performance relating to the assembled objects by the participating artists.
This workshop is part of a day devoted to the workings of memory and to the way artists make memory tangible and evident once again. With workshops, inspiring lectures, passionate debates, an expo and performances.
Bas Schevers will be exhibiting parts of his current research on the corner as an object. This exhibition will include a video work in process of a performance with a corner, instructions for the audience to interact with the empty corners in the exhibition space as well as a video interview with Wouter Davidts on corner solutions in architecture.
After our collective reading sessions part of Performing Objects, philosopher drs. Jan-Jasper Persijn from the University of Ghent will frame and introduce current thoughts around Object-Oriented Philosophy in relation to the philosophy of Kant.
Recorded in the central recycling plant in Antwerp, 'TRACINGS, Analogies and Dissonances', focuses on the interaction between men and objects and compiles answers to questions like: ‘Does an object have a soul?’, ‘Does it live?’ and ‘What about its concept?’
Online: The Uncertainty Scenarios Playlist, a growing compilation of songs relating to the future, part of the Uncertainty Scenarios Survey
Uncertainty Scenarios is a collective experimental research project that will explore the ways people throughout history have tried to speculate, predict and anticipate the future and different attitudes that go along with this.
Initiated by: Marjolijn Dijkman and Amélie Bouvier
Paulo Guerreiro will guide the first workhop relating to Performing Objects at PAF in France. We will experiment with performance exercises and instructions specially developed by Paolo in relation to Performing Objects.
Interview by Sam Steverlynck with Marjolijn Dijkman and Maarten Vanden Eynde about Enough Room for Space and their motivations for it's founding ten years ago. (Dutch)
To explore international links and connections with other Vision Forum groups Karin Kihlberg and Reuben Henry came over from London to meet up with the Performing Objects group. Karin and Reuben introduced their project The Disembodied Voice and we participated in Hotel Charleroi 2014.
Pedagogic exchanges amongst profiled visual artists and academic teachers are in the focus of the colloquium in Yaoundé. The invited experts will critically assess pedagogic attitudes by means of lectures, film screenings and discussions and thus contribute to a skill enhancement of the participating art teachers, artists, art historians and art critics.
Enough Room for Space will be part of a symposium about sustainable forms of artist initiatives, organised by BAM at De Markten in Brussels.
As part of ELIXIR we're now trying to produce apple cider with fallen fruit of the public orchard surrounding the FeliXart museum (located around the corner of ERforS HQ). Elixir will harvest some of these fruits and transform this resource during public events into all sorts of products which will be used for upcoming events of Enough Room for Space.
The annual Vision Forum Autumn meeting will focus on how to formulate problematics and how this process is similar and different in the arts and sciences.
Dunja Herzog and Anouchka Oler will present recent works and respond to the notion of 'Performing Objects' within their practice. Besides they will discuss and introduce some theoretical texts that have been influencial for their practices in relation to their use and appropriation of objects.
Harvesting in the public orchard of Felixart Museum located around the corner of ERforS HQ from 13:00 - 23:00h. We'll be making apple cider, pear liquor, compote & confiture, bake bread & make pizza's in the bakehouse. Please feel free to join! Kuikenstraat 6, Drogenbos, behind the FelixArt Museum.
Sarah Vanhee's artistic practice is linked to performance, visual art and literature. It uses different formats and is often (re)created in situ. In this artist talk she will relate to the idea of 'Performing Objects' within her practice.
Anne Szefer Karlsen is in residency in Brussels to visit and meet Belgium based artists and work on her research for 'IN THE SHADOW OF OIL – What does the oil economy do to contemporary art?' Read the finalised text here.
At ERforS HQ the Cameroonian artist Salifou Lindou will present new work realized during his 3 week residency at Frans Masereel Centrum. Salifou Lindou's interest for printmaking emerged in 2011 in Den Haag, when working with Christian Hanussek on the joined project "JAMAN" for Diartgonale Special Edition #1, which was published by Enough Room for Space. Lindou plans to open a print-workshop in Cameroon upon his return.
On the 2nd of May we set out a possible future for the collaborative research project Performing Objects using the MAP-IT tool developed by Liesbeth Huybrechts.
Since our inauguration we are starting to welcome different kinds of groups to our HQ on a more regular basis. The friends of the S.M.A.K. made one of such group visits this week. So far we have hosted international art students, curators, collectors and art lovers.
Interested to visit us? Feel free to make an appointment.
Vision Forum spring meeting will focus on how creators can nurture human and inter-human qualities in the face of the (disintegrating?) welfare state. The participants will reflect on questions about how technology and human mobility has changed ideas of wealth distribution, solidarity and discuss if there are new ways deal with/counteract or resolve these questions.
Enough Room for Space proudly announces its new special edition of DiARTgonale entitled "ECHOES". To celebrate this launch, Mutant Matters at Savvy Contemporary (Berlin) will host a discussion about the accessibility of knowledge resources and public archives for contemporary artists working outside of Europe.
With contributions by: Lorenzo Sandoval, Luis Berrios-Negron, Annette Schemmel and Bathilde Maestracci.
The new headquarters of Enough Room for Space in Brussels are being inaugurated with an exhibition of artwork by Cameroonian authors. Their films, videos, photo series and installations are reflecting political issues that mark everyday life in Cameroon and artists' experiences upon leaving this country.
Works by: Jean-Pierre Bekolo, LucFosther Diop, Beate Engl & Justine Gaga, Salifou Lindou, Maarten Vanden Eynde & Alioum Moussa, Patrick Wokmeni
WIELS is kindly hosting one of the launches of ECHOES_DiARTgonale Special Edition #2. By discussing a selection of art works made in Douala, Cameroon, art historian and curator Annette Schemmel will sketch out the complex networks of references used by informally taught artists in this context. Her lecture is entitled "Sharing Knowledge. A Perspective on Contemporary Art made in Cameroon.
Like the first issue, the new magazine ECHOES_DiARTgonale Special Edition #2 seeks to extend access to relevant archives, books and education in Cameroon. As part of its efforts to inform European audiences of the conditions of artistic production in African contexts, SMBA is hosting a round-table discussion with select experts.
Talks and discussion: moderated by Lucy Cotter with Annette Schemmel, Bassam El Baroni, Pauline Burmann
LUNÄ is now located at the head quarter of Enough Room for Space and will be used for upcoming projects at the ERforS HQ as a regular meeting and dinner table.
Performing Objects will explore objects and their possibilities to act as an interactive performer towards its users or audience. Performing Objects will research different ways artists can anticipate this process during the conceptualisation and the conception of their work.
Initiated by: Marjolijn Dijkman and Kristof Van Gestel
The Salon Urbain de Douala is a primordial gathering of artists and cultural producers on the African continent which takes place every three years. At this festive occasion, Annette Schemmel will introduce the brand new issue ECHOES, Enough Room for Space’s new special edition of the artist magazine DiARTgonale, besides reflecting on the larger framewort of the ongoing project Present Perfect.
The second DiARTgonale Special Edition deals with ECHOES: a famous novel, an idiosyncratic image bank, a sound archive and historical statements reverberate in the contributions. Artists, writers and passionate amateurs of both continents have engaged with each other in the production of intriguing artworks, interviews, surveys and stories.
Harvesting in the public orchard of Felixart Museum located around the corner of ERforS HQ from 13:00 - 23:00h. We'll be making apple / pear liquor, compote, bake bread & make pizza's in the bakehouse.
Please feel free to join! Kuikenstraat 6, Drogenbos, behind the FelixArt Museum.
We are editing the upcoming magazine ECHOES DiARTgonale Special Edition #2. Editors Annette Schemmel, Marjolijn Dijkman, Amélie Bouvier and Bathilde Maestracci are meeting with the translators, with the artists Vincent Meessen and Patrick Wokmeni and with the designer Indre Klimaite to finalize the upcoming magazine.
Thanks to the great additional help of Case Miller, the Case Miller Room and the Balder Room are ready to host guests. The Balder Room is named after the brand of the former owner of the building who made delicious liquors and has been an inspiration to initiate ELIXIR.
The magazine “JAMAN” (Bamum for “German”) spotlights encounters between Cameroon and the “West” during more than a hundred years. The art works, the poetic and scientific texts and the cartoons that have been specially produced for this issue challenge cherished notions of cultural authenticity. „JAMAN“ is the fist of a series of special editions published by the European art organisation Enough Room for Space in collaboration with the Cameroonian artist journal DiARTgonale.
JAMAN is the fist of a series of special editions by Enough Room for Space in collaboration with the Cameroonian artist journal DiARTgonale. In Bayreuth, Christian Hanussek and co-editor Annette Schemmel will introduce JAMAN and the other contributions to the edition, which span the years between 1905 and 2025 and deal with further incidents of exchange, appropriation and hybridisation.
JAMAN is the fist of a series of special editions by Enough Room for Space in collaboration with the Cameroonian artist journal DiARTgonale. This issue lends its title from an art project that explores encounters between Cameroon and the “West” during more than a hundred years. The art works, the poetic and scientific texts and the cartoons that have been specially produced for this issue challenge cherished notions of cultural authenticity.
The Museum of Forgotten History houses the remnants of a possible future past. The artefacts that together form the collection for this semi-fictional institution are the pieces of a puzzle being used here for providing interpretations of the period we know as late capitalism. Viewed from the perspective of civilization at an ambiguous point in the future, The Museum of Forgotten History aspires to fill the missing links that occur due to the constant evolution of history.
Compiled by Maarten Vanden Eynde (ERforS) and Nav Haq (MuHKA)
With: Joachim Bandau, Luis F. Benedit, Guillaume Bijl, Sjoerd Buisman, James Lee Byars, Leo Copers, Tony Cragg, Thierry De Cordier, Luc Deleu, Jimmie Durham, Jan Fabre, Michel François, Fortuyn/ O’Brien, Ann Veronica Janssens, Anish Kapoor, Jiří Hynek Kocman, John Körmeling, George Lilanga, Edward Lipski, Bernd Lohaus, Allan McCollum, Yerbossyn Meldibekov, David Nash, Panamarenko, Paul Perry & Jouke Kleerebezem, Hermann Pitz, Guy Rombouts, Patrick Van Caeckenbergh, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Ludwig Vandevelde, Paul Van Hoeydonck, Franz West and objects from the Vrielynck Collection
The two conceptual sculptors Justine Gaga (Douala) and Beate Engl (Munich) have started collaborating in the context of „Present Perfect“. Together they are developing a project called „Echo“ that deals with their respective working conditions as artists, with production and reception.
Together historian Richard Sheldon, economist Ove Jakobsen and curator Charles Esche will explore the roots of the capitalist way of thinking by discussing and researching Adam Smith and the way his ideas have influenced other thinkers. These lectures will be followed by a panel discussion.
In conversation: Univ.-Prof Dr. Erwin Fiala, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hohenester
Hosted by: Marjolijn Dijkman and Fatos Ustek
Part of: An Exhibition of a Study on Knowledge
As a backdrop to the different temporary projects, the new ERforS Headquarters in Belgium will provide a constant space for production, presentation and research.
An exhibition on contemporary archeology and our future history, curated with Maarten Vanden Eynde and Wout Hoogendijk.
With: Leonid Tsvetkov, Michael Johansson, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Kristina Benjocki, Anton Ginzburg, Louis de Cordier, Pascal Rostain en Bruno Mouron, Fleur Thio, Toine Klaassen, Frank Koolen en Edhv.
LUNÄ, a remake of a table that was originally used by 'the lunar society members', a 18th century enlightenment society that was influential during the industrial revolution, will be part of the exhibition 'The Great Cloud'. The table was a meeting point where the ideas for some of the most significant technological changes were formed. This 21st century version of the table will also function as a stage for talks and the developments of ideas and on top of the table works will be positioned by artists like Pamela Rosenkranz as well as by people working outside the art world.
While travelling throughout Cameroon in 2011 in preparation of various projects related to Present Perfect, the artist Beate Engl and curator Annette Schemmel will talk to art students about their different practices and about Present Perfect.
5 December 2011, 10 h, University of Yaoundé, Yaoundé: Presentations by Beate Engl and Annette Schemmel, hosted by lecturer Paul-Henri Assako Assako
8 December 2011, 10 h, Institut du Sahel (INSAH), Maroua: Presentations by Beate Engl and Annette Schemmel, hosted by lecturer Achille K Komguen
Marjolijn Dijkman, Beate Engl, Christian Hannusek and Annette Schemmel are travelling to Douala, to Maroua, to Yaoundé and to Foumban in order to advance their projects with Ruth Afane Belinga, Nicolas & Rose Eyidi, Justine Gaga, Achille K Komguem, Salifou Lindou, and Lionel Manga, amongst others.
Artist and art historian Ruth Afane Belinga and artist Salifou Lindou from Cameroon are staying in residence in The Hague. During their stay, they will re-think the Cameroonian artist journal DiARTgonale in collaboration with the artists Marjolijn Dijkman, Christian Hanussek and Maarten Vanden Eynde, the graphic designer Indre Klimaite and the curator Annette Schemmel.
20 September 2011: artist talks by Ruth Afane-Belinga and Salifou Lindou moderated by Annette Schemmel. 8 p.m. hosted by NEST, the Hague
Five years after the exchange project Georgia Here We Come! in 2006, Maarten Vanden Eynde and Marjolijn Dijkman are invited to return to Tbilisi and explore possibilities for new project with Enough Room for Space and GeoAIR in the future.
8 July 2011: artists talks at the Center of Contemporary Art, Tbilisi
This LUNÄ Talk is hosted by members of Time Capsules and Conditions of Now, a trans-disciplinary art project bringing together artists and curators who each also operate within a second field, such as a yoga teacher, writer and a practicing GP. The group invite the audience to participate in a series of playful engagements with time and presence. The event coincides with the full moon, in homage to the original Lunar Society.
Involved: Fatos Ustek, Lisa Skuret, Kaz, Jean Matthee, Ole Hagen, Vanda Playford, Soledad Garcia, Marjolijn Dijkman
This LUNÄ Talk at Spike Island is hosted by Marjolijn Dijkman and Helen Legg with Richard Sheldon who chairs a discussion around radical protest movements and the Enlightenment, and is joined by historian Malcolm Dick.
This interview with Goddy Leye (1965-2011) is one of his last statements about his visions regarding the Cameroonian art scene. It was published in March 2011 in French in the fourth issue of the Cameroonian culture journal "Mosaïques". In Autumn 2011 it was featured in English in African Arts, a journal published by MIT press.
The series of LUNÄ Talks involves a panel of speakers addressing various issues including education, medicine and science, urban design and regeneration and heritage and the role of art in contemporary society.
With: Steve Bell, Dr. Malcolm Dick, Tom Freshwater, Prof. Paul Wells, Felicity Allen, Nancy Evans, Colin Gale, Kate Iles, Clive Dutton, Tony Harvey, Ruth Reed, David Tittle, Dr. James H Andrew, Deirdre Kelly, Chris Ramsden, Prof. Rex Harris
Curator: Marialaura Ghidini
With: Ayo & Oni Oshodi, Benedict Drew Maarten Vanden Eynde Rosa Menkman, Steve Ounanian Maria Domenica Rapicavoli Damien Roach and Amanda Wasielewski Guest bloggers Steven Ball and Morgan Quaintance
LUNÄ, by Marjolijn Dijkman, is one of the results of the residency Please Excuse Our Appearance organised by Enough Room for Space and Ikon Gallery in 2007.
LUNÄ is a facsimile of the original table around which an influential group of industrialists, poets, inventors, doctors, writers, physicists, chemists and thinkers known as the Lunar Society met each month in Birmingham between 1765 and 1813. LUNÄ is used for an ongoing series of critical discussions updating topics that occupied the Lunar Men.
Taking the 50th anniversary of the independence of 17 African countries as a starting point, this project’s aim is to inspire dialogues about a variety of notions of independence, be they individual, political or artistic. The artists will distribute fifty pairs of black and white T-shirts to fifty pairs of participants to the triennale Salon Urbain de Douala, taking place in December 2010.
Annette Schemmel’s contribution to a dossier of Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Berlin on the anniversary of the independence of many African countries in 2010 is a curatorial reflection on the project Present Perfect. For this project, Cameroonian and European artists are jointly exploring notions of history and memory. The article is published in German.
During Alter Nature: We Can, Z33 shows Zoology of Genetology, one page or quire of a large publication about Genetology.
Introduction text: Martin Lo
With: Anish Kapoor, Tomás Saraceno, Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, Martijn Hendriks, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Jim Plaxco, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Pathfinder/Sojourner, Marjolijn Dijkman, Mungo Thomson, Rinus Van de Velde, Toril Johannessen, Dan Havel and Dean Ruck, Cornelia Parker, Damien Hirst, Georges Lemaître, Albert Einstein, Damián Ortega, Chaos theory, Alexandra Mir, Alicia Framis, Dennis Feddersen, Paul Ramirez Jonas, Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter, Piero Golia, The Death Star, Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, Higgs boson particle, Large Hadron Collider, SNOLAB, Kamioka Observatory, Andreas Gursky, Katie Paterson, Chu Yun, Neil Johnson
Smooth Structures explores the unexpected intersections between a new dark matter and dark energy hypothesis and its conceptual visualization mediated through art. The mathematician Martin Lo who discovered the Interplanetary Superhighway , a revolutionary model which changed space travel forever, is currently researching the “Brans’ Conjecture” theory with several other scientists. Lo invited Enough Room for Space to create an artistic response to such a hypothesis.
Scientists weave incredible stories, invent wild hypothesis and ask difficult questions about the meaning of life. They have insights into the workings of our bodies, minds and environment which challenge the myths we make about our identities and selves. They create visual images and models of things that are ethically and politically controversial. A great deal of contemporary art requires a similar facility for the making of unusual connections or unpredictable juxtapositions between disparate objects and concepts, a strong sense of paradox, irony, of humour or a way with manipulating the unexpected twists and turns of narrative.
With: Erick Beltrán, Marjolijn Dijkman, Martijn Hendriks, Toril Johannessen, Mungo Thomson, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Rinus Vande Velde
Stardust in a Nutshell presents a selection of art works made in Cameroon in the past years, by both Cameroonian and European artists. As contemporary artists they all address politically relevant topics and share a conceptual approach to their practice.
Involved artists: Stefaan Dheedene, Christian H anussek / Salifou Lindou, Dunja Herzog, Boris Nzébo, Maarten Vanden Eynde / Alioum Moussa, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Patrick Wokmeni, Hervé Yamguen
As part of the project Smooth Structures, this lecture by NASA mathematician Martin Lo sheds light on a new theory about dark matter and dark energy, followed by the screening of Werner Herzog’s experimental sci-fi film The Wild Blue Yonder, partly featuring authentic astronauts and scientists (including Martin Lo!).
Launch of the publication of CURATOR CURATOR, a series of exhibition projects by up coming curators in the presentation space of HISK in Ghent in Belgium in 2009 and 2009 initated by Enough Room for Space.
Fernand Baudin Award for Best Artist Book 2010
"Birmingham played a leading role as front runner for the Industrial Revolution, changing the world beyond recognition and paving the way for the largest population explosion in human history. In 2007 most of the manufacturing companies moved out off Birmingham to other parts of the world where labour is cheaper. Together with the companies the knowledge to manufacture things is disappearing. In two generations there will be hardly anyone left who has the ability to make something."
The artists Marjolijn Dijkman and Maarten Vanden Eynde and curator Annette Schemmel are exploring possibilities for future collaborations with Cameroonian artists and writers on site in Douala. After a long prelude of conversations in Europe, we are doing studio visits and are hosted by Douala’s art initiatives to screen and present artworks brought from Europe, which address the notions of memory, history and the future.
A publication edited and compiled by Lucia Babina and Zoe Gray as a result of Talking About! With amongst others: Never Swallow the Past, a contribution written by Annette Schemmel (ERforS) which meditates upon retellings of history in the light of the 50th anniversary of Cameroonian independence.
Introduction text: Alan Weisman
With: Shen Shaomin, Shen Shaomin, Joan Fontcuberta & Pere Formiguera, Brian Jungen, Mark Dion, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Theo Jansen, Damien Hirst, Savage, Charles Avery, Pascal Bernier, Hyungkoo Lee, Thomas Grunfeld, Bryan Crockett, Gyeongsang National University, Eduardo Kac, Hubert Duprat, Baby Mammoth discovered in Siberia in 2007, Cenotextricella simoni fossil spider, Jeroen Kuster, Betty Chu, Dr. Peter Witt, Ira Bartell, Alexis Rockman, Five cloned piglets (Noel, Angel, Star, Joy and Mary), Garnet Hertz, Froginator, The Peppered Moth, A bright-eyed cloned rhesus macaque female named Tetra, Martin Walde, Triops, Charles Darwin, Koen Vanmechelen, Jelte van Abbema, davidkremers, Panamarenko, Guillaume Bijl
World Wide Wonders is an exhibition that draws inspiration from the rich and fascinating museum collections of Ghent University, curated by Maarten Vanden Eynde and Guy Bovyn.
With: Stijn Cole, Koen De Decker, Tom De Smedt, Mariana Castillo Deball, Toril Johannessen, Irene Kopelman, Kianoosh Motallebi, Rinus Van de Velde, Maarten Vanden Eynde
Jens Maier-Rothe (DE) focuses on the notion of listening, which is part of his ongoing research into the various manifestations of sound within fine arts. Twelve artists will 'visualise' how sound is perceived in many different ways, on various censorial layers, and how everyone has a subjective notion of synchronicity.
With: Mike Carremans / Brandon LaBelle / Gent Clapping Group / Nate Harrison / Jeuno JE Kim / Raimundas Malašauskas / Joris van de Moortel / Tisha Mukarji / Sarah Pierce / Thus & Hence / Ultra-red / Katarina Zdjelar / plus Jean-Luc Godard, Len Lye and Norman McLaren
As part of the program Talking About!, Enough Room for Space initiates a discussion with a group artists and cultural producers working in the context of Central Africa and in specific in Cameroon.
Talking About! brought six artists and cultural producers from Cameroon to the Netherlands; Ruth Belinga (artist, curator, Yaoundé), Goddy Leye (artist, founder of artist initiative ArtBakery, Douala), Hervé Youmbi (artist, member of the collective Cercle Kapsiki, Douala), Achille K Komguen (artist, editor of the newspaper DiARTgonale, Yaoundé), Lionel Manga (writer, Douala), Achille Atina (cultural mediator, Douala).
Additionally, Enough Room for Space has invited Hervé Yamguen (artist, member of the collective Cercle Kapsiki, Douala), Emiliano Gandolfi (curator), Alexander Vollebregt (artist), Kaleb de Groot (artist), Meruro Washida (curator), David Maroto (artist) and Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson (artists) as discussion partners to Enough Room for Space.
Introduction text: Dieter Roelstraete
With: Edward Burtynsky, Charles Avery, Gordon Matta-Clark, Ai Weiwei, Joris Laarman, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Maya Lin, Rachel Whiteread, Leo Fabrizio, Panamarenko, Peter Fend – Ocean Earth, Amy McKenzie, Pierre Huyghe, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Rodinia, Four Framed Hardstone Panels, Jan Fabre, Wim Delvoye, Doris Salcedo, Nobuo Sekine, Walter De Maria, La Brea Tar Pits, Robert Smitson, Richard Long, Michael Heizer, Francis Alys (in collaboration with Rafael Ortega and Cuauhtémoc Medina), Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács, James Turell, Olafur Eliasson, Jeroen Jongeleen, Marjolijn Dijkman, Maasvlakte II
Why fight over fossils? Afghanistan, with Iran, mostly drains inward. Therein, one can catch fast-flow water energy with waterwheels, and can produce zero-emissions fuel by fermenting the huge amounts of waterplants that absorb the inflowing nutrients. Soldiers can set up "local energy production."
Landscaping unveils a world that could represent ours in the future. It is a collection of visions on the human made landscape, an overview of different pieces of the puzzle being part of the new geological layer we are currently placing over the world. What will remain of the present? What is our heritage for the future?
Participating artists: Edward Burtynsky, Fia Cielen, Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI), Peter Fend, Jeroen Jongeleen, Panamarenko, Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács, Maarten Vanden Eynde
Curated by: Enough Room for Space
The sixth Corrillos is hosted by Jonas Staal with presentations by Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum and Matthias Pauwels (BAVO).
The Spanish word Corrillos stands for an informal meeting of people who casually gather together and discuss whatever topic in a non-hierarchic way.
"The original idea for "Time-Challenger" was based on the idea of opening a space-time for a discussion of how artistic reconstruction has been operating today through diverse conceptual approaches and contextual references in relation to current image politics. Recently, there have been numerous exhibition projects addressing artistic re-enactments, remakes, reproductions, and reinterpretations… “Time-Challenger” takes into consideration the art historical and analytical framework of these projects while taking a different direction by connecting the discussion to Antonio Negri’s concept of the “reconstruction of hope.” "
With: Gökçen Cabadan, André Catalão, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Olof Dreijer, Felix Gmelin, Lauren von Gogh, Romeo Gongora, Susanne Kriemann, Makode Linde, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Rinus Van de Velde, Viron Vert and a video interview with Ulus Baker by Aras Özgün
The fifth Corrillos is hosted by Huib Haye van der Werf with presentations by Hans Venhuizen and Ester van de Wiel.
The Spanish word Corrillos stands for an informal meeting of people who casually gather together and discuss whatever topic in a non-hierarchic way.
a reaction to Dieter Roelstraete's The Way of the Shovel: On the Archeological Imaginary in Art /e-flux journal by Maarten Vanden Eynde
Two curators, Remco de Blaaij (NL) and Kamila Wielebska (PL), send in almost identical proposals and were invited to work together. With the river as a metaphor their exhibition will embark in a search for why things come together or why some things are separated and will never meet.
with: Æ - Ramon Hulspas and Erik Vermeulen, Erica Boom, Tamara Dees, Grzegorz Klaman, Joanna Malinowska, Tanja Muravskaja, Patrycja Orzechowska, Erno Rubik
Introduction text: Hans Theys
With: Toine Klaassen, Brian Jungen, Ira Bartell, Damien Hirst, Zatorski + Zatorski, Admiral and Minister Pedro of the selfproclaimed freestate Ladonia, Ai Weiwei, Niklaus Rüegg, Vija Celmins, Piero Golia, Allan McCollum, Pompeii, Mark Dion, Savage, Shi Jinsong, Marjolijn Dijkman, Ant Farm, Jim Reinders, Pascal Rostain & Bruno Mouron, Haim Steinbach, Patrick Nagatani, Tony Cragg, Andy Warhol, Biosphere II, Rachel Whiteread, Guillaume Bijl, Michael Sailstorfer, Maarten Vanden Eynde
The fourth Corrillos is hosted by Katarina Zdjelar with presentations by Ozlem Altin and Anke Bangma.
The Spanish word Corrillos stands for an informal meeting of people who casually gather together and discuss whatever topic in a non-hierarchic way.
The third Corrillos is hosted by Christien Meindertsma with presentations by Florentijn Hofman and Reineke Otten.
The Spanish word Corrillos stands for an informal meeting of people who casually gather together and discuss whatever topic in a non-hierarchic way.
Why am I me (myself)? Am I me (myself) in respect to others and to the codification of the world or vice versa? Perhaps in this time we need a bit of oblivion regarding the way we communicate and handle the real in order to be able to reflect on how we perceive and communicate it and on who we really are.
Lorenzo Bruni (IT) presents an ambitious group show with 18 artists, including Rirkrit Tiravanija, James Lee Byars, Peter Coffin, Bas Jan Ader, Dan Rees, Felix Gonzalez-Torresa and Jonathan Monk. No less than 29 works will be spread around the building in order to stimulate new consciousness of perception of space.
With interventions by: Jonathan Monk, Dan Rees, Peter Coffin, Koo Jeong-A, Rossella Biscotti, Simone Berti, José Dávila, Mario Airò, Nina Beier and Marie Lund, Nedko Solakov, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Mario Garcia Torres, Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio
Everything in the universe, and everything of man, would be registered at a distance as it was produced. In this way a moving image of the world will be established, a true mirror of his memory. From a distance, everyone will be able to read text, enlarged and limited to the desired subject, projected on an individual screen. In this way, everyone from his armchair will be able to contemplate creation, as a whole or in certain of its parts. - Paul Otlet (1934)
Formatting Utopia will explore the potentials and pitfalls of the internet and it's formats for knowledge organisation at the Mundaneum.
Speakers: Stephanie Manfroid (BE), De Geuzen (BE), Metahaven (NL), Sabine Niederer(NL), Joachim Schmid (DE)
The second Corrillos is hosted by Melle Smets with presentations of Liesbeth Koot and Jan Konings.
The Spanish word Corrillos stands for an informal meeting of people who casually gather together and discuss whatever topic in a non-hierarchic way.
Curator/artist Karolin Tampere (NO) worked intensively together with artist Egill Sæbjörnsson (IS), dissolving the presupposed roles of artist and curator. Their long dialogue and collaboration resulted in an installation in which two walls converse about the meaning of life, the universe and several strange objects in the room.
With: Karolin Tampere & Egill Sæbjörnsson
The first Corrillos is hosted by initiators Marjolijn Dijkman and David Maroto with presentations of Lara Almarcegui and Jan Jongert (2012 Architecten).
The Spanish word Corrillos stands for an informal meeting of people who casually gather together and discuss whatever topic in a non-hierarchic way.
Maarten Vanden Eynde and Marjolijn Dijkman will be travelling through China with main visits to Xiamen and Shanghai to explore a possible new project with Enough Room for Space hosted by CEAC in Xiamen.
Localisms focuses on the poetry in the street, the discovery of the (urban) landscape, unnoticed sounds, the investigative look, archives of image and sound, wanderlust and world travellers. The artists and designers participating in Localisms share a common interest in the singularities and peculiarities of specific locations. During the run of the exhibition new work is developed and new participants will add their observations.
With: Richard Wentworth, Marjolijn Dijkman Savage, Eric Van Hove, Melle Smets, Maurits Hertzberger, Frank Koolen, Sara Kolster, Derek Holzer, Marc Boon, Kristin Posehn, SoundTransit, Maarten Vanden Eynde and Julie Peeters.
The artists and designers participating in this workshop share a common interest in the singularities and peculiarities of specific locations. The workshop focuses on the area F-7, the only plot of land in the heart of Almere that hasn’t been rulerdrawn yet.
Participants: Richard Wentworth, Marjolijn Dijkman, Savage, Eric Van Hove, Melle Smets, Frank Koolen, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Julie Peeters
The core question of the event is "how is art, and cultural production more broadly, at once driving capitalist valorisation in the city and able to project forms of social relations that do not produce value for capital?"
Two days of workshops, discussions, walks, presentations, installations and screenings that articulate approaches and experiences around the contentious nexus of culture and urban regeneration in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, London, Glasgow and Barcelona.
Public presentation of the results of the residency period at LACE/Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, an independent, non-profit organization that supports, exhibits and advocates innovations in art-making. We will present our first impressions to the LA-public in a slideshow, a series of posters and a presentation of new works.
Involved: Anthony Auerbach, Marjolijn Dijkman, Martijn Hendriks, Charlotte Moth, Tomorrow book Studio, Maarten Vanden Eynde
During February 2008, a group of seven European artists and designers will be in residence at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) as part of the artist project Los Angeles Works.
With: Anthony Auerbach, Marjolijn Dijkman, Martijn Hendriks, Charlotte Moth, Eva Moulaert, Jens Schildt and Maarten Vanden Eynde.
Dunja Herzog’s project „Pah’Bèt“ builds on her personal contact with bronze casters in Foumban, Cameroon, the capital of the Bamum culture. Besides intergrating Pah’Bèt at the shops of local arts and crafts merchands, Dunja researched the history of bronze casting in the Bamum culture and the ways in which global trade affects this practice.
The participating artists for this meeting all work with different kinds of ongoing photographic archival processes within practice. During a one day workshop we will discuss similarities and differences in each others approaches and question how to deal with collections of photographic observations.
Please Excuse our Appearance is an experimental artists’ residency that will reflect on the changing face of Eastside, a former industrial neighborhood in Birmingham. Spilling out from its central hub at Ikon Eastside, the project will investigate the myriad public spaces around Digbeth and the Irish Quarter.
Involved: Marjolijn Dijkman, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Karin Kihlberg and Reuben Henry, Tercerunquinto (Julio Castro, Gabriel Cázares and Rolando Flores)
The symposium Remapping Los Angeles / Excavating the Future will investigate different attitudes towards the physical imaginary of Los Angeles. Is there a common concern or aesthetics when a group of artists, writers and researchers from divergent backgrounds produce works informed by the place and time we call Los Angeles?
With: Martijn Hendriks, davidkremers (virtual contribution), Maarten Vanden Eynde, Tobias Zielony.
Thinking About! is a two-days meeting. doual'art will present its work and discuss with the artists, architects and cultural operators, who will be involved in the cultural projects in Douala in the coming years. Artists, such as James Beckett and Blaisse Bang, will take part in the round-table and will share their experiences.
Participants: Lucia Babina, Blaise Bang, Ulrike Bartels, James Beckett, Edgar Cleijne, Stefaan Dheedene, Marjolijn Dijkman, doual’art, Emiliano Gandolfi, Christian Hanussek, Dunja Herzog, Iolanda Pensa, Daniela Roth, Didier Schaub, Fiona Siegenthaler, Claudia Wegener, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Kamiel Verschuren, Alexander Vollebregt
The History of Tomorrow contains a short sci-fi story staged in the near future. The story is set around the Van Abbemuseum and describes a situation in the future where the gravitation on earth is slowly disappearing. The main character is closely connected to the museum and its collection plays an important part in the story.
The ANNEX will function like an additional residence and production / research space within the existing structure of the Jan van Eyck Academie and will open up space for artists to work there for maximum three or four weeks.
Premiere of the documentary ‘Georgia Here We Come’, by David Djindjikhachvili and Krzysztof Wegiel. The multi evening will be completed with a performance by Nino P. and a special appearence by Eric Robertson (K9-Reconstruction Prototype). Don’t miss it!
Inspired by the Georgian toasting culture we'll invite our audience to come together and discuss the titles and content of international art events in the form of speeches. We ask the participants to create new cocktails in small groups, inspired by the different Biennale titles and themes. The ingredients for the cocktails will be used to express their feelings, thoughts and emotions coming up while thinking of those titles. The outcome will be translated into a toast, carried out while consuming the new cocktails. Cheers!
David Djindjikhachvili and Krzysztof Wegiel made a documentary about the present situation in Georgia and the project 'Georgia Here We Come' in specific. The documentary gives insight in the exchangeproject and David Djindjikhachvili and Krzysztof Wegiel followed the participating artists in Tbilisi Georgia and in Utrecht in The Netherlands. Besides the works of the artists the current situation in the both countries are presented and discussed.
The second residency part of Georgia Here We Come! will take place from the 21th of August till the 17th of September 2006. The following artist are invited to come and work in the Netherlands: Lado Darakhvelidze, Mamuka Samkharatze, Melano Sokhadze, Polina Rudchik, Luiza Laperadze, Bessa Kartlelishvili, Aleksandre katsitadze and Giorgi Tabatadze. They will develop new works and will visit many places in the Netherlands.
"Humans are herd animals, and mankind derives its monopoly on earth from collaboration. This survival strategy has proven to be the most successful to guarantee individual survival. In unity there is strength..."
Maarten Vanden Eynde contributed a column to the publication So Fresh! with a passionate tribute to collaboration.
On the 9th of May, the official Europe Day, 40 art institutes from all 25 EU member states will fly the new European flag. Some of them will also present a special exhibition relating to the European Union, organize a debate or host a lecture.
Participants: The Vienna Künstlerhaus and State of Sabotage in Austria, The Latvian National Museum of Art and Gallery Noass in Latvia, Lokaal 01 in Belgium, Pantheon Gallery in Cyprus, PRAC/Pro Rodopi Art Center in Bulgaria, The DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art and Booze Cooperativa in Greece, Stanica Cultural Centre in Slovakia, SCCA/Center for Contemporary Arts-Ljubljana in Slovenia, Galleria Rubin, Viafarini, PAN/Pallazo della Arti Napoli and ILOYOLI Lab in Italy, Casino Luxembourg - Forum d'art contemporain, Galerie Frank Gerlitzki espace ApART and ON25 societé civile in Luxembourg, Galeria Bielska BWA and Wyspa Institute of Art in Poland, CCB/Centro Cultural de Belem in Portugal, Kulturcenter HUSET and Charlottenborg Exhibition Hall in Denmark, Sally Stuudio and Tartu Kunstmuuseum in Estland, The Korjaamo culture factory in Finland, FAUX MOUVEMENT - centre d'art contemporain in France, Kunstverein KISS, Temporäres Museum, Untergröningen in Germany, The Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) and Vartai Gallery in Lithuania, St James Cavalier, Centre for Creativity in Malta, Artpool and Jovohaza, House od Future in Hungary, Four, The Irish Museum of Modern Art and Pallas Studios in Ireland, Tranzit Social Platform in Czech Republic, The Tapper-Popermajer Art Gallery in Sweden, Galeria Posibila in Romania, La Mekanica in Spain, Hidde van Seggelen Contemporay Art and Ben Janssens Oriental Art in London UK, Smart Project Space, Kunstruimte Wagemans, Expodium, Lokaal 01, Sign, MU, Peninsula, STROOM Den Haag and CBK Rotterdam in The Netherlands
An improvised one minute workshop by David Djindjikhachvili, Krzysztof Wegiel and Stefaan Dheedene during Georgia Here We Come! The One Minutes is a place for artists to experiment, to produce and to present within the inexorable limit of 60 seconds, initiated by the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam (NL).
Exchange project between Marika Asatiani and Maarten Vanden Eynde, who will live each others life for three weeks while residing in Tbilisi, Georgia and Los Angeles, US.
After the Rose Revolution in 2003, the new Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili called back his fellow country-men, who fled Georgia in the past decades, to come and help rebuild the once prosperous and wealthy country into a modern western democracy. We decided to respond to this call as well and see for our selves how a new democracy is being introduced or rather implanted and what the side-effects are of such an enormous political and sociological shift.
Participants: Marika Asatiani, Daan van der Berg, Stefaan Dheedene, Marjolijn Dijkman, David Djindjikhachvili, Orgacom, Suze May Sho, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Eric von Robertson, Krzysztof Wegiel, Lado Darakhvelidze, Mamuka Samkharatze, Melano Sokhadze, Polina Rudchik, Luiza Laperadze, Bessa Kartlelishvili, Aleksandre Katsitadze, Giorgi Tabatadze
Launch of the weblog which functions as an online sketchbook where, besides individual work, other artworks, events in history, scientific discoveries, intellectual discourse and philosophical explorations are assembled in order to be able to define Genetology. The content is categorised within the different existing branches of science since they represent our best attempt to separate and encapsulate all existing knowledge.
Compiled by: Maarten Vanden Eynde
ERforS in Filiale will be the last exhibition in Filiale, an artist-initiative that is located in one of the few old not yet renovated sites in Basel. The building will be be torn down after this project and during our residency we will focus on this fragile position in the city and we'll try to open up new kind of spaces in this over regulated city.
Participants: Maurice Bogaert, Marjolijn Dijkman, Aletta de Jong, Dunja Herzog, Maarten Vanden Eynde
Arend Roelink and Maarten Vanden Eynde will stay for a ten day residency in the heart of Rome during which new works will be developed. Residence Barberini invited Dobrila Denegri to organize a residency program for a year in suite 12 of the hotel. Enough Room for Space is the third resident this year.