The exhibition Really? Art and Knowledge in Time of Crisis highlights a movement of artists who put the changing relationship between knowledge and politics at the centre of their practice. Typically, they combine a data-savvy ‘investigative aesthetic’ with a powerful ‘aesthetics of resistance’. They have come to prominence at a time when autocratic, reactionary populists are using sophisticated forms of misinformation to manufacture strategic doubt. This is more effective than traditional forms of state and corporate propaganda, as it suggests that the search for truth itself has become futile, successfully undermining the spaces of public reason where we might speak truth to power.

“The internet for all its benefits, has led to an epistemological crisis of unprecedented scale, facilitating the international rise of demagogues and reactionary populists.”
—Mark O’Connell, New Statesman (July 2019)

What is striking in this quotation is that Mark O’Connell has chosen to characterise our current predicament not as a political, cultural, economic or even an ecological crisis but as ‘epistemological’, a crisis of knowledge. Moreover, one of the aggravating symptoms of this condition is the way a new breed of malign state and corporate actors have bypassed traditional forms of propaganda. Instead, they are focusing on forms of misinformation that go beyond simple deception, operating instead through establishing ‘zones of uncertainty’ or ‘grey areas’. Well-established norms on subjects such as climate change, migration, poverty, race and sexual identity are not so much rebuffed through competing narratives but systematically called into question through tactics of obfuscation, irony, deniability, displacement and distraction. This is not simply about deception or the struggle between competing narratives, it is a war on knowledge itself.

AS IF: THE MEDIA ARTIST AS TRICKSTER

The stakes are high, as this is a condition we feel directly in our lives through the emergence of social divisions so deep that we do not simply disagree; we no longer share the same reality. It is a condition that has been building for decades. Indeed, it was already the subject for us back in 2017 in an earlier exhibition at Framer Framed titled As If: The Media Artist as Trickster, which featured artworks that infiltrate the media landscape with tricks, ruses, subterfuge and other tactics whereby the weak turn the tables on the strong in an asymmetric battle for the social mind. The show’s title emphasised the approach of these tactical tricksters who, rather than simply demanding change, acted As If change had already taken place.

We began using the slogan ‘Fiction as Method’ to push these tactics forward. However, Paolo Cirio, one of the artists in the show, objected, stating that he did not see his practice in those terms. In contrast, his approach was founded on a form of data-driven realism, offering new ways of speaking truth to power. The years that have passed since As If have only intensified the need for art that stakes a claim in a new politics of the real. It was deep within the complexities of this debate and its nuances that were the starting point for the exhibition, Really? Art and Knowledge in Time of Crisis.

INVESTIGATIVE AESTHETICS

In 2016, curator Tatiana Bazzichelli took an important step towards emphasising an empirical approach to artistic research by focusing on the aesthetics of ‘whistleblowing’, or as she called it, “art as evidence”. Bazzichelli’s event, CITIZENS OF EVIDENCE, was significant in exploring the investigative impact of grassroots communities and citizens to expose injustice, corruption and power asymmetries.

This realist approach was further articulated by Paolo Cirio, who introduced the term ‘Evidential Realism’. Typically, this formation refers to artists who combine data gathering, data analysis and digital imaging to illuminate complex social systems for broadly progressive social purposes. Cirio has described how “the truth-seeking artworks […] explore the notion of evidence and its modes of representation”. It is noteworthy that this is possibly the first fully fledged research-led contemporary art movement with explicitly empirical methodologies.

Scientific realism applied in art for progressive ends is not new. Antecedents of the evidential movement were already in place in 19th-century naturalism, which self-consciously modelled itself on empirical methods. One of the clearest examples can be found in Émile Zola’s literary theory and practice developed in texts such as Le Roman expérimental, which deploys an idealised notion of the scientific method to art in order to bring about social progress. Artists like Courbet and novelists like Dreiser and Zola were not bystanders, they were socially engaged. 19th-century naturalism was a political project as much as an investigative or aesthetic one. This exhibition and its accompanying debates seek to answer the question, who are their counterparts today?

KNOWING AND UNKNOWING

Although Evidential Realism represents a meaningful response to the rise of populist demagogues, we are keenly aware that this movement carries risks of its own. The new realists do not persuade through evidence and analysis alone but also through extensive visualisation of data analytics; this work has a tendency to project an aura of the irrefutable. It is a visual language with a powerful aesthetic appeal to modernist sensibilities. But, to what end? Haven’t we learned to be sceptical about anything that resembles a universal and uncomplicated scientific empiricism? The counterargument is that despite the risks, these new realists offer a combative response to the widespread accusation that contemporary art is part of a wider cultural relativism that has lost belief in the truth. This exhibition could be seen as a space for unpacking and contesting these claims and counterclaims.

We cannot speak of knowledge in this context outside of how data is classified and organised. To this day, descriptions of the natural world operate within an 18th-century Linnaean taxonomy with its distinction between genus and species. Though still dominant, botanist Adam Rutherford has pointed out that it is a pre-Darwinian system based on biological sciences that go back to Aristotle’s fixed and hierarchical scala naturae, or ‘great chain of being’. However, the most politically consequential and malign aspect of the Linnaean scheme of classification arrives with the publication of the twelfth edition of Systema Naturae in which he divides homo-sapiens into four distinct subgroups or ‘races’, attributing to each behavioural characteristics and value judgements which in any era are clearly racist. This could be seen as the birthplace of the pernicious cult of scientific racism, which has been used to justify the worst horrors of subsequent centuries, including colonialism, mass murder, the Shoah and chattel slavery.

Our own world, entangled as it is in algorithmic computation, is also no stranger to taxonomic hierarchies whose workings remain alarmingly secretive and opaque. And equally prone to entrenching sinister hierarchies of power and knowledge that intensify silos and feedback loops, whilst contributing to a general collapse of trust in the institutions that are supposed to ‘know’.

ARTISTIC RESEARCH BEYOND THE ACADEMY AND THE ART WORLD

Though subject to pressures, key institutions remain intact and underpin many developments in art and research through the combined resourcing and legitimising power of the art world and the academy. Art historian Claire Bishop wrote, “Although research-based art is a global phenomenon, it is inseparable from the rise of doctoral programs for artists in the West, specifically in Europe, in the early ’90s”.

Perhaps the most developed example in this domain of a positive role for the academy is Forensic Architecture. This important group is configured as a research centre at Goldsmith’s University in London. In this institutional framework, there is support for a critical mass of interdisciplinary researchers, including journalists, architects, 3D modellers, animators, coders and lawyers who are capable of managing multiple projects. This extraordinary combination of disciplines and experimental methods routinely achieves outcomes that are not only respected in legal and journalistic contexts, but are also featured in major art venues around the world. However, it is an example that is by no means universal or even typical. In his influential book Knowledge Beside Itself, art historian Tom Holert points to a strong and problematic correlation between the increasing importance of knowledge production in contemporary art and the simultaneous rise of the global knowledge economy. Holert argues that this transformation has made art an influential agent in shaping contemporary knowledge.

In her essay, Aesthetics of Resistance? Artistic Research as Discipline and Conflict, artist Hito Steyerl echoes Holert’s concerns, emphasising the risks of academic institutionalisation. She highlights the fact that practitioners are likely to find themselves “complicit with new modes of production within cognitive capitalism”. However, Steyerl also argues that these risks are just one part of a much larger story and should be weighed against a parallel history of artistic research that could be viewed from the perspective of global movements of struggle and emancipation that can be seen across most of the 20th century. This under examined long view of artistic research is usefully characterised by Steyerl as an aesthetics of resistance.

The artists/researchers in the exhibition, Really? Art and Knowledge in Time of Crisis have each found distinctive ways of embodying an aesthetics of resistance. Furthermore, they have done so in the context of multi-layered debates about what it means to know and not know within the fragmentation and relativisation of knowledge in a multipolar world.

The central challenge to us all remains how to identify and mitigate the consequences of life in the midst of a crisis in knowledge and a crisis in politics, which one and the same thing. The exhibition aims to expand a space of practical reasoning, which recognises that knowledge is not a zero-sum game. As much as we can and should validate facts in the public domain, as we also learn to identify the places where we no longer know.

The post Art and the Battle for Truth appeared first on Framer Framed.

Read more about Framer Framed’s publishing endeavours below.

The New Social

With the project The New Social: Hybrid Strategies for Cultural Spaces, Framer Framed, in collaboration with IMPAKT, Hackers & Designers and Archival Consciousness, has been investigating new methods and techniques to make the experiences, audiences and content of online and offline productions more consistent. Cultural productions such as live-casting and publications are increasingly moving into both online and offline domains. Central to The New Social’s research is the question of how cultural organisations can develop new techniques to better bring these two domains together: in-house and for the long term.

Since 2021, thanks to support from the Innovation Labs scheme, Framer Framed has worked on several concrete results, including the opening up of its archive. A digital archive can be considered ‘a network of connections’ which digitally brings together a plethora of ‘bits and bytes’ from a cultural institution’s active past. Archiving is often less common for ‘digital born’ organisations than for those with paper archives. Longer-established arts organisations typically have a paper archive with an archivist who knows the collection well and makes it searchable. When these archives are at risk of being lost due to dissolution, an urgency arises and archives are often transferred. This should also be a matter of course for digital archives. But how do we maintain the digital archive and also make it accessible — how can we think about the life cycle of the digital archive?

Schematische weergave van de netwerkrelaties in het archief van Framer Framed. Afbeelding: Archival Consiousness

From archiving to publishing

The most striking outcome of the project was achieved in collaboration with Archival Consciousness; the unlocking of Framer Framed’s digital archive through a ‘browser-based hybrid publication tool’. This newly developed application allows us to use the archive for various purposes, ranging from network analyses for researchers to opening up the archive in the form of (digital) publications.

Co-publishing

In the past few years, Framer Framed has co-published books in collaboration with other organisations. In 2022, Framer Framed began with two interconnected volumes, Art for (and within) a Citizen Scene & vol. 2 Be Water, My Friend in collaboration with Dutch-based publisher Onomatopee.

 Art for (and within) a Citizen Scene examines art that is primarily active in the context of daily processes. By shifting our attention away from artistic practices based on object production and individual successes, what can other kinds of practices bring about? Artists and cultural practitioners, mostly from South/East Asia, connect and share their insights and experiences through lively conversations and co-creation in digital workshops. Through anthropological fieldwork and critical analysis, the second volume looks at different forms of socially engaged artistic practices in China that address social issues while avoiding explicitly opposing political authorities.

Interested in the behind-the-scenes of making the publication? Listen to the interview with c-editor Emily Shin-Jie Lee from the Framer Framed podcast.

Two Diaries

Together with the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Framer Framed produced Two Diaries: Gluklya & Murad during the exhibition To those who have no time to play (2022).

Gluklya, a visual and performance artist living and working in Amsterdam, and Murad Zorava, a Kurdish activist and poet currently living in Europe, tell the story of an unexpected encounter. They met in a Dutch asylum centre, a former prison on the edge of Amsterdam. Together, they came to understand what migration means, what language allows and how art in its different forms can serve as a cry of anger and a path to self-knowledge and peace.

Published by Walther König, Two Diaries: Gluklya & Murad is not only about two individuals’ lives but also about how art shapes and supports people and carries them through their most difficult times.

To those who have no time to play by Gluklya, curated by Charles Esche.
Photos: Marlise Steeman / Framer Framed

Colonial Toxicity

The exhibition Performing Colonial Toxicity, co-produced by Framer Framed and Amsterdam performance art organisation in If I Cant’ Dance, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution was accompanied by a new publication by Samia Henni.

Her publication Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara (2024) brings together nearly six hundred pages of materials documenting this violent history of France’s nuclear bomb programme in the Algerian desert. Between 1960 and 1966, the French colonial regime detonated four atmospheric atomic bombs, thirteen underground nuclear bombs and conducted other nuclear experiments in the Algerian Sahara, whose natural resources were being extracted in the process. This secret nuclear weapons programme, whose archives are still classified, occurred during and after the Algerian Revolution, or the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962).

Meticulously culled together by the architectural historian from across available, offered, contraband, and leaked sources. The book is a rich repository for all those concerned with histories of nuclear weapons and engaged at the intersections of spatial, social and environmental justice, as well as anticolonial archival practices.

Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara by Samia Henni. Photo: Evie Evans / Framer Framed

The CICC Book marks our first entirely in-house publication, produced with the hybrid publishing tool designed by Remco van Bladel and Mariana Lanari of Archival Consciousness.

Hybrid publishing tool

The first publication generated entirely in-house, from the digital archive via self-designed software*, is a comprehensive catalogue of the 2021 exhibition Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC).  CICC is an ongoing collaboration between Framer Framed, Indian academic, writer, lawyer and activist Radha D’Souza and Dutch artist Jonas Staal. The project consists of a large-scale installation in the form of a tribunal prosecuting intergenerational climate crimes. During hearings, witnesses provide evidence of past, present and future climate crimes. As such, the tribunal rejects the linear, individualised narratives that underpin the current justice system.

Individuals and collectives that contributed to the publication include: Blue Planet Project (Canada), SOMO – Stichting Onderzoek Multinationale Ondernemingen (Netherlands), Manchester International Law Centre (England), Kenya Land Alliance (Kenya), Oyu Tolgoi Watch (Mongolia), Pueblos Indígenas Amazónicos Unidos en Defensa de sus Territorios (Brazil), Réseau d’Information et d’Appui aux ONG Nationales (Congo), Stop Arms Trade – European Network Against Arms Trade, Synergie Nationale des Paysans et Riverains du Cameroun (Kameroun), Vettiver Collective, WALHI West Java (Indonesia), Watch The Med (Germany) and more.

The CICC Book in the Framer Framed bookshop. Photo: Evie Evans / Framer Framed

Files of evidence and testimonies have been transcribed and form part of Framer Framed’s digital archive. The newly developed application can unlock this digital archive in the form of an interactive website and printable PDF, which will take shape into a tangible publication after a print run.

Read more about the book here, or order it online in our webshop!

Subversive Publishing Strategies

However, The New Social didn’t stop just there. Framer Framed asked the founder and editor-in-chief of Errant Journal, Irene de Craen, to conduct a series of interviews for the publication A Very Short and Incomplete Guide to Subversive Publishing Strategies and the Framer Framed podcast. Check out the series and introduction here!

A Very Short and Incomplete Guide to Subversive Publishing Strategies

Going Hybrid

As part of a longer research project into the future of hybridity for the cultural field initiated by the Institute of Network Cultures (INC), Framer Framed team members Ashley Maum and Ebissé Wakijra recorded a special podcast episode entitled Going Hybrid — A Deep Dive into Cultural Publishing and Programming. They delve into hybrid cultural programming and publications in the post-pandemic world. Listen here.

INC Conference. In-between Media: Hybrid Tactics in the Crisis Era. Photo: Sonia González

Archipelagic Affects

In 2022, Framer Framed teamed up with the Jan van Eyck Adacemie, Maastricht, aiming to provide an artist coming from abroad with an enriched residency experience. The first participant was Cuban artist Yornel J. Martínez Elías. His Artist Takeover in Limestone books led to the publication, Archipelagic Affects co-published by Jan van Eyck and Framer Framed.

Conceived by Yornel, researcher Emily Shin-Jie Lee, and in collaboration with Taiwanese novelist Huang Chong-Kai, Archipelagic Affects interweaves visual and textual materials created in different time-spaces. Together, they form a shared travelogue that documents how cultures and worlds cross paths through an art residency experience.

Reflecting on how words connect worlds, and how publishing practices generate new content and correlations. This booklet highlights the importance of art residencies in creating new confluences and solidarity networks to sustain cultural production and dissemination within and beyond national boundaries. If we consider an art residency as an island where a group of strangers from different backgrounds temporarily inhabit, how can these unfamiliar strangers make their time together meaningful? Perhaps further create an archipelago of solidarity beyond geographical boundaries after leaving the island.

The publication, design by Limestone Books co-founder Chen Jhen, is available in two bilingual versions (Spanish/Chinese; Spanish/English).

Read more about the concept behind Walvistraan here and here. And join us at Framer Framed on 26 July at Framer Framed’s Werkplaats Molenwijk for a book reading.

Opening van Presentatie: Walvistraan (2023) by Golrokh Nafisi in Werkplaats Molenwijk. Werkplaats Molenwijk is een projectruimte van Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Foto: © Marlise Steeman / Framer Framed.

Walvistraan: A Love Story in a Time of Extinction and Isolation by Golrokh Nafisi and Ahmadali Kadivar (2024) Page preview 60-61

Shop

It’s possible to buy all Framer Framed publications through our online shop, or visit our exhibition space to see our larger selection of titles. The physical Framer Framed bookshop is curated by Philippa Driest of KIOSK Rotterdam, Het Fort van Sjakoo and the team members of Framer Framed.

Acknowledgements

The New Social: Hybrid Strategies for Cultural Spaces is made possible thanks to the support of InnovatieLabs #1 : from a multidisciplinary platform that promotes and disseminates knowledge about sustainable materials, to a development program aimed at makers who want to experiment with mixed reality theater techniques.

InnovatieLabs is supported by Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie and CLICKNL. 

The post From Archiving to Publishing: Framer Framed's 'New Social' appeared first on Framer Framed.

De twee straatkranten Z! (Amsterdam) en Arts of the Working Class (Berlijn) hebben deze zomer in beide steden een gezamenlijke editie uitgebracht in samenwerking met Framer Framed.

Een aantal items in de Z! belichten sociaal geëngageerde kunstenaars en onderzoekers met wie Framer Framed samenwerkt. Sun Chang heeft bijvoorbeeld het sociale en artistieke onderzoeksproject to M*Others opgezet met buurtbewoners van Amsterdam-Noord, in onze ruimte Werkplaats Molenwijk. René Boer, die onderzoek doet naar steden en stedelijke architectuur, start binnenkort een fellowship programma mede-georganiseerd door Framer Framed en de afdeling Politicologie van de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Tijdens haar verblijf als artist-in-residence bij Werkplaats Molenwijk werkte Golrokh Nafisi samen met schrijfer Ahmadali Kadivar aan de publicatie Walvistraan. Dit rijk geïllustreerde verhaal over de menselijke en niet-menselijke geschiedenis van de Molenwijk is nu te koop in onze webshop en boekwinkel.

Deze makers richten zich met hun werk op het versterken van gemarginaliseerde gemeenschappen, onder meer door individuele verhalen te verzamelen of kritische analyses van de status quo te bieden. Net als andere projecten van Framer Framed bieden ze hiermee een platform aan onderdrukte gemeenschappen en versnellen ze maatschappelijke verandering; een gedeelde missie met Z! en Arts of the Working Class.

Arts of the Working Class presenteert bovendien een gesprek tussen Z! en Framer Framed, waarin de noodzaak van samenwerking tussen sociale en culturele velden wordt besproken. Het interview is ook online te lezen.

Ben je benieuwd naar het resultaat van deze samenwerking tussen Z!, Arts of the Working Class en Framer Framed en ? De gezamenlijke editie is tot 9 augustus te koop bij je lokale straatkrantverkoper in Amsterdam voor de prijs van één krant (€2,50).

The post Z! and Arts of the Working Class: Co-publication of Amsterdam and Berlin street newspapers in collaboration with Framer Framed appeared first on Framer Framed.

The novel intricately weaves the history of the Molenwijk neighbourhood in Amsterdam-Noord, exploring themes of industrialisation, environmental impact and community resilience through the lives of fictional mole and whale families. In this podcast, Nafisi and Kadivar share their creative process, discuss the rich historical context of their work, and reflect on how their personal experiences and artistic collaboration have shaped this narrative.

Walvistraan is the result of a project by Golrokh Nafisi in collaboration with Ahmadali Kadivar developed during their residency in Framer Framed’s Werkplaats Molenwijk in 2023.

You can order Walvistraan: A Love Story in A Time of Extinction and Isolation in our webshop or purchase one at our bookshop in Amsterdam-Oost.

Golrokh Nafisi is a visual artist whose artistic practice involves designing alternative ways of documenting time and location, shaping a new imagination of time and space to give us direction in the present. Nafisi is interested in discovering new forms of collective action involving bodies and human ideologies.

Ahmadali Kadivar is a writer, researcher and the director of Sedākhāne, the most robust archive of folk music in Iran, building resources in understanding the literary, historical and anthropological aspects of folk music culture.

Listen below

Or select your favourite podcast platform:

Spotify,
Apple,
Google,
Castbox,
Overcast,
Pocket Casts,
RadioPublic,
Stitcher or
RSS.

Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.

The post Podcast #16 - Whale Tears and Mole Tunnels: A Graphic History of Molenwijk appeared first on Framer Framed.

With the fellowship programmes, Framer Framed is following up on a decade of projects and programmes from Stichting Netwerk Democratie – integrating themes of deliberative ‘bottom up’ democracy, social movements organisation and digitalization. Connecting media studies and political sciences with artistic practices, the fellowships in collaboration with Documenta Institute and the Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, seek to encourage a cross-disciplinary approach to artistic research.

Framer Framed is inviting scholars and practitioners to engage with these initiatives, contributing to a vibrant dialogue that redefines the role of art in addressing contemporary challenges.

First Fellowship on Digital Commons

Framer Framed is excited to welcome design theorist and researcher Yin Aiwen as research fellow of Digital Commons. This fellowship explores the intersection of art and commons through the lens of digitally assisted governance.

Yin’s work will build upon past collaborations, such as the public event Towards Decentralized Art Infrastructure and the CIRCE research project Can Web3.0 Help Socially Engaged Art Become Sustainable? The fellowship focuses on the transformative potential of art, with the goal of reshaping perceptions of labour, wealth distribution, and community dynamics. It aims to demonstrate the intrinsic value of art through interdisciplinary collaborations, employing technology to effect societal change rather than as an end.

In addition to the exploration of technology, the fellowship aims to contribute to the creation of an inclusive environment that nurtures cross-disciplinary dialogue. By conceptualising art institutions as digital commons villages, the programme challenges conventional notions of productivity and advocates for a more equitable distribution of resources and opportunities.

The Digital Commons fellowship is realised in collaboration with the Documenta Institute (DE) and AFIELD (FR).

About

Yin Aiwen is a practicing designer, artist, theorist, and strategist who use writing, system design and time-based art to examine the social impact of planetary communication technologies. She advocates relationship-focused design as a strategy to redesign, re-engineer and reimagine the relationship between technology and society. Besides publishing and exhibiting internationally, she also works as a strategist and researcher for cultural institutions.

Second Fellowship on Community, Democracy, and the Urban Environment

Framer Framed is excited to announce a fellowship programme in collaboration with the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. This fellowship aims to bridge political sciences with contemporary artistic practices of political engagement.

We are pleased to welcome artist Winnie Herbstein and researcher René Boer as the first fellows of the programme with their joint research initiative Contemporary Conflict. The project stems from several conversations and activities organised through the Social Practice Workshop at the Rijksakademie, in collaboration with Framer Framed, and aims to critically examine the role of conflict in contemporary society. This project aims to rethink how current-day power imbalances and social struggles can be addressed in the arts, in a way that acknowledges their conflictual nature rather than sanitises it.

In their own words: “This project does not think of conflict in terms of a resolution but seeks to emphasise its potential for transformative change. Contemporary Conflict recognises that this process is vital and necessary in the struggle to develop collective work across and beyond sanitised categories of ‘art’ and ‘activism’, and to further politicise and solidify the ‘political turn’ in the Arts.”

During the fellowship programme, Winnie and René will, among others, engage with students and researchers affiliated with the Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam. Combining political sciences with artistic practices the fellowship seeks to encourage a cross-disciplinary approach to artistic research and to explore the intersection of art and activism and political sciences. The fellowship will be developed in close collaboration with Floris Vermeulen, associate professor at the UvA’s Political Science programme Challenges to Democratic Representation.

About

Winnie Herbstein graduated from Glasgow School of Art (Environmental Art). Formerly a committee member at Transmission Gallery, Glasgow. Herbstein studied on the Women in Construction course at the City of Glasgow College and is a founding member of Slaghammers, a woman, trans and non-binary metal workshop. Her work focuses on historical and contemporary forms of organising, in relation to housing and the architecture and formation of space. She was a resident at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam (2021-2023).

René Boer works as a critic, curator and organiser in and beyond the fields of architecture, design, heritage and the arts. In his practice he seeks to articulate new perspectives on spatial matters and facilitate fertile ground for imagining and materialising alternatives. He is a founding partner of Loom – practice for cultural transformation, a driving force behind the transnational platform Failed Architecture and affiliated with various urban social movements. His work has appeared in among others Harvard Design Magazine, Architectural Review and Volume. In 2023, he published Smooth City with Valiz Publishers.

The post Framer Framed announces two fellowships on the theory and practice of commoning appeared first on Framer Framed.

Read the full article below.

Introduction

In it’s latest issue spring / summer 2024 Critique d’art features an interview with Samia Henni on her research on French colonial nuclear tests conducted in Algeria. Between 1960 and 1966, the French colonial regime detonated four atmospheric atomic bombs, thirteen underground nuclear bombs and conducted other nuclear experiments in the Algerian Sahara, whose natural resources were being extracted in the process. This secret nuclear weapons programme, whose archives are still classified, occurred during and after the Algerian Revolution, or the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962). The exhibition Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara emerges from Henni’s broader research project and an open access digital database entitled The Testimony Translation Project. Samia Henni considers exhibition making as a form of writing and Performing Colonial Toxicity “as an invitation to internationalise the experiences of contamination and pollution” (4). After it’s initial presentation at Framer Framed, the exhibition has since travelled to ETH Zurich and The Mosaic Rooms, London.

In the interview, Henni tells Mavrokordopoulou “The exhibition is an exposition of the urgency of reckoning with these events and their lived social and environmental impacts. The book and the exhibition call to open the still-classified archives and to clean/decontaminate the sites. Both are crucial steps for exposing the pasts, presents, and futures of colonial toxicity.” (5)

In conjunction with the show, If I Can’t Dance and edition fink and Framer Framed published Samia Henni’s publication, which brings together nearly six hundred pages of materials documenting this violent history of France’s nuclear bomb programme in the Algerian desert. The book is available through the webshop of Framer Framed.

Performing Colonial Toxicity was on show at Framer Framed between 8 October 2023 to 14 January 2024 in Amsterdam.

Samia Henni, about Colonial Toxicity

Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou

An architectural historian, Samia Henni works at the crossroads of the built, destroyed, and imagined environments. She teaches at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) and her activities (online, on site and in print) move across the tightly linked formats of exhibition making and publications. Her research on war architecture and its environmental impacts raises questions around the constructions and deconstructions resulting from colonization, conflicts, nuclear weapons, and their hazardous aftermaths. The recent publication of Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara is the outcome of a long-term investigation of French colonial violence in the Algerian Sahara, conducted in tight collaboration with the activist-archivists of the Observatoire des Armements [The Armaments Observatory – Centre for Documentation and Research on Peace and Conflict, Lyon]. This research project was inaugurated in Amsterdam with the exhibition Performing Colonial Toxicity, jointly supported by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution and Framer Framed. Samia Henni has agreed to talk to Critique d’art about her multifaceted research.

Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou: Samia, in the past years your work has taken many forms, from exhibitions to books and digital platforms, but a theme that runs all throughout them is that of war and architecture. Your first book and subsequent itinerant exhibition, Architecture of Counterrevolution: The French Army in Northern Algeria (2017)^¹, is an in-depth historical study of the spatial operations that the French army and colonial administration enforced in colonized Algeria during the Algerian Revolution (1954–62). Your edited collection War Zones (2018)² examines something similar, namely how space is shaped by times of war (but also its preparatory logics) across various historical and geographical contexts. Your latest dual book and exhibition Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara (2024)³ reveals an archival breadth around the toxic legacy, in the landscape and in human and nonhuman bodies, of the French atomic weapons program in the Algerian Sahara. What I find poignant in all of these is that you are not dealing with the aftermath of war – as in, ruins. You rather engage with architectural forms that sustain and perpetuate war in its manifold forms, from the battlefields to continuous colonial occupation. Could you tell us a bit more about this thematic coherence, as well as the transition from the architecture of counterrevolution to the explicitly environmental question of toxicity?

Samia Henni: During my studies in architecture, it was all about architecture and the built form in times and places of peace. Similarly, in my life as an architect, in speaking about clients’ buildings, we rarely broach how architecture can also be a tool used in war zones. What I wanted to suggest in my work is that colonialism is primarily about destruction and war, and that architecture is one of the means of this destruction. While I have focused on the case of French colonial rule in Algeria, through my edited volumes, I tried to show that this is not an exception but something all-encompassing, in fact raging as we speak. Architectural planning and spatial organization is supporting it, and this intersection is really relevant to what I do. My move from colonial architecture and warfare to colonial toxicity and the environment was a response to the field. Prior to Colonial Toxicity, I also edited Deserts Are Not Empty (2022)⁴ to explore how the dynamic of nuclear weapons testing is also at play in other deserts, hot and cold. Deserts represent one-third of the land’s surface, and most of the resources feeding our cities and technologies (oil, gas, lithium, uranium) originate in them. Now that we are starting to acknowledge that warfare and colonialism go hand in hand, my argument becomes: warfare is also about the destruction of the environment in an ecological sense. And I worked with a clear-cut example: the Sahara as a firing field for the French army.

Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou: Performing Colonial Toxicity, the itinerant exhibition tied to Colonial Toxicity, uses another term: performativity.⁵ And performative utterances don’t merely describe, but precisely perform the actions they designate, including acts of violence. We could read “rehearsing” as a performative act, too. Similarly, you are also very attentive to how language is, still today, both caught between the constraints of, and performative of, colonial grammar. I have encountered in your texts multiple attempts at “linguistic revision” – attempts to historicize but also surpass terminological inheritances from colonial archives and military jargon.

Tour by Samia Henni through the exhibition Performing Colonial Toxicity (2023). Photo: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

Samia Henni: This is indeed very much what I try to do. Roland Barthes’s essay “African Grammar”⁶ has been pivotal to me in that regard. Barthes explains how the French government, army, and media used language to mask colonial realities. For example, the term “war,” referring to the Algerian War of Independence, was called instead “the events of Algeria” for a number of reasons that I explain in Architecture of Counterrevolution. Barthes calls this “cosmetic writing.” The military and colonial archives that I have been able to research withhold different strata of power through language: the language used by the military personnel, the language used between military leaders and officers, and the language used internally among military leaders. The same event is sometimes described in completely different terms. There is a process of linguistic indoctrination at work, which I am only able to learn from the language of the oppressors. It is a sort of psychological warfare, and it has its own effects. Institutions like the ECPAD (Etablissement de Communication et de Production Audiovisuelle de la Défense), where I was able to source parts of my research on the French nuclear weapons program in Algeria, have also been instrumental in producing a certain language and images of war.

Within my work, I try to offer ways of writing and formulating taxonomies. In Deserts Are Not Empty, for example, I invited contributors to propose a poem about the desert they were writing about, written by a poet of that region in the original language of that region. This was for me to challenge the languages we use (English: imperial and colonial). We introduced these poems in the original languages and then we translated them. This is another way of saying that we have to acknowledge the languages of the places we work in and on. For instance, in Architectures of Counterrevolution, I barely used the term “les indigènes d’Algérie” or “les musulmans d’Algérie,” which were the official terms used by the French colonial administration. This was a deliberate decision as a writer. A few scholars might deem my work anachronistic, but why can’t we, today, knowing the history and violent connotations of those terms, use other terms? I strive for an active use of language that tries to be attentive to its performative power.

Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou: This is also what you did in a recent article, where you suggest we should name the radioactive residues as “jerboasite,” in reference to the names of the four atmospheric bombs detonated by the French army and code-named gerboises [jerboas] after the tiny jumping desert rodents.⁷ While I do find the act of naming poignant, I also wonder how language can naturalize socio-scientific processes by isolating, for example, a chemical element from the political-scientific context of its creation.

In a similar vein, I want to hear more about your usage of the term “toxicity.” Toxicity, in your work, describes a material-semiotic condition, but as a category it is deeply malleable, shifting at the intersection of risk assessment, scientific profit, and sociocultural norms of health and safety. What is toxic for a former veteran who worked in the field is probably not formulated as such in the military archives you research.

Samia Henni: You are right that language normalizes. In the archives I explored, however, the term used was not “toxicity” but “radioactivity.” At the ECPAD, for example, it was about facts related to the production of radioactivity: the date of the bomb, the description of the testing ground, what we can see, the copyright, the date of the image. The term “toxic” does not come up in a single document. Similarly, the explosions are referred to as “tests,” and I explicitly avoid this term and instead use “bombs.” Even the overuse of “radioactivity,” as a term, obfuscated the contamination of human and nonhuman lives. In each of these examples, there is a huge difference between the two terms. And the more I was working with these materials and wondering how I could create a form of publicness, the word “toxic” became ever- present. Everything I was seeing and reading was toxic. Moreover, the fact that we cannot access the archives is likewise toxic. This is really what I want to encapsulate with “colonial toxicity”—a violence both temporal and spatial, both physical and psychological. As for the act of coining “jerbosasite,” I would argue that the situation begs a different approach, since so much of the archives containing information about contamination and pollution remains classified.

Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou: Since you mention a different approach and classified archives, I have to ask about the way your work revisits traditional academic formats. Colonial Toxicity is in itself a curious object, with an “anti-academic” format. It’s rife with archival images from various sources (military and state archives, activist documentation centers, personal archives). I am particularly drawn to the extensive captions – as an art historian, I know how much work goes into those! – in which you adopt, at times, a very personal tone. For instance when you mention that the document isn’t available for consultation anymore and you can be contacted to supply it to interested scholars and activists. I actually sometimes spent more time with the captions than with the text! You hijack the very (academic) convention that is captions.

Samia Henni: This is indeed what I had to do because of the contexts and conditions. The book is expressly affordable and actively light and obtainable in order for this research to continue to be used in academia but also in activism, among victims or interested scholars. It is made to be very accessible. And it is true that the text is much less extensive than the images, but in this specific case, since the institutional archives are classified, for me the very first step was to bring together sources that visualize and provide readers with evidence – a simultaneous visualization and materialization of colonial toxicity. We know that radioactivity is invisible, and this is why this book orchestrates the reader’s very first encounter not with text but with image. And yes, it can be redundant, but again, this is very intentional. As readers, we can continually refer to the very detailed captions, which contain information on where they come from and where they can be found, so, again, people can find them and do further work. Part of my initial impetus was mulling that over: What if the captions are also part of the text? We had very long discussions with the graphic designer and publishers! First images, then captions, then text. And the reader is actually not obliged to read the text. Images and captions are meant to be self-sufficient. It’s very experimental.

Installation photo of the exhibition ‘Performing Colonial Toxicity’ (2023) by Samia Henni at Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Photo: © Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

The text encapsulates another part of the story that is not in the images. The book is split in two, reminiscing on the two sites where the nuclear bombs exploded, Reggane and In Ecker. And even if there is a risk that the book will be dismissed as not abiding by academic standards, for me it’s important to state that part of my intellectual project is to rethink the way we do academic research. I would argue that this book is doing exactly the kind of research we deem academic, just not according to some academic protocols because of specific contexts and conditions. Let’s start with the image and ask: What if the image is text? And what if the image can tell a different story? What text, what story, does an image write or say? The goal of this immersion into a sea of images was to offer, at once, an assemblage but also an assembly of images.

Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou: Your exhibition is also a bit like a book, rife with images unfolding in space. The book and the exhibition are intimately related, not only in time (they were inaugurated and launched more or less simultaneously), but also in how they defy curatorial and book conventions. In Performing Colonial Toxicity you inject the assemblage of images again with a distinct subjectivity, a personal tone, that counters hegemonic and paternalistic patterns of archival curation. Elsewhere, you have spoken of exhibitions as a form of writing.⁸ Could you elaborate further on that, as well as the points of friction between writing a book and making an exhibition?

Samia Henni: The book and the exhibition might be intimately connected, but, importantly, they are not the same. In the book, you have hundreds of images, it becomes a repository of archives. It is a nearly six-hundred-page book that is repeating, rehearsing, and re-insisting on the fact that these places exist and are radioactive. The exhibition works with images in a different way, going against the potentially flattening narratives of some of those visuals. I perceive it as an invitation to internationalize the experiences of contamination and pollution. Next to the images, I created videos, which reveal the current conditions of the site as well as filmed interviews with a number of colleagues, from scientists and physicists who have conducted research on the site and taken samples to literary scholars and historians of science and technology, like Gabrielle Hecht and her important work on uranium. Secondly, I also see the exhibition as an invitation to educate ourselves about the consequences of human-produced radioactivity. It strives to offer a multidisciplinary perspective on the experiences of Saharan and French victims through the act of spatialization, so visitors can interact with it, be affected by it.

Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou: When I visited your exhibition in Amsterdam, I certainly experienced this affective quality through its scenography. The sheets of paper hanging from the ceiling, for example, were fragile, and as I moved in the space they interacted with my bodily movements, swaying as I passed by. This fleeting aspect of the installation can be reminiscent of the fleeting and pervasive nature of the matter at hand: radioactive dust. The scenographic apparatus performed what archival language has suppressed.

Samia Henni: The effect on the body was part of what I wanted to explore—how these stories and this history perform on you in an embodied way. I wanted a fragile, light, and repetitive form that could be folded and sent around the globe to multiple institutions. You can hang it, fold it, cut it, inviting people to think of and with their bodies. I really wanted to affect the visitors. You cannot leave the exhibition and say it’s all okay. You need to feel it emotionally. My intention was also to make sure that visitors understand the scale of it—that this is not a French-Algerian thing. Weapons destroy human life but also animals, the air, water, and the natural and built environments. What cities and settlements were affected, what kinds of weapons were used.

It’s also about the witnesses, and this brings me back to language. It was crucial for me to include the testimonies of victims in the exhibition: their language from their own experiences, from their own bodies and the way they transmitted this disease transgenerationally. It is spoken about with their own emotions. The exhibition is an exposition of the urgency of reckoning with these events and their lived social and environmental impacts. The book and the exhibition call to open the still-classified archives and to clean/decontaminate the sites. Both are crucial steps for exposing the pasts, presents, and futures of colonial toxicity.

CRITIQUE D’ART : actualité internationale de la critique d’art / The International Review of Contemporary Art Criticism, no. 63, spring/summer 2024, pp. 111-126.
Available online at URL : http://journals.openedition.org/critiquedart/114527 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/11t7s

Notes

1. Henni, Samia. Architecture of Counterrevolution: The French Army in Northern Algeria, Zurich: gat Verlag, 2017. A second edition came out in 2022. A French translation was published in 2019 by editions B42

2. War Zones, Zurich: gta Verlag, 2018. Edited by Samia Henni

3. Henni, Samia. Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara, Amsterdam: If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution and Framer Framed; Zurich: Edition Fink, 2024

4. Deserts Are Not Empty, New York: Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2022. Edited by Samia Henni

5. The exhibition took place at Framer Framed, Amsterdam, October 8, 2023–January 14, 2024. Future iterations will take place at the gta Exhibition, ETH Zurich (March 6–April 2, 2024) and The Mosaic Rooms, London (March 22–June 16, 2024)

6. Barthes, Roland. “African Grammar,” (1979) in The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies, Berkley: University of California Press, p. 103-110. The essay was initially published in 1957, the same year as the Battle of Alger

7. Henni, Samia. “Jerboasite: Naming French Radioactive Matter in the Sahara,” e-flux architecture, December 2022, https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/half-life/508392/jerboasite-naming- french-radioactive-matter-in-the-sahara/. Terminologically, “jerbosasite” mimics “trinitite,” the green, glassy substance formed from the sand at the Trinity Site in New Mexico at the time of the first atomic bomb test on July 16, 1945, which was named as such in American Mineralogist in 1948

8. Henni, Samia. “Exhibition as a Form of Writing. On ‘Discreet Violence: Architecture of the French War in Algeria,’” Parse Journal 13, no. 1, Spring 2021, https://parsejournal.com/article/ exhibition-as-a-form-of-writing/

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Framer Framed is an institution of artistic and social significance, which submitted an application of a high standard – according to the council in its advisory report for the Basic Cultural Infrastructure (BIS) 2025-2028. Highly praised is the organisation’s focus on diversity and inclusion, in relation to the traditional, predominantly Western-oriented international arts discourse. In terms of social significance and accessibility, Framer Framed has distinguished itself by fulfilling a “pioneering role in socially driven artistic research.”

The council further states: “With its more socially-oriented artistic research, it has a clear and accessible positionality that is of great value to the sector’s collective profile. Framer Framed makes room for other voices and perspectives, including the autodidact and the collective. The council deems that its plan raises challenging questions about the position and meaning of the artist and art.”

Framer Framed remains tirelessly committed to contemporary art, visual culture and critical theory and practice, with exhibitions and cultural and educational programmes at its main location in Amsterdam-Oost and at its project space Werkplaats Molenwijk in Amsterdam-Noord.

We would like to thank all of our visitors and our Framer Framed Friends for their warm support and dedication. We are endlessly grateful to our wonderful team, volunteers, community and all stakeholders who are instrumental in making our mission possible.

We would also like to congratulate all other institutions that received great news today, and share our sympathies with organisations that received disappointing news.

You can read the Council’s advice at www.raadvoorcultuur.nl. 

The advice for Framer Framed is available here.

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Journey into the heart of Molenwijk, in Amsterdam-Noord, through this evocative graphic story that intertwines personal and collective histories with contemporary moments. Narrated through the eyes of a protagonist intertwined with her community’s roots, the story explores love, loss, displacement, and resistance.

Golrokh Nafisi and Ahmadali Kadivar’s Walvistraan: A Love Story in a Time of Extinction and Isolation is an exploration of Molenwijk’s underground tunnels, secret libraries, and the rich historical tapestry of a neighbourhood shaped by activism, cultural diversity, and environmental change. A story of the resilience and unity of its inhabitants — human and non-human — amidst the forces of modernity, as they reclaim connections to their land of origin and history.

Order
You can order the book (including a free poster) through the Framer Framed webshop.

Contributors
Authors: Golrokh Nafisi, Ahmadali Kadivar
Graphic Design: Oreri—Iniziativa Editoriale
Publisher: Framer Framed

Specifications
€25
Text and colour illustrations
Riso-printed in a limited edition of 150 copies
72 pp
Poster included
15 × 20 cm | paperback
English, 2024
ISBN: 9789083079387

Golrokh Nafisi, Walvistraan (2023). Installation at Werkplaats Molenwijk, Amsterdam. Photo: © Lina van Idsert / Framer Framed

About

Golrokh Nafisi is a visual artist whose artistic practice involves designing alternative ways of documenting time and location, shaping a new imagination of time and space to give us direction in the present. Nafisi is interested in discovering new forms of collective action involving bodies and human ideologies.

Ahmadali Kadivar is a writer, researcher and the director of Sedākhāne, the most robust archive of folk music in Iran, building resources in understanding the literary, historical and anthropological aspects of folk music culture.

Walvistraan is the result of a project by Golrokh Nafisi in collaboration with Ahmadali Kadivar during their residency in Werkplaats Molenwijk in 2023. Walvistraan was commissioned and published by Framer Framed.

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In light of this, Framer Framed (incl. our office) is closed on 1 July, but you are welcome to visit our exhibitions and bookshop on 2 July. 

Archival Textures: Amplifying

1. Edited by Setareh Noorani and Tabea Nixdorff

Archival Textures: Amplifying brings together archival materials that trace the beginnings of Black feminism in the Netherlands. These materials were researched at the collection of the International Archive for the Women’s Movement (IAV) at Atria, Institute on Gender Equality and Women’s History in Amsterdam. They are framed by an introductory essay by Setareh Noorani and Tabea Nixdorff as well as an intergenerational roundtable conversation.

1. Weaving Networks: Interwoven Histories of Solidarity

2. by Contemporary And (C&), The Black Archives, and Gloria Kiconco

This publication is a special print of ContemporaryAnd magazine in collaboration with The Black Archives, Amsterdam, from the framework of documenta fifteen. The edition, published in both Dutch and English, comes from the series, Weaving Networks. The writer of this edition, Gloria Kiconco travelled to Amsterdam and spent time with the team of The Black Archives – who educate and organise a lot within the context of Keti Koti – in their context to get a sense of their visions, practice and communities.

1. Race to the Bottom: Reclaiming Antiracism

2. by Azfar Shafi and Ilyas Nagdee
4. Race to the Bottom traces our current crisis back decades, illuminating why – despite antiracist movements being more mainsream than ever – racism still ever-present in our society. The authors call for recovering radical histories of antiracist struggle, championing modern activism and infusing them with the urgency of our times: replacing anxieties over ‘unconscious bias’ and rival claims for ‘representation’ with the struggle for a new, socialist, multi-racial organising from below.

1. The Universal Machine, Stolen Life

2. by Fred Moten

Fred Moten’s triumphant trilogy, consent not to be a single being are a series of essays and musings that come together to critical comment of the sociality of blackness. Stolen Life undertakes an expansive exploration of blackness as it relates to black life and the collective refusal of social death whilst in the concluding volume The Universal Machine, Moten explores questions of freedom, capture, and selfhood within his theorisation of blackness.

1. Dear Science and Other stories

2. by Katherine McKittrick

In Dear Science and Other Stories Katherine McKittrick presents a creative and rigorous study of black and anticolonial methodologies. Drawing on black studies, studies of race, cultural geography, and black feminism as well as a mix of methods, citational practices, and theoretical frameworks, she positions black storytelling and stories as strategies of invention and collaboration.

1. Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent

2. by Priyamvada Gopal

Insurgent Empire shows how Britain’s enslaved and colonial subjects were not merely victims of empire and subsequent beneficiaries of its crises of conscience but also agents whose resistance both contributed to their own liberation and shaped British ideas about freedom and who could be free.

Our bookshop, and the following titles, are curated in collaboration with KIOSK Rotterdam & Het Fort van Sjakoo.

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Rosa Hofgärtner interviewed Hernando Chindoy for Down to Earth Magazine.

Hernando Chindoy’s community in Colombia traded the cultivation of poppies for coffee and fruit and in doing so escaped drug violence: “We may now be poorer in terms of money, but much richer in terms of knowledge, biodiversity and quality of life.”

For several months, Indigenous Inga leader Hernando Chindoy is a guest at Framer Framed, a platform for contemporary art and visual culture in Amsterdam. Together with artist Milena Bonilla, he is working to strengthen the traditional knowledge, medicine and language of the Inga from Colombia.

Chindoy, who received an honorary doctorate from the University of Arts in London for his work, talks about the area where he grew up. Camila Gueneau de Mussy-Zegers, team member at Framer Framed, acts as translator. This brings the number of languages used to four: Inga, Spanish, English and Dutch. We hope nothing of the conversation got lost in translation.

Drug violence and glyphosate

“I was born in the Andes mountains, on the border of Colombia and Ecuador,” Chindoy says. “I grew up with 14 siblings. The area I come from is known as the land of volcanoes and is the origin of the rivers Putumayo, Caquetá and Patía. The area is connected to the waterways of the Amazon and the Chocó Biogeográfico (Pacific Ocean – ed.).”

Chindoy grew up in an Inga community that lived in isolation in the mountains for a long time. “We were surrounded by rich biodiversity,” he says. That came to an end in the 1980s, with the arrival of criminal organisations who devoted themselves to producing and trafficking drugs such as morphine and heroin. The violence that accompanied this was disastrous for the Indigenous population. The biodiversity suffered badly from the widespread use of glyphosate in poppy cultivation. Indigenous knowledge and medicine increasingly faded into the background. Chindoy: “My grandparents still had a lot of Indigenous knowledge: for them, we and the land are one and the Earth is our mother. This way of thinking was lost because of people coming from outside.”

The repression of Indigenous knowledge has a long history, starting with the rise of colonialism. Indigenous children, for instance, were not allowed to speak their own language in the missionary schools that were founded, even though this was the only education available for a long time. “The education the colonists brought with them was not geared to us at all. They had no regard for who we were and how we lived. My parents’ generation stopped using the traditional language or the traditional way of dressing. They no longer valued the land as part of themselves but as something to be traded and commercialised. As a result, a lot of our knowledge was lost.” At the end of the last century, Chindoy’s community had been dominated by drug violence for over 15 years, resulting in many deaths. The Inga were balancing on the brink of extinction, physically and culturally.

Wuasikamas

The year 2003 marked a turning point. Chindoy played a major role in bringing his community together to discuss how they could put an end to the violence and restore their own identity. He succeeded in convincing more than 4,000 Indigenous people and local farmers to collectively abandon poppy cultivation. About 22,000 hectares became the property of the collective, and traditional knowledge and practices became central to the management of the land. Most of the land has been designated a sacred area where strict environmental protection applies. Coffee, sugar and fruit, for example, are grown on the remaining land. The products are sold under the label Wuasikamas, which means ‘Guardians of the Earth’.

Poorer, but also richer

The death toll dropped significantly, and the condor, tapir, spectacled bear and deer returned to the area. Chindoy’s efforts were awarded the UN Development Programme’s Equator Prize. “We may now be poorer in terms of money, but much richer in terms of knowledge, biodiversity and quality of life.” Chindoy hopes this upheaval can set an example, especially for other Indigenous peoples. “There are 115 different Indigenous peoples in Colombia, 70 of which are seriously threatened with extinction. If they are no longer there, their knowledge will also be lost. Every 15 days a language disappears, mainly of Indigenous peoples. It is then not only the language that disappears, but also the way of thinking that enabled people to live and survive in those circumstances.

The establishment of Wuasikamas has brought about a revival of Indigenous knowledge and practices, but the vast majority of Inga still receive little formal education. Since there is no higher education in the area, young people are forced to travel to other places, which is often difficult due to a lack of money. Those who do get their degrees somewhere else often do not return.

An alternative to universities

Chindoy wants to change that. He wants to develop so-called ‘pluriversities’ to give more people access to higher education focused on traditional knowledge. “The pluriversity brings together different communities with different cultures and perspectives to work on collective goals, such as protecting biodiversity and fighting poverty.” The pluriversity should be an alternative to universities dominated by a Western understanding of scientific knowledge. Western science contributes to the “progress of humanity” by treating the earth and all natural beings as objects, he explains. “Indigenous communities, however, protect about 80 per cent of the world’s biodiversity on only 20 per cent of the earth’s surface, relying on very different forms of knowledge.”

What strikes Chindoy most about Western science is its bleakness. “Western knowledge can go very deep, but without spirituality, there is no connection. For us, knowledge and spirituality are inseparable. That is why Indigenous knowledge is so meaningful: since we can communicate with the heart, mind and soul, we can listen to that which cannot be seen but can be felt.

Taita Hernando Chindoy and Milena Bonilla in conversation during the exhibition Tanah Merdeka by Taring Padi. Photo: Padrick Stam / Framer Framed

From the equator to the pole

Instead of using knowledge to accumulate power and wealth, the pluriversity aims to help ensure that humans and non-humans can coexist equally. The pluriversity covers a broad spectrum and is based on the biocultural principle that nature and culture are strongly intertwined. “An important element is the connection with the territory. The land is a teacher with a lot of knowledge,” Chindoy says. “Trees are also educators, as are the jaguar, the anaconda and the spectacled bear.”

Pluriversities are being established in several places, each with its own focus and character. Chindoy has now set his his sights mainly on the ËCONEÊRÃ pluriversity, which will welcome about 400 students for the first time in 2026. “We are targeting young people because they are the generation that will ensure the survival of species. The idea is for all students to be part of a community linked to a particular territory. In this way, education will be linked to the protection of that territory. We want to offer every student a scholarship and are now busy looking for funding.”

Chindoy continued: “Our goal after 12 years is to protect approximately 5 million hectares of land in different regions of the earth – from the equator to the polar region – through ËCONEÊRÃ. We think it is important to bring this way of thinking and doing to different latitudes on earth. What happens in one place on earth affects other places. After all, the earth is one whole.”

Text by Rosa Hofgärtner

Originally published in Down to Earth Magazine, platform for environmental journalism, 11 June 2024

The post "For us, knowledge and spirituality are not separate" - in conversation with Indigenous leader Hernando Chindoy appeared first on Framer Framed.

Featuring a discussion between guest tutor Jean-Sylvain Tshilumba Mukendi and Carla Kabamba the episode explores the intertwining histories of the world, Amsterdam, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Kabamba shares her personal connection to the DRC, discussing the exploitation and suffering caused by colonialism and her efforts to stop the import of ‘blood minerals’ in Amsterdam. The episode highlights the urgency of addressing the violence and deforestation linked to mineral mining in DRC, emphasising both a critical awareness of global dependencies on these resources and her passionate advocacy for the country’s prosperity.

Jean-Sylvain Tshilumba Mukendi is a cultural practitioner and artistic coordinator at the art and research centre Atelier Picha in the DRC.

Carla Kabamba is a member of the Amsterdam City Council for Lijst Kabamba.

Planetary Poetics is a two year master’s programme at the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, that enables participants to develop artistic research exploring key concepts of the ecological crisis, including questions of climate justice, land restitution and reparations, reproductive justice, and constellations of co-resistance. Planetary Poetics is and initiative of Dorine van Meel and Josien Pieterse from Framer Framed. Keep an eye on our agenda for events related to the programme! There will be a series of public lectures, performances, podcasts and workshops. We welcome you to join. To be updated about the program you can follow our sociomedia channels or subscribe to our newsletter.

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Planetary Poetics is a temporary a master’s programme exploring key concepts of the ecological crisis hosted in collaboration with Framer Framed and Dorine van Meel at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, and Picha, an independent art initiative that seeks to promote artistic creation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.

The post Podcast: Counter-extractivism: Poetics of remedy and transmission appeared first on Framer Framed.

Text: Sterre Herstel

The wind is howling in the Molenwijk. It blows through the corridors of the ten-story residential buildings, hovering over its grass lanes, before it arrives at Werkplaats Molenwijk. Today the wind brings a workshop by artist Sun Chang, already an acquaintance of the community, and co-facilitator Noam Youngrak Son. Six participants from queer and migrant Molenwijk communities are invited by Sun and Noam to delve into their relationship with the wind in the neighbourhood and with the wind in or as themselves.

The first step was navigating the wind in the neighbourhood through questions such as “Where does the wind meet you?”, “Where does it feel strong?” and “Is the wind warm or cold?”. New connections to the communal physical space were being made: “My children always name this corner the storm street!”

Next up, Noam took the group on a wind story across the world with a poetic-political image essay on how the wind transports and distributes, and how humans have been trying to gain control over the wind and the direction in which it flows: from high-energy to low-energy, warm to cold, and from abundance to scarcity. Through the eyes of Noam, we were able to glance at the political and historical interrelatedness of ourselves with the wind: “Wind is a current, a vector, a carrier bag that blows through various ecological, cultural, economic, historical and affective landscapes”.

The workshop. Photo: Sun Chang

In the third part, wind became an instrument for self-inquiry: “If you were a wind, what kind of wind would you be? Would you be a summer’s breeze or would you be a raging storm?” Participants drew and shared their internal whirlwinds of impatience, how they’d like to imagine themselves more as a soft breeze, or the storms they had seen in their lifetime – through the metaphor of wind they accomplished a storytelling of their personal storms.

We ventured on what the winds would need and a collection of methods to bring ease to storms came to the surface: praying, dancing, alone time, exploring, or having the wind of others sometimes coming to stillness. Taking into account our needs, Sun invited the participants to welcome their internal winds into their homes. The apartment floor plan of the Molenwijk houses became the canvasses on which we crafted the winds blowing through our spaces, and where the needs of our winds found a place. These individual floor plan sculptures merged as one collective work integrated into the Molenwijk map.

The workshop. Photo by Sun Chang

The participatory workshop will be the backbone of the design and development of the second edition of the to M•Others publication, which will be published at the end of May. The creative publication launch of to M•Others #2 will be held during the Queer Open Stage on the 26 May at 15.00. Mapping the Currents, Housing for Winds in Molenwijk is supported by Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Stimuleringsfonds and the circular economy of to M•Others.

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One of Picha’s main public activities is the Lubumbashi Biennale. Founded in 2008 as Rencontres Picha, it has become one of the most dynamic artistic events on the African continent, providing a platform for presentation and encounter for local and international artists and cultural actors. In addition to the Biennale, the art institution offers two educational programmes: The Picha Residency Programme, where artists are invited for research and workstay in Lubumbashi, and Atelier Picha, an artistic training programme focused on participatory cultural projects by providing workshops led by (inter)national speakers, mentors and project managers.

When art institutions meet

The collaboration between Picha and Framer Framed began in 2018, with A Blueprint for Toads and Snakes, a solo exhibition by Congolese artist Sammy Baloji who presented a commemoration of the history of exploitation and cultural formation in the DRC. His exhibition offered viewers a critical reflection on the ways in which mineral extraction and cultural structures have impacted contemporary life in the country.

A Blueprint for Toads and Snakes (2018) at Framer Framed, installation view. Foto: (c) Eva Broekema / Framer Framed

Two years later, in 2020, Framer Framed joined a long-term collaboration with On-Trade-Off (OTO), a transnational artist collective and research project initiated by Picha and Enough Room for Space (BE). On-Trade-Off explores questions surrounding the mining of raw materials such as lithium for technological industries and the economies that influence it. One of the participating artists, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, is also an active member of Picha. During his residency with the Thami Mnyele Foundation in Amsterdam he created The Concentrator – a new artwork commissioned and produced by On-Trade-Off, Z33, and Framer Framed – for the exhibition Charging Myths, presented at Z33 in 2022 and Framer Framed in 2023. The Concentrator is an imagining of a machine from the mining industry that processes raw materials into usable ore by separating minerals from ordinary rock sediments. The exhibition Charging Myths explored how technological innovation is dependent on natural resources, delving into our relationship with energy – from its colonial past to its unequal technological future.

Jean Katambayi Mukendi, The Concentrator (2022). Foto: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

Sammy Baloji’s work at the Lubumbashi Biennale 2022, with Framer Framed as a partner and co-producer, continued to Kunsthalle Mainz for the exhibition Unextractable: Sammy Baloji Invites in 2023. The exhibition displayed collective forms of artistic production that resist the ongoing toxic impact of economic, ecological and socio-cultural exploitation. Among those on display were works by Franck Moka and Isaac Sahani Dato, developed in cooperation with Framer Framed. On view until February 2024, Unextractable: Sammy Baloji Invites was co-curated in collaboration with Picha, Framer Framed and Reconnecting Objects, a research project of the Technische Universität in Berlin, Germany.

Tesla Crash, A Speculation (2019) by Sammy Baloji, Jean Katambayi Mukendi & Daddy Tshikaya. Foto: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

Planetary Poetics

In addition to exhibitions, commissioned works, and residencies, Framer Framed and Atelier Picha are participating in an ongoing educational exchange with the master’s programme Planetary Poetics (2023-2024). This is an initiative of artist Dorine van Meel and Framer Framed at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. Planetary Poetics enables participants to develop artistic research exploring key concepts of the ecological crisis, such as climate justice, land restitution and reparations, reproductive justice and constellations of co-resistance. In their partnership with Atelier Picha, Planetary Poetics invited guest tutor Jean-Sylvain Tshilumba Mukendi – project and artistic coordinator at Picha – and fellow Sarah Ndele to probe the effects of (neo)colonialism and extractivism in the DRC.

The seminar series Counter-extractivism: Poetics of remedy and transmission was led by Jean-Sylvain Tshilumba Mukendi, a cultural practitioner and writer who explores art practices of Africa and its diaspora and the relevance of globalism in the contemporary art world. Over the course of two months in 2024, students were invited to think about the role of contemporary artists in uncovering colonial power relations and imagining a different future. They explored the geopolitical history surrounding the establishment of the DRC, its history of extractivism and the context of its decolonization movements. They also discussed the meaning of working together in a global context and how to avoid reproducing power relations in international collaborations.

In countries with a colonial history that’s still palpable in the present-day, a collaboration between art institutions can examine a painful past, question an unequal present and imagine a possible future.

Sarah Ndele’s performance for Maintaining the Root (2024) at Framer Framed as part of a workshop series within the Planetary Poetics Master’s programme. Photo: © Marlise Steeman / Framer Framed / Sandberg Instituut

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The search for a more sustainable development in the ‘developed’ world has, so far, been focusing too much on hardware updates, such as new technologies, economic incentives, policies and regulations, and too little on software revisions, that is cultural transformations affecting our ways of knowing, learning, valuing and acting together. The cultural software is, nevertheless, at least as much part of the fundamental infrastructure of a society as its material hardware. – Sacha Kagan¹

In the summer of 2021, wild fires ravaged the suburbs of Athens. I could not leave my flat, because various agents burning in abandoned factories had made the air dangerously toxic. My days were spent indoors with my dog, glued in front of a screen, seeing the fire devour everything. Helpless and still, we both suffered in the heat, with fans humming in the flat; air toxicity forbade the use of air-condition. How ironic it was that a wildfire was forcing us to be more ecological. I had been working on the research platform The Bureau of Care already for two years, but felt suddenly the heavy presence of the elephant in the room: it was unrealistic to discuss care, without including environmental care as the biggest umbrella under which we think all aspects of the ethics and politics of care.

Wildfires have been a phenomenon in various corners of the world for decades, but these last years are the worst on record. Global agribusiness accounts already for destruction of virgin forests, and 11% of global greenhouse emissions. Together with fossil fuel, transport and construction, these are the most disruptive human activities. And yet, we live in a world that wanting less fossil fuel, less extraction, less destruction is still considered somehow an “activist” “radical” position, rather than an existential demand, a planetary practice for all. The Western, so-called “developed” world should bare the brunt of this disaster, since “first gear” economies and their societies pollute more. Unfortunately, the burden of climate disaster is not shared equally, and even more tragically in the West, climate change deniers have planted the seed of doubt against the urgency to change our cultural software. These last decades, an ever-growing part of society believes either that there is in fact very little that we can do to change the current predicament we are in, or that climate change is not as bad as it is portrayed to be. Additionally -and even more worryingly- there is a part of society that believes that climate change is fake news.

Already in the 1970s, the climate crisis and the way fossil fuel and industrial farming contributed to our present ecosystem collapse, were well known by scientists, thinkers, activists and cultural practitioners. Many posed questions towards sustainability and begun looking for methodologies that separate from the modus operandi of the turbocapitalist globalised world that was already apparently forming by the mid-80s. Revisiting texts from that period, it was shocking to see how accurate predictions have been and how many cultural practitioners were probing into ways of avoiding climate disaster. Various seminal texts, researches and methodologies were published on how to operate in non intrusive and polluting ways on both the micro and macro scale. One of them was The One Straw Revolution (1975), an influential book on ecological thought and practice, written by Japanese farmer and philosopher Masanobu Fukuoka. The title of Fukuoka’s book refers to the technique of scattering straw in a field post-harvest, following his philosophy of cultivating the earth with minimal waste and respect for preserving ecosystem balance.  The method, absent of pesticides and fertilisers, focusing on minimal waste, still holds the solution for the radical challenges in the global system of food production and distribution; an issue that has only grown more urgent today. His methodologies propose a long-term approach, putting prolonged and thoughtful observation ahead of extractive and thoughtless labour, by looking at and learning from plants and animals and all their intersecting behaviours. As a result, his work was among those that probed scientists and academics to further develop this thinking into what today is known as “permaculture.”

A short-cut for ‘permanent culture’, permaculture is a philosophy and practice of working with – rather than against – the ecosystems we are part of and dependent on. It proposes thinking in the long-term, putting at the forefront protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor, by looking at and learning from plants and animals in all their intersecting behaviours. Permaculture was coined as a term by scientists David Holmgren and Bill Mollison in 1978², their work being in consonance with Indigenous and traditional knowledges, rooted in local cultures, customs and practices. What drew me to look into it more, was the concept of organising through re-wilding, through respect and a profound care and tenderness for non-human animals and flora, embracing interspecies co-existence that supports symbiosis rather than antagonism. Could we apply its working methods in the cultural realm, and think of a permanent culture as one that is sustainable for the future to come? But how can we think of culture and permanence in a world that is currently collapsing?

Exhibition ‘The One-Straw Revolution‘ (2024) curated by iLiana Fokianaki. Photo: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed.

The exhibition The One Straw Revolution (2024) is inspired by the main principles of such strands of ecological thought and practice, that propagate for a way of being that heeds the existential threat posed by the climate crisis. The works presented explore questions regarding “permanence” and sustainability, deriving from a desire to connect with philosophies and practices operating counter to neoliberal and capitalist models.The exhibition is structured around perma-culture’s zone system, with a focus on zone 0: the human and her settlement, while addressing the spatial philosophy of perma-culture, with a convivial criticality: less anthropocentric on the one hand, more critical of the so far human interventions that brought us where we are today.

Some of the works presented focus on human detachment from nature, highlighting the need to re-script the way we understand our species in connection to the world. Bik van der Pol‘s contribution revisits their work with the Strenkali, a community stretching around the river in Surabaya, Indonesia, fighting for their rights to be citizens and make living alongside the river sustainable. The work from 2015, is in dialogue with a new work developed in Norway, that attempts to trace how Western subjects engage with the world – in particular, how we mine, excavate and otherwise exploit the ground on which we stand. Nora Severios traces her own connections to land and specifically the mountain, through a recalibration of her own identity, attempting to familiarize herself with plant knowledges of her ancestors, while examining the cliche of the Kurds as mountain people, farmers and foragers that live with and through the mountains.

Himali Singh Soin, addresses the mountain as a living organism; a witness of toxic destruction and exploitation by power systems. By using a real-life spy story in the Indian Himalayas to discuss not only environmental catastrophe but also nuclear culture, she highlights toxicity and the grey zone between spirituality and scientific fact, or Western versus non-Western knowledge systems. Irene Kopelman equally delves into power systems, but those that emerge and are entangled with plant life and expansion, tracing the roots of the Cinchona tree that was transported throughout the colonies for the treatment drug for malaria, quinine. Interestingly, Uriel Orlow is focused on another plant that treats malaria, Artemisia afra. He presents not only its past, but its present and future, through non-extractive relationships to natural resources as well as local and sustainable healthcare solutions and forms of solidarity, in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo whose colonial and postcolonial economy has been dominated by various forms of extraction (mainly of minerals). Denise Ferreira da Silva & Arjuna Neuman’s film essay (the third in a series of fours that discuss the four elements: air, earth, fire, water) questions how colonial, capital, hetero-patriarchal structures of power, perpetuate categorisation and difference, to break material ties to other humans, more-than-humans and deeper implicated bonds with our planet and beyond.

Himali Singh Soin, An Affirmation (2022) in ‘The One-Straw Revolution‘ (2024) curated by iLiana Fokianaki at Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Photo: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

The legacies and cosmologies of Indigenous communities in South America, still guardians and protectors of any possibilities for a future are apparent through the work of both Edgar Calel and Eliana Otta. Through their presentations for this exhibition they discuss the lives of communities that have been more closely embedded with and affected by nature -and its destruction. The Guatemalan Calel revisits his own ancestry and his connection to both environment and ancestors, while evoking memories of his family and paying homage to the indigenous communities of the midwestern highlands of Guatemala. Similarly Otta, furthers her work on the indigenous community of her native Peru, the Nuevo Amanecer Hawai, based near the town of Satipo, in the Peruvian Amazon. She chooses to describe her experience of sharing life with them, in a form of hommage to the dead leaders of the community, celebrating their legacy and impact in the new generations that continue to defend their way of life and humanity’s possibility to a future. Both practices highlight not only the tropes of living that respect ecosystem balance, but further the philosophies of living together considering non-human centric cosmologies and interspecies kinships.

Edgar Calel, Music for Our Grandmothers and Grandfathers (2023) in the exhibition ‘The One-Straw Revolution‘ (2024). Photo: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

Kyriaki Goni discusses the damaging effects of overtouristification through the almost collapse of delicate ecosystems in the Aegean sea, Greece. Proposing current neoliberal systems of cheap and fast holidays, as contributors to our ecological collapse. Through the fictive near-future story of a girl that is tracing the extinction of bees in the Aegean archipelago, ( a real life threat currently in my native Greece) she aims to point towards the senseless damage to ecosystem balance we all participate in through tourism. Similarly, Citra Sasmita’s work is revisiting her native Bali. The once abundant connection with nature, described through traditional forms of art, poetry and literature is evident in large paintings filled with female figures emerging from trees and flames. By using the visual language of tradition and mythology, and visual signifiers of the binary nature/female, she comments on contemporary societal questions that refer to gender equality in her native Bali, but also innate connotations towards our relationship to nature.

The exhibition focuses on thought and practice that aspires for a human and non-human intersectionality and the desire to build on eon-long traditions and mandates of a non-proprietary culture of land and life, connecting a sustainable past with a sustainable future, ancestors with descendants. It also focuses on the legacies of knowledge systems that have been thriving separate and despite of heteronormative patriarchal Western hegemonies and colonial and neo-colonial violence. But it also explores examples and imaginaries of sustainable futures through artistic practices that call for de-growth. As one of the works declares, the aim is for a world to be drafted where subjectivity is unbound from the mind alone, but rebound to the world. The works are spatially composed, so that we re-think our habitat, our home and our immediate surroundings differently.

What The One-Straw Revolution proposes, is that we think of an exhibition as a form of an alternative ecology, in which artworks contribute to shaping what I call a shared perma-future: a future where we exist otherwise as humans in the world, by departing from our catastrophic implication in the Pyrocene and by re-considering our role as fellow ecosystem contributors. In a world that is slowly heading towards collapse, to be able to imagine and contemplate on such a future, through a new cultural software that changes our ways of knowing, learning and being in the planet, can ignite the sparks of a revolution.

iLiana Fokianaki
January 2024

1. 1. Kagan Sasha, Toward Global (Environ)Mental Change, Transformative Art and Cultures of Sustainability, Edited by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, (2012) p.14

2. Mollison, Bill, Introduction to permaculture, Tagari Publications Australia, (1991) p.6

The post Towards a Perma-Future by iLiana Fokianaki appeared first on Framer Framed.

This spring, the Ukraine edition of Stay Strong Photo Stories started: How do you stay connected to yourself and others in a time when life is uncertain and unpredictable? Stay Strong Photo Stories is a participatory photo project in which participants portray their daily lives based on concrete assignments.

The first edition of the project was created when the world was in the middle of the COVID-19 period. During the (online) workshops, participants used photography and stories to look for bright spots in days that were lonely and uncertain for many people. In March 2024, the Ukraine edition started with young people between the ages of 13 and 17 in collaboration with the organization Molotok in Khust, Transcarpathia (Western Ukraine). A region that is still relatively safe and to which many refugees from other parts of Ukraine have moved.

“This is our daily life in pictures,” said one of the young people as a conclusion during the last workshop. Not only taking photos, but also sharing thoughts and feelings about what is going on with everyone, was central to the meetings, which were a combination of theory and practical assignments. During the workshops, examples of Ukrainian artists working with the medium of photography are presented, including the colorful portraits of Polina Polikarpova, a series about connection by Artem Humilevskyi, or work by Elena Subach who photographed wrapped cultural heritage to protect it against the war. After each workshop, the young people work on homework assignments themselves. Each session the images captured are discussed and the young people tell what concerns them. From dance lessons, to birthdays, the blossoming of spring, walks and coming across signs with the word ‘shelter’ on it with an arrow. In this ordinariness, the war casually comes close; like the red candles that line the streets when a deceased soldier from the region is brought back or buried, or during conversations about family members fighting on the front lines and saying that everything will be fine. It is about hope and bright spots, but also about sadness, tears and loss. Below is an impression of the images and stories.

Stay Strong Photo Stories #5 is an initiative of Framer Framed, Karine Zenja Versluis and Molotok. Karine is a documentary photographer with a Ukrainian background, visual storyteller and social worker specialized in trauma. Molotok is a cultural organization that organizes activities for young people in the field of film, photography, music and theater.

Ukrainian

Цієї весни стартував український випуск Stay Strong Photo Stories: як залишатися на зв’язку з собою та іншими в час, коли життя невизначене та непередбачуване? Stay Strong Photo Stories – це спільний фотопроект, у якому учасники зображують своє повсякденне життя на основі конкретних завдань.

Перша редакція проекту була створена, коли світ був у середині періоду COVID-19. Під час (онлайн) семінарів учасники використовували фотографії та історії, щоб знайти світло в дні, які були самотніми та непевними для багатьох людей. У березні 2024 року проєкт «Україна» стартував для молоді віком від 13 до 17 років у співпраці з організацією «Молоток» у Хусті, Закарпаття (Західна Україна). Регіон, який досі є відносно безпечним і куди переїхало багато біженців з інших частин України.

«Це наше повсякденне життя в картинках», – підсумував один із молодих людей під час останнього семінару. Не лише фотографування, а й обмін думками та почуттями про те, що відбувається з усіма, були центральними на зустрічах, які були поєднанням теорії та практичних завдань. Під час воркшопів були представлені приклади робіт українських художників із використанням фотографії, зокрема колоритні портрети Поліни Полікарпової, серія про зв’язок Артема Гумілевського чи роботи Олени Субач, яка фотографувала запаковану культурну спадщину, щоб захистити її під час війни. . Після кожного майстер-класу молоді люди самостійно виконували домашні завдання.
На кожній сесії обговорювалися зроблені кадри, а молоді люди розповідали, що їх хвилює. Від уроків танців до днів народжень, розквіту весни, прогулянок і зустрічей із табличками зі стрілочкою і написом Сховище. У цій буденності війна випадково наближається; як червоні свічки, які стоять вулицями, коли повертають чи ховають померлого бійця з фронту, або під час розмов про рідних, які воюють на передовій і кажуть, що все буде добре. Це про надію та світло, а також про смуток, сльози та втрати. Нижче представлені зображення та історії.

Stay Strong Photo Stories #5 – це ініціатива Karine Zenja Versluis, Framer Framed і Molotok. Каріне — фотограф-документаліст з українським походженням, візуальний оповідач і соціальний працівник, який спеціалізується на травмах. Молоток – це культурна організація, яка організовує заходи для молоді у сфері кіно, фотографії, музики та театру.

Albina: “These are the keys of our home in Shostka and I hope one day I can return back to my home.”

Albina: “Fire of grief: when I was walking to my dance class I saw this. Here in Ukraine, they put candles on the street when they say goodbye to soldiers that passed away. Or after a funeral. These candles are everywhere in town. My dad was also fighting.”

Albina: “These flowers growing through the cracks are a symbol of hope to me.”

Albina: “Transcarpathian cuisine: This was during and IDP (Internally Displaced People) food workshop. To learn about making a Transcarpathian dish. It is about the connection of being together and about learning about the new culture we are now living in.”

Zhenya Antoniuyk: “This is a photo from my house in Kyiv. I haven’t been there for a while because of the bombings. I took this photo with the sunset to show that even during the war, there is beauty around us. It helps us to stay strong.”

Halyna: “This photo is connected to the war. My brother is now fighting. He is somewhere at the frontline. When we talk on the phone, he never talks about the war. He always smiles and says that everything will be ok.”

Halyna: “I took this photo because we were in the bomb shelter during the air raid, but we were having fun there.”

Halyna: “I took this photo with a friend who moved from Ukraine during the war. We haven’t seen each other for a long time.”

Adolf: “I went out for a walk with my friend, and we found this frog. She was very photogenic and looked at us.”

Adolf: “I went for a walk with a friend and saw this photo with the sign that says ‘shelter’. It is the connection with the war.”

Alexandra Dyakover: “I decided to take this picture after seeing the colors that match perfectly, creating a beautiful composition. The yellow building, the clear blue sky and the yellow-blue flag are a perfect combination.”

Sofiya Sarvadi: “This was my birthday. It was a special birthday because it was the first time that I celebrated it not with my family, but with my best friend. And of course, as a gift, he kindly paid for everything.”

Sofiya Sarvadi: “Sometimes our school collects money for the military, and this is a box for collecting caps, which are then recycled and those funds also go to the military.”

Sofia Filip: “This photo shows us that spring has come. And this means that we are getting closer and closer to victory. It gives us hope.”

Olya: “Eyes are the mirror of the soul. It is a connection with people’s emotions. There is a phrase that says: ‘eyes are as deep as your soul’. “

Olya: “This week we had an air raid at school and we were sitting in the basement. The rockets only reached Transcarpatia once. But now during the air raid, we just have to go to the basement. It was quite boring to sit there.”

Alan: “We went on an excursion to the local museum in another region. There I saw these blockings.”

Alan: “This picture is about the connection with nature. It is important to look at the plants, but also to realize that as humans we are part of nature.”

Alan: “Sometimes I like to spend time alone and take time to think about all kinds of things.”

Elizaveta: “In the beginning of the invasion, people in Ukraine did a lot with the colours of the flag, like wearing clothes with the colours or with manicures. My mother made this for me. Before the war, nobody thought so much of the colours of Ukraine. Now everybody is more conscious about it.”

Elizaveta: The war makes a lot of tears and crying. I wanted to express this in the photo. My grandmother was also in a town under occupation.

The post "There is still so much beauty around us, that helps us stay strong” appeared first on Framer Framed.

Applications are closed

Framer Framed will be launching a new online archive and we want to share the infrastructure with artists, cultural workers, collectives and community archives. In the pilot programme Archiving the Present we aim to create a manual for archiving and preparing the collection based on the use cases of the participants.

The workshops will be guided by Mariana Lanari, who together with graphic designer Remco van Bladel is co-founder of Archival Consciousness. They collaborate with libraries and cultural archives to implement methods and infrastructure to turn their physical collection into data.

Workshops
Starting on 31 May, participants will meet every two weeks to work on their archives, while also leaving space for individual work between sessions. We’re looking for dedicated and hard-working participants who feel the urgency and importance of archiving and want to know how to translate their archives into data. This workshop series aims to bring together like-minded ‘archivists’ who can engage in conversation and engage on presenting an archive.

Throughout Archiving the Present, we will approach the archive as a system, and work layer by layer. We begin with the humble ‘character’ – the smallest element in computation but an essential base element of the archive model. Then we move to the word, the sentence, the page, the book, the collection and finally the architecture of the archive. At the end of the series the group will return to an overview of data collection, curation and preparation. Archiving has no end, but by the final workshop we will cover the entire lifecycle of data. Each participant will have their own model and give a final presentation of their work-in-progress archives.

Are you a cultural archivist looking to gain digital skills and work with data? Or do you have your own archive or archival project and need a new burst of motivation? Do you want to develop your technical, ethical and editorial skills in relation to archiving?

Schedule
31 May | 14:00 – 17:00
14 June | 14:00 – 17:00
4 July | 14:00 – 17:00
12 July | 14:00 – 17:00

Location
Framer Framed
Oranje-Vrijstaatkade 71
1093 KS, Amsterdam

Unfortunately, due to the large number of applications, we are unable to provide feedback on unsuccessful applications.

Acknowledgements

This workshop series is part of the project InnovatieLabs 2: Archiving the Present in collaboration with Framer Framed, Archival Consciousness and Jan van Eyck Academie.

InnovatieLabs is supported by Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie and CLICKNL.

Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.

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Meer weten over onze educatieve programma’s? Luister naar onze nieuwste podcastaflevering over het project Zelf gemaakt!

In deze aflevering gaan we in gesprek met Ikra, Rana, en Rumaysa van Kolom Praktijkcollege in Amsterdam-Noord en praten we met de leerlingen en hun kunstdocent Gina Sanches over het project Zelf gemaakt! geïnitieerd door Framer Framed i.s.m. OBA. Ikra, Rana en Rumaysa vertellen hoe ze de kans krijgen om artistieke vaardigheden te ontwikkelen en zich te uiten op een manier die hen buiten het reguliere schoolcurriculum artistiek uitdaagt.

Doel van Zelf gemaakt! is het ontwikkelen van eigentijdse cultuureducatie, toegespitst op leerlingen van het praktijkonderwijs om het artistiek-creatief vermogen te vergroten, zodat zij met zelfvertrouwen en gevoel van eigenaarschap uitdagende situaties aan kunnen gaan.

Tijdens het gesprek ontdekken we dat de leerlingen niet alleen genieten van het maken van kunst, maar ook de waarde ervan inzien als een creatieve uitlaatklep en zelfs als inspiratie voor toekomstige carrières. Zelf gemaakt! sluiten het project af met een tentoonstelling met de kunstwerken van de leerlingen in Werkplaats Molenwijk.

Shakallaka (2024) van Zelf gemaakt! educatie project.Werkplaats Molenwijk / Framer Framed

Gina Sanches is docent vakdidactiek aan de Breitner Academie (AHK) en freelance educatiemaker voor o.a. Framer Framed. Gina ziet educatie als een kunstvorm, waarmee zij haar leerlingen, maar ook zichzelf onderdeel maakt van een artistiek collectief.

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 Zelf gemaakt! wordt mede mogelijk gemaakt door Fonds voor Cultuur Participatie, Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap, Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, de Alliantie en Gemeente Amsterdam.

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Iedere woensdagmiddag komen wij, de leerlingen van Praktijkcollege Noord en twee kunstdocenten samen. We komen samen om kunst te ervaren, te maken en elkaar te ontmoeten. Dit doen wij in de Molenwijk, in de buurt, tussen de mensen, onder de gebouwen en op de Framer Framed Werkplaats Molenwijk. Onder de noemer “zelfgemaakt” geven de leerlingen vorm aan hun eigen creatieve navigatie. We experimenten, leren met elkaar en gaan in gesprek over van alles wat er op die momenten in hun levens speelt.

Tekst: Gina Sanches

Een leerling komt binnen en vraagt: ‘mag ik iets maken voor mijn moeder, ze is ernstig ziek’. Dat mag zeker en wat akelig dat je moeder ziek is. Wij kunnen ons voorstellen dat je iets voor haar wilt doen. We vragen haar wat ze wil maken voor haar moeder, dat weet ze nog niet. We vragen de groep om mee te denken. Een leerling zegt: een bos bloemen.

Zelf gemaakt! educatie project in Werkplaats Molenwijk / Framer Framed (2023). Foto: Diede Visser en Gina Sanches

Een andere leerling vertelt dat zijn moeder is overleden toen hij 5 was en hij niet zou weten wat hij voor haar zou kunnen maken. De groep reageert geschrokken. We vragen of hij herinneringen heeft aan zijn moeder, hij heeft heel veel foto’s en filmpjes. Als dominostenen die elkaar opvolgen beginnen andere leerlingen ook te vertellen over een doodgeboren neefje, overleden oma en wel of geen liefdesverdriet hebben als je vriendje/vriendinnetje het heeft uitgemaakt.

Diede en ik besluiten dat de les die we voor ogen hadden niet de behoefte is van de leerlingen op dit moment. We geven hen een optie om iets te maken voor een (overleden) dierbare of de opdracht die we hadden bedacht (een teken met je hand in gips afdrukken). Diede en Gina zijn vandaag jullie assistenten, zet ons in waar nodig.

De leerlingen pakken verschillende materialen en gaan vol toewijding aan de slag. Aan het einde van de les geeft een leerling haar beste vriendin een cadeau, dat ze stiekem tijdens deze les had gemaakt. De andere leerlingen nemen hun gemaakte werken mee naar huis, we vragen hen om het geven van de (kunst)cadeaus vast te leggen op beeld (foto/video).

Gina Sanches met de leerlingen buiten de Werkplaats Molenwijk. Foto: Diede Visser

 Zelf gemaakt! wordt mede mogelijk gemaakt door Fonds voor Cultuur Participatie, Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap, Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, de Alliantie en Gemeente Amsterdam.

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Taring Padi are a leading Indonesian art collective with a mission to understand the cultural and social history of Indonesia through a contemporary lens. Based in Yogyakarta, they use art as a tool to explore issues of sovereignty to overcome environmental destruction, violence, food shortages and unemployment.

From March to May 2024, Griffith University Art Museum will host Taring Padi: Tanah Tumpah Darah. As part of this project, Taring Padi will undertake a residency and suite of public programs in collaboration with proppaNOW, one of Australia’s most important Aboriginal art collectives, and develop a public art banner project together.

Installation photo Tanah Merdeka (2023) by Taring Padi. Photo: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

Whilst the title of their Framer Framed exhibition, Tanah Merdeka meant ‘liberated land’ their new exhibition, Tanah Tumpah Darah takes its title from a poetic phrase loosely meaning the emotions generated by remembering one’s motherland that was popularised during the Indonesian revolution and declaration of independence in 1945. The Indonesian left employed the phrase as an ideological framework during land disputes (sengketa agraria) against feudalistic land ownership systems and Western investments until 1965. However, under the military dictatorship of Soeharto (1966-1998), the phrase became an empty slogan in the annual ceremony of Indonesian Independence.

More recently, Tanah Tumpah Darah has been reclaimed as a common chant of contemporary Indonesian activists in campaigns against land grabbing and deforestation across the archipelago, a core aspect of Taring Padi’s cultural and political activities since its formation in 1998. Taring Padi see land as a broad concept with many complexities. They consider forces of extraction, preservation, colonisation, occupation, identity, and emancipation, and think of land not only as a physical and territorial site to be protected, defended, and reclaimed.

Installation view of the exhibition Tanah Merdeka (2023) by Taring Padi at Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Photo: © Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

Through learning and working together with diverse communities, Taring Padi understands that people have spiritual, cultural, social and economic connections with the lands, territories and resources they inhabit. In 2022, together with participants of the Wayang Kardus Workshops at Framer Framed and other locations, Taring Padi co-produced cardboard puppets that were later presented at documenta fifteen. For Tanah Merdeka they continued this collective approach during a one-month residency in Brazil, developing a new work with Casa do Povo and the Brazilian landless workers’ movement Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST). This wisdom necessitates struggle and fans the flame of solidarity action that continues collectively with proppaNOW in 2024.

Richard Bell, Aboriginal artist and activist speaking at the opening of Tanah Merdeka (2023) with Alex Supartono member of Taring Padi. Photo: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

Opening

Saturday 2 March 2024
Griffith University Art Museum
Griffith University South Bank Campus
226 Grey Street, South Bank, Brisbane, Australia

About Taring Padi

Taring Padi was founded in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 1998 by a group of progressive art students and activists in response to the Indonesian socio-political upheavals during the reformation era and the fall of Suharto. Consequently, Taring Padi’s artistic practice is always part of and contextualises within socio-political and cultural action and solidarity with a wide range of communities and social groups. Taring Padi’s works and solidarity actions are manifested in collective works in the form of woodcut posters, large-size banners, rontek, cardboard puppets, music, carnival and other art actions. Taring Padi often run workshops at their studio and undertake collaborative projects with communities and national and international art and political groups.

About proppaNOW

proppaNOW are one of Australia’s most important Aboriginal art collectives, established in Brisbane in 2003. Combining both individual and collective practices, proppaNOW explore the politics of Aboriginal art and culture, re-thinking what it means to be a ‘contemporary Aboriginal artist’. Often imbedded with an ironic sense of humour, their works address issues of land rights, environmental destruction, visibility and political activism. Based in Brisbane, proppaNOW continue to have strong connections to Griffith University’s Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art program.

Current members of proppaNOW include Vernon Ah Kee, Tony Albert, Richard Bell, Megan Cope, Jennifer Herd, Gordon Hookey, Shannon Brett, Lily Eather, and Warraba Weatherall.

The post From Tanah Merdeka to Tanah Tumpah Darah: Taring Padi in Brisbane, Australia appeared first on Framer Framed.

Test Evie Evans

In May 2023, Framer Framed embarked on a new international educational project in collaboration with the Camissa Museum in Cape Town, South Africa. The first sessions kicked off in Amsterdam, hosted by Dutch-Ukrainian artist Karine Versluis. In September 2023, the project continued as an 8 weeks long in-school program at Kiem Montessori in Amsterdam, led by Adjoa Kpeto, Cherella Gessel and Rienke Enghardt. However, the project Shared Waters has been years in the making. I spoke to two of the board members to find out more about the museum and why they wanted to undertake this exchange project with Framer Framed.

Calvyn Gilfellan begins our Zoom call he begins with an infectious enthusiasm, showing me his whereabouts at the Castle of Good Hope as we speak. As CEO of the heritage site, it’s not an unusual place for him to be, yet it already demonstrates his goal of wanting others to experience a new dimension to a space of immense history and suffering. He begins by contextualising his own position as a scholar of geography, environmental studies and cultural heritage tourism that informs his role as the Chair of the Board of the museum.

Students at the Camissa Museum at the Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town, South Africa

Fellow board member Stephen Langtry begins on a more sober note: ‘The history of colonialism in South Africa begins in Cape Town.’ The Camissa Museum is a unique place that tells the story of those who would have been classified as ‘coloured’ during apartheid in South Africa. A blanket label which ignores the dense diversity and cultural heritage of the people which it names. The museum, with a great focus on educating young people, asks the question of its local visitors: Who are we beyond the ethnic categories that have been foisted upon us? The founders choose the name Camissa after the Camissa River of Cape Town, meaning ‘sweet water for all’ in the language of the indigenous people who lived alongside it. It’s the perfect metaphor for the narrative of the museum – with its diverse tributaries which come together as one. According to the museum website:

‘Camissa Africans cannot be defined by colour, features, ethnicity, or race but by a common experience of facing and rising above systemic adversity and a range of crimes against humanity – colonialism, slavery, ethnocide and genocide, forced removals, de-Africanisation and Apartheid. Just like the Camissa River was forced underground, so were the Camissa Africans.’

The contents of the museum are based on years and years of archival and historical research, consultation and public participation. Calvyn Gilfellan met with one of the co-founders Angus Leendertz, along with South African Ambassador & political activist Robina Marks, at Galle Fort (a Dutch colonial fort) In Sri Lanka almost five years ago. ‘It was there we concretised the idea of creating a museum based on identity’, he explains. One of their inspirations was Patric Tariq Mellét, the revolutionary author of The Lie of 1652: A Decolonised History of Land. His book outlines 220 years of resistance and a history of migration to the Cape by Africans, Indians, Southeast Asians and Europeans.

As Calvyn tells it, the founders wrote a formal proposal which was immediately accepted by the board of the Castle of Good Hope. The Camissa Museum was launched virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, and as a physical space half a year later. The space is important because, according to Calvyn, 90% of museums in South Africa focus only the country’s colonial legacy or its apartheid history. Calvyn emphasises, ‘we are grappling with the question of identity in a tactile and integrated way’. Considering many museums struggled to adapt to digital during lockdown, I found it significant that the Camissa Museum succeeded in the opposite. I probe more into why they insisted on a physical space, especially one with an extremely colonial and violence history.

The museum is situated within the Castle of Good Hope, a fort built by the Dutch East India Company in 1666, replacing the first Dutch fort built by colonist Jan van Riebeeck, the first Commander of the Cape. Calvyn explains, ‘There are 6 or 7 other museums in the Castle, either complimentary or contradictory to what is in the space and which deconstruct the traditional idea of a museum.’ Calvyn specifically uses the term “decolonising” as an active verb, a process without end. ‘We admit it’s a space of atrocity…and that cannot be presented unproblematically”’ The new narratives of the Castle, including the Camissa Museum, aim to be inclusive and empowering for its visitors, enabling them to reclaim the space.

The decolonising comes from a sense of ownership, deeply interrelated to the ancestry, personal history and the Dutch colonial legacy. ‘It’s important for us’, Stephen notes, ‘to deal with a place of trauma and transform it to a place of healing’.

However, whilst it’s important for the Board that people can return to the physical space of the museum, Calvyn argues ‘The Camissa Museum is not confined by its borders of the square room, it’s also outside the castle and outside in the communities. The mountains, the streams, there’s always a link with the spatial environment around it and the communities around…We call it a museum because there needs to be a space where these discussions can take place.’ And they do this by creating a strong educational foundation to the museum and initiating outreach projects with other partner organisations in Cape Town.

Stephen expanded on this ‘we’re currently in the process of completing the permanent exhibition of the museum, but the most important part for me is to ensure that the museum continues to do outreach programs targeting young people who are often not aware of the stories we tell. Bringing them to the museum on a regular basis, taking them through workshops to explore the history but also their own personal stories and how it relates to the legacy of colonialism.’ One of these programmes is Shared Waters, but why Framer Framed? Calvyn explained that co-founder of the museum Angus Leendertz had two reasons for looking towards Amsterdam. Angus was ‘familiar with the work Framer Framed has done, and has experience living and working in Amsterdam. The other part is that it’s unavoidable – when talking about colonialism and the history of South Africa, South African’s are very aware of the role of the Dutch in that.’ He was drawn to the decolonial work, or the approach to decoloniality that Framer Framed is doing.

Mary Sibande, Conversations with Madam CJ Walker (2009), installation view of the exhibition Re(as)sitting Narratives (2016). Foto: Eva Broekema

Framer Framed is familiar to collaborations with partners in South Africa. In 2016, the Framer Framed exhibition Re(as)sisting Narratives, curated by Chandra Frank, explored the legacy of colonialism between the Netherlands and South Africa. The presentation was the result of two-years of research with partners, District Six Museum and Centre for Curating the Archive. The contemporary artists in the show – Mary Sibande, Sethembile Msezane, Mohau Modisakeng, Athi-Patra Ruga, Burning Museum Collective, Toni Stuart & Kurt Orderson, and Judith Westerveld – offered powerful perspectives on race, gender, memory and trauma. The works were eventually shown both at Framer Framed in Amsterdam, and at the District Six Museum Homecoming Centre in Cape Town. District Six, which was also mentioned by Calvyn Gilfellan, was an area of Cape Town whose inhabitants were forcibly expelled by the apartheid government after the area was designated for white citizens only. The museum was formed in 1989 to commemorate the district and strength of its community.

Within the context of Re(as)sisting Narratives, Framer Framed collaborated with organisation, Face to Face for international peer education. Two schools in the Netherlands and South Africa were connected and students worked together in online workshops. In fact, Framer Framed is hardly a stranger to education exchange programmes. When the exhibition space was first opened with the project, Crisis of History in 2014, it was accompanied by the Irbid Exchange international education programme. During this project, young people from the refugee shelter AZC in Almere were put in contact with peers in the refugee camp Irbid, Jordan. The participants entered into a dialogue via Skype, the exchange of artistic works by post, and a Tumblr account which you can still view today.

Since 2020 we have been working with the art school, Funda Community College in Soweto for the Decolonial Futures Exchange Programmes. As another hybrid exchange project, this format – in collaboration with Sandberg, Rietveld Academie – informed the planning of Shared Waters. Framer Framed hosted collaborative workshops online, and shared with artists in Soweto.

However, Shared Waters is still considered a sort of pilot project. It’s new initiative for young people to explore the personal (and political) elements of colonial history from two perspectives: that of the museum and an art space. As early as 2020, Angus was already in talks with Josien Pieterse, co-director of Framer Framed. Supported by Dutch Culture, the project aims to encourage young people to explore their family history and global connections in tandem with their peers in Cape Town. Participants will come together to exchange stories and experiences, eventually creating artistic works which will be presented in January 2024 at the Camissa Museum. Calvyn gushes about the project, ‘I had the privilege and the power to allocate the space for such an important project, with the support of Dutch Culture And I’m really looking forward to completing this last part of the exhibition.’ He comments admirably on the current South African participants, ‘there’s clearly a passion and a hunger amongst the participants to share…the kind of questions they ask, the confidence they build up’. Participants in Amsterdam will share their own work simultaneously at Framer Framed.

Shared Waters workshop at the Camissa Museum, Cape Town

The water metaphor beginning with the Camissa Museum is extended to Shared Waters. The Dutch colonial enterprise was a naval one; traversing the sea with commerce and the slave trade. But Stephen was resolute in mentioning the expanse of the Dutch East India Company in Asia, too, not just Africa, South America and the Caribbean. Many indentured workers were transported from Indonesia, India and Vietnam. Water is a boundless body, a type of space that connects many lands and cultures. The Shared Waters project by name encourages participants to re-evaluate their understanding of landscapes, spaces and how that informs their own history and identity.

Although it’s a pilot, and the first time the Camissa Museum has ever done a project like this, Stephen is optimistic. ‘There’s a lot of excitement in Cape Town from the youth that we’re working for two reasons: one is just that when young people get together in groups, the energy unleashed is always great to witness ,but for them, it’s also the opportunity to interact with young people in the Netherlands. Obviously it’ll be great if they can be in the same room but the way it’s done at the moment, virtually, is still good. It’s providing great opportunities to learn about other people.’ And regarding the outcome of the exchange? ‘We envision [the pilot project] as a creative arts project,’ Stephen answers, ‘So at the end of the workshops the young people will have produced some works. We might have a series of artworks  (painting, sculptures, performing arts, music, poetry) to represent what they have learnt and experienced.’

Shared Waters workshop at the Camissa Museum, Cape Town

The results of the exchange are yet unknown, though the project signifies an important act for young people in both Amsterdam and Cape Town. They are able to explore their identities, how they see themselves and how they see the world in an open space. They can ask questions about their family history and colonial legacies and have the initiative to search for the answers themselves, or with others. By taking a creative approach, the results are limitless. New connections and new narratives can be formed, informed by colonial links but not limited to them, across the globe. The shared waters wash over borders and breach boundaries, making them undetectable, allowing us to focus on our commonalities and junctures that come together – just like a stream flowing into a river.

Evie Evans
December 2023

Shared Waters opening in Amsterdam. Photo: Marlise Steeman / Framer Framed

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Performing Colonial Toxicity is an archival exhibition documenting France’s nuclear programme in Algeria during and after the Algerian Revolution (1954-62). Between 1960 and 1966, the French colonial regime detonated four atmospheric atomic bombs, thirteen underground nuclear bombs and conducted other nuclear experiments in the Algerian Sahara, whose natural resources were being extracted in the process. The Sahara region was contaminated with radioactive fallout, which subsequently spread across Algeria, North, Central and West Africa, and the Mediterranean, including Southern Europe. This has caused irreversible and ongoing contamination of living organisms, cells and particles, as well as the natural and built environments.

The exhibition presents available, offered, contraband and leaked materials from these archives in an immersive multimedia installation. It creates with them a series of audiovisual assemblages, which trace the spatial, atmospheric, and geological impacts of France’s atomic bombs in the Sahara, as well as its colonial vocabularies, and the (after)lives of its radioactive debris and nuclear waste. Performing Colonial Toxicity exhibition draws attention to the urgency of reckoning with this history and its lived environmental and sociopolitical impacts.

gta exhibitons, Zurich

From the 6 March to 2 April 2024, Performing Colonial Toxicity will be presented by gta exhibitions as part of the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture at the university, ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

gta exhibitions presents the teaching and research of the Department of Architecture (D-ARCH) where Samia Henni is a visiting professor. She also received her Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Architecture (with distinction, ETH Medal) from ETH Zurich.

The opening on 5 March features a guided tour with Samia Henni.

The Mosaic Rooms, London

Between 21 March and 16 June 2024, Performing Colonial Toxicity is also on show at The Mosaic Rooms in London, UK. The Mosaic Rooms is a non-profit arts organisation and bookshop dedicated to supporting and promoting contemporary culture from the Arab world and beyond.

If you visit any of these new iterations, tag us on Instagram with @framerframed and share your experience!

Performing Colonial Toxicity is a co-production of Framer Framed and If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution.

The project was supported by Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. Special thanks to the Observatoire des armements, Centre de documentation et de recherche sur la paix et les conflits; the Établissement de communication et de production audiovisuelle de la Défense (ECPAD); and to filmmakers Élisabeth Leuvrey and Larbi Benchiha with producer Farid Rezkallah for use of images and film excerpts in the exhibition; as well as to Prof. Dr. Roxanne Panchasi, Simon Fraser University for her support for the Tamasheq-to-French translation of Algerian testimonies.

The exhibition at Framer Framed was part of the two-year research project Performing Colonial Toxicity, commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution within the frame of Edition IX – Bodies and Technologies (2022-23). If I Can’t Dance is financially supported by the Mondriaan Fund, AFK, Ammodo and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.

Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.

The post Performing Colonial Toxicity travels to Zurich and London appeared first on Framer Framed.

Van 29 t/m 31 januari hebben twee leerlingen van de middelbare school IVKO, stagegelopen in Framer Framed. Het IVKO is een Montessori kunstvakschool voor mavo en havo en is onderdeel van de Montessori Scholengemeenschap Amsterdam. Tijdens de driedaagse stage kunnen de leerlingen kennismaken met het werk binnen een kunstinstelling. In onderstaand artikel hebben de leerlingen hun ervaringen binnen Framer Framed beschreven in hun eigen woorden.

Geschreven door Sara (15) en Maloe (14)

Framer Framed is een plek waar kunst wordt opgezet voor de mensen om te zien maar het is veel meer dan dat. Het is een plek waar mensen samen komen om kunst te maken en gezellig te doen. Waar je je creativiteit erop loslaat, het is een plek waar gevierd wordt en waar je jezelf kan zijn.

Bij Framer Framed zijn verschillende dingen zoals een boeken shop met allemaal boeken over kunst enzv. Deze boeken worden over de hele wereld besteld en natuurlijk is er in het gebouw van Framer Framed ook een klein hoekje waar je de boeken kan lezen en kopen.

Er zijn natuurlijk ook ding voor de jeugd, het atelier wordt hierbij omgetoverd tot een kinderatelier hier worden verschillende workshops gegeven. Voor kinderen van 3 tot 8 jaar het atelier is hierbij zo omgebouwd dat de kinderen zelf kunnen onderzoeken, spelen, experimenteren.

Wij vinden Framer Framed een hele leuke plek omdat er meer te doen is dan alleen kunst bekijken je krijgt ook de mogelijkheid om zelf kunst te maken. Wij hebben hier 3 dagen stagegelopen en wij vinden het ook leuk dat we buiten de exposities ook de zakelijke kant kunnen zien zoals: bestellingen inpakken en de website controleren. En ook hebben we wat meer geleerd over Framer Framed.

De volgende expositie is 11 feb tot 19 mei 2024 de expositie gaat over The One-Straw Revolution het is een expositie met verschillende werken van verschillende kunstenaars. In de ruimte staan hooibalen samen met kunstwerken van over de hele wereld, zowel schilderijen als digitale kunst is hier te vinden.

De bedenker van de expositie is iLiana Fokianaki

Met de kunstenaars:

Edgar Calel
Kyriaki Goni
Irene Kopelman
Uriel Orlow
Eliana Otta
Bik Van der Pol
Citra Sasmita
Denise Ferreira da Silva met Arjuna Neuman
Nora Severios
Himali Singh Soin

Exhibition ‘The One-Straw Revolution’ (2024) curated by iLiana Fokianaki. Photo by Maarten Nauw.

The post Through the eyes of young learners: a space for art and companionship appeared first on Framer Framed.

The exhibition focuses on permaculture and environmental care, featuring artists who explore sustainable living, interspecies coexistence, and the impact of human actions on the environment. With the exhibition, ⁠iLiana ⁠Fokianaki brings together artists whose work highlights the urgency of addressing the ecological crisis and the need for a more sustainable and respectful relationship with the environment. She hopes the exhibition will prompt visitors to consider their connections to their environment and ancestral ways of sustainable living.

This exhibition draws inspiration from The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming (1975) by Japanese farmer and philosopher Masanobu Fukuoka, a seminal work in ecological thinking and practice.

iLiana Fokianaki, a curator, theorist, and educator based in Bern, Athens and Rotterdam, and the new director of Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland, starting spring 2024. Her research focuses on formations of power and how they manifest under the influence of geopolitics, national identity and cultural and anthropological histories, with a special interest in the ethics and politics of care.

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The first edition of this project took place amidst the pandemic. During online workshops participants used photography and storytelling to look for silver linings on days marked by isolation and uncertainty. The workshops facilitated a safe space for sharing thoughts and feelings sparked by the resulting works. The fifth workshop offers young people in Ukraine the possibility to document their daily lives as well. The Ukraine edition is organised together with Molotok, an NGO in Transcarpathia. This relatively safe region in West Ukraine harbours many refugees from East Ukraine.

Stay Strong Photo Stories #5 is a collaboration between Framer Framed, Karine Zenja Versluis and Molotok. Karine is a documentary photographer with Ukrainian roots. She’s also a visual storyteller and social worker specialised in trauma. Molotok is a cultural organisation offering young people activities in film, photography, music and theatre.

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Framer Framed is verheugd over het nieuws dat de maquette van Karen Gregazarian wordt opgenomen in de collectie van het Rijksmuseum. In 2012 maakte hij de maquette als een weergave van de plek waar hij als asielzoeker verbleef met zijn gezin. Na ruim tien jaar rondzwerven en elf tussenlandingen is het werk afgelopen december aangekocht door het Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Hiermee is de maquette Nederlands erfgoed geworden.

Veel mensen ontfermden zich de afgelopen jaren over de maquette die Karen Gregazarian maakte van het azc in Markelo. Uiteindelijk nam Milena Mulders samen met migratiehistoricus Hanneke Verbeek in 2020 de maquette onder haar hoede en bracht het onder bredere aandacht binnen het erfgoedproject Tussenlanding. Sindsdien stond het werk in het depot van het IISG, in Het Beaufort in Markelo en daarna in Framer Framed.

Toen het eind 2022 bij Framer Framed werd geplaatst, werd het voor het eerst als kunstwerk binnen een tentoonstellingscontext gepresenteerd. De tentoonstelling While Awaiting an Unknown Future van Karen Gregazarian en Ribal El Khatib presenteerde werken die ze maakten tijdens hun verblijf in een asielzoekerscentrum. Het thema van de tentoonstelling was reflecteren op (tijdelijke) plekken waar herinneringen worden gecreëerd die bepalend zijn voor onze identiteitsvorming en tegelijkertijd een gevoel van ‘thuis’ geven. Ook stond centraal hoe deze plekken herinnerd kunnen worden en wat het betekent voor de betrokkenen als deze plekken abrupt verdwijnen, zonder fysiek archief.

Staatsecretaris Uslu en directeur Josien Pieterse bij de maquette van asielzoekerscentrum Klompjan in Markeloo. Foto: Aad Hoogendoorn

Veel Nederlanders hebben herinneringen aan de tijd die ze doorbrachten in asielzoekerscentra (azc’s) door het hele land. Een fysiek archief van dit deel van het Nederlandse erfgoed is er echter niet of nauwelijks. Hoe kunnen mensen met een vluchtelingenachtergrond hun eerste verblijfplaats in Nederland herinneren als er geen sporen meer zijn van deze plek?

Naast de maquette van Karen Gregazarian was het werk van architect en kunstenaar Ribal El Khatib te zien. Hij startte tijdens zijn verblijf in zes verschillende azc’s het werk The Gap. Overal kwam hij exact hetzelfde anonieme interieur tegen. The Gap toont meubels als een terugkerend element in verschillende hoedanigheden; herkenbaar voor iedereen die ooit in een azc heeft gewoond. Daarnaast maakte Iztok Klančar in opdracht van Framer Framed en Tussenlanding een film over het verhaal achter de maquette, die te zien was tijdens de tentoonstelling. Tenslotte was Maquette zonder verblijfsvergunning te horen, de podcast die Mina Etemad in 2022 maakte over het project Tussenlanding.

Tussenlanding

In de zomer van 2020 moest de maquette van het azc Markelo, gebouwd door ex-bewoner Karen uit Abchazië, weg van zijn huidige plek in Amsterdam. De maquette, die een formaat heeft van 2.62 bij 1.33 en verscheen in de film Asielzoeka’s van Sergej Kreso, zwierf al een tijdje door de stad. Erfgoedprofessional Milena Mulders zag de oproep van Dennis Overeem van Buddy Film Foundation en begreep de urgentie om voor dit belangrijke object een vaste bewaarplaats te vinden. De directeur van het IISG, Leo Lucassen, was bereid om de maquette tijdelijk in hun archief op te slaan. Geïnspireerd door het Europese Verdrag van Faro, dat de maatschappelijke en verbindende waarde van erfgoed benadrukt, werd besloten de reis van de maquette tot een project te maken. Milena Mulders en Hanneke Verbeek organiseerden hiertoe verschillende bijeenkomsten met betrokkenen om herinneringen op te halen, te verwerken of actuele maatschappelijke vraagstukken te bespreken.

‘Maquette’ door Karen G. Foto: Maarten Nauw

De maquette verbeeldt een plek die niet meer bestaat. Een plek die zowel een positieve als negatieve betekenis heeft voor de mensen die er gedurende 21 jaar woonden – inclusief de kinderen, de mensen die er werkten en omwonenden. Veel bewoners van het azc Klompjan kregen uiteindelijk een status en zijn Nederlander geworden. Voor deze mensen is hun tijd in het azc een periode in hun leven die zij nooit zullen vergeten. Zij hebben verdrietige en pijnlijke herinneringen, maar ook goede en mooie. Deze herinneringen staan centraal in de documentaire Asielzoeka’s. Hierin vertellen jongeren over de heimwee die ze soms voelen naar hun tijd in het azc. Voor hen is het azc een plek van gelaagde herinneringen. Het is een plek waar ze tot rust kwamen en soms opnieuw wortelden, maar ook waar ze de zorgen en het trauma van hun ouders voelden en waar ze vriendschappen sloten.

Vanaf 2023 ging Milena alleen verder en verzamelde ze steeds nieuwe mensen – vaak ervaringsdeskundigen – om zich heen. Ze gingen op zoek naar plekken waar de maquette kon verblijven, het een verhaal kon vertellen in een veranderende context, en uiteindelijk naar een plek waar het permanent kon verblijven en onderdeel uitmaakt van het Nederlandse erfgoed.

Na het IISG reisde de maquette naar Framer Framed, waar het binnen een tentoonstellingscontext voor een publiek werd gepresenteerd. Daarna reisde het werk door naar het hoofdkantoor van het Centraal Orgaan opvang asielzoekers (COA) in Den Haag, Museum Arnhem en Imagine IC in Amsterdam. Het Rijksmuseum neemt het werk nu op in de vaste collectie.

Mede mogelijk gemaakt met steun van

Framer Framed ontvangt structurele ondersteuning van het Ministerie OCW en AFK. Daarnaast werd dit project ondersteund door VSBfonds, Stichting DOEN, Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds en Fonds ZOZ. Het werk reisde rond langs het Centraal Orgaan opvang asielzoekers (COA), Framer Framed, Museum Arnhem, Imagine IC, het Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (IISG) en het Rijksmuseum.

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Pre-order it from the Framer Framed webshop! The publication will be in available in the Netherlands from March 2024.

Conceived by Yornel J. Martínez Elías, researcher Emily Shin-Jie Lee, and in collaboration with Taiwanese novelist Huang Chong-Kai, Archipelagic Affects interweaves visual and textual materials created in different time-spaces. Together they form a shared travelogue that documents how cultures and worlds cross paths through an art residency experience.

Reflecting on how words connect worlds, and how publishing practices generate new content and correlations, the booklet highlights the importance of art residencies in creating new confluences and solidarity networks to sustain cultural production and dissemination within and beyond national boundaries. If we consider an art residency as an island where a group of strangers from different backgrounds temporarily inhabit, how can these unfamiliar strangers make their time together meaningful, and perhaps further create an archipelago of solidarity beyond geographical boundaries after leaving the island?

The 2024 Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE) will take place from 20 to 25 February at the Taipei World Trade Center. This year, the theme of the exhibition is Catch the Reading Wave, featuring the Netherlands as the Guest of Honour Country. During the launch event of Archipelagic Affects, the contributors will share their literary inspirations as well as the various activities and journeys in Taiwan, Cuba and the Netherlands that informed the content and the design of the book.

Order

Archipelagic Affects has two bilingual versions (Spanish/Chinese; Spanish/English). The Spanish/English version is available for pre-order in our webshop and will be shipped from 1 March 2024.

Contributors

Authors: Yornel J. Martínez Elías, Huang Chong-Kai, Emily Shin-Jie Lee
Editor: Emily Shin-Jie Lee
Design: Chen Jhen (Limestone Bookstore)

Publishers

Framer Framed, Amsterdam
The Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht

Specifications

€15
152 pp
Soft cover
Riso-printed at the Jan van Eyck Academie print workshop
Limited edition of 200 copies
10 x 15 cm
English/Spanish, 2024
ISBN 978-90-83079-36-3

This book results from the Archipelagic Affects project, jointly conceived and supported by Cuban artist Yornel J. Martínez Elias and Framer Framed, in collaboration with the Jan van Eyck Academie. Designed by Limestone Books co-founder and designer Chen Jhen, the publication was also realised with generous support from The Netherlands Office, Taipei. 

Contributors

Yornel J. Martínez Elías graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in 2007. His practice aims to generate poetic transformations by blurring boundaries between different mediums. Operating within language and in the interstice between the poetic and the conceptual, Yornel Martínez involves and collaborates with multidisciplinary experts and contributors, thus further enriching the poetic intersections that may exist between his own practice and other disciplines. Parallel to his personal projects, he is co-author and founder of the alternative publication project P-350 and founder of Ediciones Asterisco, a self-managed publishing label.

Huang Chong-Kai is a Taiwanese novelist. His works include The Broken, Blue Fiction, The Contents of the Times, and Further Than Pluto (French and Japanese rights sold). He also worked as a book and magazine editor.

Emily Shin-Jie Lee is a researcher and cultural practitioner currently based in Amsterdam. She studied anthropology at National Taiwan University and obtained her research master’s degree in art studies from the University of Amsterdam. Emily works at Framer Framed with a focus on residencies and cross-institutional collaborations. Since 2022, she has been working on a PhD project at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) at the University of Amsterdam, in which she studies art residency and its critical engagement with ecological, feminist and decolonial enquiries.

Jhen Chen is a designer based in Taiwan and the Netherlands. Chen’s recent works examine the representation of colonial oppression in contemporary society through books and multimedia. She was a participant of the Jan van Eyck Academie from 2018 to 2019. Chen’s publications have won awards such as the ‘De Best Verzorgde Boeken’ and the ‘Golden Butterfly Award’ (Best Book Design in Taiwan) and have been exhibited internationally.

The post Bookshop Selection: Archipelagic Affects appeared first on Framer Framed.

Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara

Between 1960 and 1966, the French colonial regime detonated four atmospheric atomic bombs, thirteen underground nuclear bombs and conducted other nuclear experiments in the Algerian Sahara, whose natural resources were being extracted in the process. This secret nuclear weapons programme, whose archives are still classified, occurred during and after the Algerian Revolution, or the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962).

The publication Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara (2024) brings together nearly six hundred pages of materials documenting this violent history of France’s nuclear bomb programme in the Algerian desert. Meticulously culled together by the architectural historian from across available, offered, contraband, and leaked sources, the book is a rich repository for all those concerned with histories of nuclear weapons and engaged at the intersections of spatial, social and environmental justice, as well as anticolonial archival practices. Colonial Toxicity will be translated into French by Editions B42, the French edition is expected in the fall 2025.

Order
You can order the book through the Framer Framed webshop

Contributors
Author: Samia Henni
Managing editor: Megan Hoetger
Contributing editor: Georg Rutishauser
Copy editor: Janine Armin
Design: François Girard-Meunier

Publishers
If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam
Framer Framed, Amsterdam
edition fink, Zurich

Specifications
592 pp
ills col
soft cover
17 x 24 cm
English, 2024
ISBN 978-94-92139-24-5

The post Bookshop Selection: Colonial Toxicity by Samia Henni appeared first on Framer Framed.

You can order the CICC book through the Framer Framed webshop!

Staal and D’Souza’s stunningly ambitious CICC defines a horizon beyond systems of property and world-ending climate crimes.
– T. J. Demos, author of Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come

D’Souza and Staal’s radical approach to the consideration of responsibilities and mutual respect, arrives to this modern, alienating and demeaning world as a bucket full of tiny papers with memories written on them.
– Ramón Vera-Herrera, GRAIN (Latin America) and edito Biodiversidad, Sustento y Culturas

Photo: Ruben Hamelink

The Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC) is a collaboration between Framer Framed, Indian academic, writer, lawyer and activist Radha D’Souza and Prix de Rome winning artist, Jonas Staal. The aim of the CICC is to prosecute climate crimes committed by states and corporations, not only in the past and present, but also in the future. Central to this book is the first iteration of the project, commissioned and staged by Framer Framed in 2021, during which public hearings were held against the Dutch State and transnational corporations registered in the Netherlands: Unilever, ING and Airbus.

The book is divided into three main parts. The Cases section focuses on four significant cases brought against the State of the Netherlands, Unilever, ING Group, and Airbus Industries for intergenerational climate crimes. These cases present the charges and evidence against each defendant, with prosecutors from alternative research and journalism networks laying out the arguments that challenge mainstream subservience to racial-ecocidal-neocolonial capitalism. Testimonies from witnesses shed light on the fact that climate crimes are predominantly confined to a dislocated “somewhere else” due to neocolonialism’s division of extraction sites from planning locations.

The Judges section introduces the CICC’s panel of judges who oversee the public hearings, similar to traditional courts. What distinguishes these judges is the legitimacy they derive from their lifelong dedication to seeking justice for real people and nature across different continents. The CICC also establishes a public jury comprising individuals who willingly attend the public hearings. These individuals evaluate witness statements based on the Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act of 2021. The verdicts in this section provide concise summaries of the judges’ decisions and outline the consequences based on the evidence presented during the cases.

Lastly, the Reflections section offers critical essays by theorists Tobias Dias, Ashley Maum, and Joram Kraaijeveld. These essays provide an in-depth analysis of the public hearings at the CICC. The essays explore the impacts and contradictions observed during the court proceedings. Furthermore, Stephanie Bailey conducts interviews with D’Souza and Staal, where they discuss the accomplishments of the CICC thus far and outline their aims for the future.

The publication can be ordered through the webshop of Framer Framed.

Editors
Radha D’Souza
Jonas Staal
Ashely Maum
Irene de Craen
Ebissé Wakjira

Contributors
Stephanie Bailey
Tobias Dias
Radha D’Souza
Nicholas Hildyard
Joram Kraaijeveld
Rasigan Maharajh
Ashley Maum
Jonas Staal
Sharon H. Venne

Graphic design
Remco van Bladel

Publisher
Framer Framed

Info
ISBN: 9789083079349
424 blz.
Text and colour illustrations
16 x 23 cm | paperback
English, 2024
€29,95

This publication has been realised with thanks to multi-year support from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst. In additional, the publication was realised thanks to the generous support of the Stimuleringsfonds voor Creatieve Industrie within the project The New Social: Hybrid Strategies for Cultural Spaces.

The post Bookshop Selection: Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes appeared first on Framer Framed.

Join Kevin Groen, a Behavioral Change expert and spoken word artist, alongside Nimruz De Castro, a poet and fiction writer, and Tuaca Kelly, an American poet, songwriter, and performance artist as they talk about Queer Open Stage, a monthly open stage by and for queer artists hosted by Framer Framed.

Tune in as the speakers share their personal experiences and showcase their creative work, addressing vital topics such as racism, queerness, and allyship. They explore the intricacies of identity and underscore the significance of dedicated spaces, particularly those for the queer communities. They emphasise that these spaces go beyond merely avoiding triggers; they are crucial for creating environments that foster learning and growth.

Listen to the episode below:

Check out the all podcast episodes on your favorite platform:

Spotify,
Apple,
Google,
Castbox,
Overcast,
Pocket Casts, RadioPublic,
Stitcher or
RSS.

Queer Open Stage, a vibrant monthly event at Framer Framed, showcases talented performers from diverse backgrounds in music, dance, comedy, and poetry. Each edition features curated performances before opening the stage to individuals of all disciplines – singers, dancers, poets, and comedians. It’s an inclusive space for the LGBTQI+ community, welcoming performances in all languages.

Read the fragments that Tuaca’s and Kevin recited in the file here.

The post Podcast: Queering the Open Stage appeared first on Framer Framed.

December 2023
1. As a Turkish researcher in the Netherlands, I am fascinated by this project to see how Turkish artists have been active and become an important factor in the Dutch art scene. How did this project emerge?

When this research was not yet on the agenda, there was an idea to make an exhibition. The idea was to reflect on the experiences of artists from Turkey who settled in the Netherlands and their individual and collective memories by focusing on displacement, rerouting, and mobility. I intended to bring visual artists together and their explorations in art. However, reaching out to these artists was not easy. I knew some of them, of course, since they are from my generation. But there is still a generational gap between artists from older generations. I decided to interview some of the artists to exchange some ideas and I also contacted artist Bülent Evren who mentioned his own archive in our first meeting. My encounter with his archive was a turning point because I was not aware of artists from older generations. For this reason, I decided to study the archive as it is filling a gap between artists from the older generation of artists and the current generation of artists. I later realized that there was a generational gap in this area. So even though many artists were invited to the academies here and decided to settle here, the impact of these artists on the Dutch art ecosystem has not yet been documented. Furthermore, there is also little research on the practices of artists of the previous generation. After I spent some amount of time with the archive, researching this history rather than just creating an exhibition became more important. The reason I initiated this research is twofold. Firstly, the existing research was limited. There was a lack of comprehensive research on the topic and artists after the year 2000. Secondly, the information in the Netherlands was fragmented. It was challenging to access information about the activities of artists from Turkey working in the Netherlands.

2. 2. In relation to the first question, I am also curious about how your position as a researcher and curator originally from Turkey shapes your understanding and the way of looking at these artists in the Netherlands.

Coming from the same geography and culture and living together in a different geography are things that make it easier to analyze the references behind artistic practices. We undergo similar processes and encounter comparable experiences in various ways. Also, it takes time to understand where we live, what kind of experience we get, and what we learn from each other. In this regard, some issues come into prominence in time, like the issues that directly concern artists due to their position, such as cultural heritage, migration, and memory. For instance, the understanding of preserving and interpreting the tangible or intangible culture for the future as seen in Müge Yılmaz’s Eleven Suns (Gyps II) (2019) and Ishtar and Apkallu (2022) or the position of the women artist in society in relation to traditional family structures and migration query in Merve Kılıçer’s Nest Egg (2021), stems from the existing culture in Turkey.

Installation photo from the exhibition Scattered (2023) curated by Nesli Gül at Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Photo: © Eva Broekema / Framer Framed

Installation photo from the exhibition Scattered (2023) curated by Nesli Gül at Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Photo: © Eva Broekema / Framer Framed

3. 3. Seeing the exhibition sparked my interest in the changes in the practices of these artists when they settled in the Netherlands. Is there a difference between before and after they settled in the country?

One of the artists in this exhibition could be a good example, answer to this question as she makes it visible how her practices changed after she moved to the Netherlands. There is an interview with Nuray Ataş which can be found in Beeld En Geluid (Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision). Atas says that when she moved to the Netherlands, she was planning to improve her artistic practice. This was the primary reason why she moved to the Netherlands. But after she moved here, she realized that the Turkish community faces many challenges in the Netherlands. After seeing this, she decided to reflect on the Turkish community’s challenge, their lifestyle, and how Dutch society sees this community in her paintings. She clearly states how her practice changed after settled in the Netherlands. Although she uses the geometric or nonobjective expressionist elements of abstract art, she displays some key moments of the Turkish community in the Netherlands. Therefore, besides art education, the agenda and issues of the geography of the place you live in are starting to affect the practice of art. At least that’s how it works for some artists.

4. This answer made me wonder if there is any difference between these artists who came from different generations as your exhibition put forward the practices of the Turkish artists from the 1970s until today.

Some artists make this change more visible while others don’t. For example, Esma Yiğitoğlu moved here while she was very young to study art. She built her artistic career here. This is also the same for Bülent Evren. Mustafa Sener and Işık Tüzüner demonstrated this change when they first studied at the Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi (Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University) in Istanbul. But again, they found their way. Turkish community here does not affect all artists, some motives are entirely personal and depend on their interests. Sener produces abstract paintings and Tüzüner works with recycled materials besides various kinds of materials. And when you think about the younger generation, some of them were accepted by Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, they were residents there. Rijksakademie is a very experimental academy, unlike its older days. It was pretty much focused on classical education until the 1980s. Today, they have changed their policy. This certainly affects the practices of young artists. For example, Ahmet Öğüt, Müge Yilmaz, Kubilay Mert Ural, Cihad Caner, or others who were part of the academy sought to use different types of materials and concepts. They are artists who push their limits and the boundaries of materials and concepts.

5. 5. Do you think these artists can survive in the Dutch art scene beyond their Turkish identity? I am asking this question because of a very peculiar anecdote that I heard from a Chinese artist who was asked a very whimsical question by a curator: “Is your art Chinese enough?” Do you think Turkish artists feel the urge to be Turkish in the local Dutch art scene to be visible?

The process of formation of Turkish diasporas in the Netherlands is based on the 1960s, the year the government invited guest workers from Turkey and other countries such as Morocco, Spain, or Italy. This is how the story begins. During that time, encouragement for integration was out of the question because those who came from Turkey were treated as temporary workers. There was a policy of preserving Turkish culture and language, as they would return to their home country someday. In the following years (the 1980s), a minority policy was prepared for the minorities, as guest workers, who started to stay. The concept of integration in this policy was based on the preservation of one’s own cultural identity. This policy promoted the creation of distinct artistic spaces for various ethnic groups. Organizations such as Amsterdamse Kunstraad (Amsterdam Art Council) began to set up separate budgets for artists who migrated from other countries, such as Surinamese, Antilleans, Turks, Moroccans, and Southern Europeans. They formed the committee of Allochtonen Kunstenaars (immigrant artists) to receive applications and evaluate separately for the funds. But when we look at it today, there are no more such distinguishing labels both in media and institutions. In the 1990s, immigrant artists were encouraged to participate in Dutch society rather than to preserve their ethnic identities. There is no such thing as you can or cannot be part of Dutch art society because of your identity today. The conjecture of today is quite different than older times. Also, the artistic vision and perspectives are quite important as many of them focus on where they work and live instead of reflecting on their ethnicity. Today, it is concerned with how you locate yourself as an artist in the local or international art scene.

Installation photo from the exhibition Scattered (2023) curated by Nesli Gül at Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Photo: © Eva Broekema / Framer Framed

6. 6. How did you choose the artists in the exhibition Scattered: Hidden Narratives through Archives at Framer Framed? Was the question of generation a factor for you?

The important thing was to present research findings based on archival materials by giving space to artists from different generations. Because of the limits of the space and facilities at Framer Framed, you could not give space to all artists. It is also not realistic, and the idea was not to show all of them. I showed an artist from each generation. When I chose them, I focused on the period but also their distinctive style of practices, and how they reflected the current issues of that period. Esma Yiğitoğlu, for example, makes social issues from the Netherlands and cultural references from Turkey she uses from the period visible. In her work which was displayed in the exhibition, there was a Muska (a triangular Turkish amulet containing a protective Koranic text). Although her work looks abstract, the work is about an amulet and numbers. She uses numbers that emerged from her interactions with immigrant Turkish women in Rotterdam. This is a work that came out of her educational involvement with the Turkish community to read and write. She also did some interviews with them to understand how writings, letters, and numbers appear to you if you are not literate. One of them says, for example, “It is black for me.” If you want to understand this work, you should, of course, understand the history and challenges behind it. You should know the history of the Turkish community here. It was important to make this work part of the exhibition. The work was produced in 1983 and in that period, it was clear that guest workers, at least some of them, decided to stay in the Netherlands. It is important to understand how they choose to communicate with society in the country. Yiğitoğlu’s work is unique in demonstrating the position of the Turkish diaspora in that period. Servet Koçyiğit focuses on a more global issue of refugees. In the exhibition, he depicts Camp Mória, a very large refugee camp on a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea off the coast of Turkey. Koçyiğit used material that’s also quite intriguing. He uses a tote bag commonly used by immigrants, and it is known by different names in different countries. He used this material as part of his artistic practice. This work also portrays the bird eye view of Camp Mória. He started the work during the pandemic. For eight years, he worked with different ideas of mapping systems. It is also important to see how an artist from Turkey is concerned with global issues and take them to their agenda. I wanted to show artists are not only interested in their community but also in personal, social, or global issues. This was the reason why I gave space to Koçyiğit’s work as one of the art discusses urgent issues of contemporary art, as in the works of Müge Yılmaz and Merve Kılıçer. Increasingly emerging issues are important to us and to the next generation. Works reflect the issues that are urgent for current time from a personal or collective perspective. That’s why they come together.Both Müge and Merve work on preservation in different ways. Müge Yilmaz focused on the first human settlements in Anatolia. She researched Göbekli Tepe and Çatalhöyük. She reflects on her practices by using different materials. Merve Kılıçer’s work is more personal when we compare her to Yılmaz whose work is concerned with collective memory. It is also quite interesting. Her film Nest Egg (2021) focuses on how and why she decided to freeze her oeuvres. The film documents the artist’s personal experience with human oocyte cryopreservation (egg freezing) in the Netherlands, where the procedure is more accessible due to less restrictive laws compared to her home country, Turkey. When she moved to the Netherlands, she decided to do this work. More importantly, she shows us how a woman artist builds a career between a number of choices and roles in society.

7. 7. Are these artists known in Turkey because they are in a difficult situation between the two countries?

These artists are not widely recognized, particularly the first generation among them. In fact, the reason for doing this research stems from there. It sheds light on a little-known and undocumented part of Dutch contemporary art history. While some have been active within Turkey and have collaborated with Turkish galleries, like Mustafa Şener, and Işik Tüzüner also engaged in the Turkish art scene, they remain relatively obscure today. Because of their age and trends in art, and also living in the Netherlands, they are not known well and are not part of the history of Turkish art. This is a problem for an artist when you move to another country. There is a risk; you are always in between two different countries. This is the main problem. Of course, there are artists who get over this situation, such as Ahmet Öğüt or Servet Koçyiğit.

Installation photo from the exhibition Scattered (2023) curated by Nesli Gül at Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Photo: © Eva Broekema / Framer Framed

8. 8. What were the difficulties that you faced when you were preparing this exhibition?

As previously discussed, the information I needed was quite fragmented and dispersed. I conducted research across multiple institutions and found interviews to be particularly valuable in uncovering accurate details within archives and institutions. However, it was challenging. And the other issue was reaching out to the institutions’ archives during the pandemic. It was not easy to reach. Of course, there is no guarantee that you will reach every material. It also depends on what each institution is willing to share.

9. 9. It seems that Bülent Evren’s archive played an important role in the exhibition. How did your collaboration with him grow?

I took Bülent’s archive as a starting point for my research. After the first encounter with his archive and having conversations about the materials, I embarked on the research in his studio by focusing on the limitations and scope of the research. I checked the relevant materials in his archive. When I went to his studio, he gave me some information about materials and the ideas behind them. Those materials were related to the first generation of immigrant artists in the Netherlands, such as the exhibitions they held together and his own activities. His archive shows the activities of artists of a certain period, but it alone does not provide a comprehensive understanding of the broader context. It constitutes a part of a larger research undertaking and gains meaning in relation to the archives in other institutions.

10. Why do you think that it is important to look at these artists as Turkish artists when they are connected to the local scene? How does recognizing this changes the narratives of the Dutch art scene?

I do not say Turkish artists but artists from Turkey to be more inclusive. People from different ethnicities also fall under the category of artists from Turkey. I prefer a geographical understanding of Turkey that encompasses many different ethnicities. By looking at these artists along with other artists and how they are positioned in the art scene, we can understand how the Dutch art scene has been changing over time. This is quite important to understand the history of artistic practice as well by taking into account the interactions with artists from different cultures in the Netherlands. By examining these artists’ diverse backgrounds and their positioning within the art scene, we gain insights into the evolving nature of the Dutch artistic landscape. This is also the reason why I seek to publish a book on this subject matter to demonstrate what kind of policies and challenges these artists have encountered in the country. This endeavor aims to shed light on the challenges these artists have been navigating, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of their contributions and impact on the Dutch art scene.

11. 11. Finally, what are your future plans for this project?

I would like to display this exhibition in Istanbul. But maybe in a different concept and formulation. I do not know yet. It depends on the institution where this exhibition will be displayed. It is also possible to display this exhibition in a different city in the Netherlands. And the publication of this research is quite important. Also, I do not want to limit this research to the Dutch context but enlarge my scope to Europe as a whole.

Installation photo from the exhibition Scattered (2023) curated by Nesli Gül at Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Photo: © Eva Broekema / Framer Framed

Tekst: Mehmet Sülek
23 December 2023

Republished from Invisible Culture: A Journal for Visual Culture with Creatives Commons License (CC-BY-4.0)

The post Interview with researcher Nesli Gül Durukan on her exhibition Scattered - Hidden Narratives through Archives appeared first on Framer Framed.

Luister naar de nieuwe aflevering van Framer Framed’s podcast met cultureel antropoloog, Nathalie Roos!

Nathalie Roos is een cultureel antropoloog en docent aan de Breitner Academie en is betrokken bij een PhD onderzoek naar kunstactivisme en burgerschap. We duiken dieper in de unieke interdisciplinaire minor Dealing with the real stuff die ze heeft ontwikkeld, een samenwerking tussen de Breitner Academie, de opleiding Leraar Maatschappijleer aan de Hogeschool van Amsterdam en Framer Framed. Deze minor brengt studenten uit verschillende disciplines samen en stimuleert hen om via kunst en educatie maatschappelijke vraagstukken aan te pakken.

Nathalie deelt haar ervaringen over hoe de studenten in de publieke ruimte acties, performances en interventies ontwerpen en uitvoeren, en hoe dit bijdraagt aan hun begrip van kunstactivisme en burgerschap. Ze bespreekt ook de uitdagingen en verrassingen die komen kijken bij het lesgeven in activisme, en de impact die dit heeft op zowel studenten als de bredere gemeenschap. Luister mee terwijl we verkennen hoe kunst een krachtig middel kan zijn voor sociale verandering en persoonlijke groei.

Luister hieronder naar de aflevering:

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‘Dealing with the real stuff’ wordt georganiseerd in samenwerking met CASE (Centre for Arts & Sciences Education)

The post Podcast: Art as a Catalyst - Education, Activism and Citizenship with Nathalie Roos appeared first on Framer Framed.

KITLV and Framer Framed are pleased to announce Mirelle van Tulder as the new Atelier KITLV-Framer Framed Artist in Residence. Mirelle van Tulder will start her residency in 2024 followed by a public presentation in 2025 at Framer Framed.

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About the Artist in Residence Program

The Atelier KITLV-Framer Framed Artist in Residence program aims to sponsor and support concrete, innovative, provocative, and societally relevant projects. Artists in residence work on urgent topics at the intersection of art and culture, academic research, and scholarship in the field of Southeast Asian and/or Caribbean Studies, and in relation to (post)colonial theory and discourse. The recipient will receive a €10,000- grant to realise the project.

It is our great pleasure to announce Mirelle van Tulder as the selected artist for the coming year (2024-2025). The jurors’ stated, “We’re thrilled to honor Mirelle van Tulder, whose visual research and artistic trajectory shows a commitment to explore and make spaces to discuss the power dynamics and constructions of disciplinary boundaries such as graphic design, art history and anthropology. With her rich experience working with archival repositories over the past decade, we look forward to learning how her poetic interventions in the KITLV archive might offer new tools and spaces to address tumultuous histories of European museums, the complexities of postcolonial identity, and the ongoing discussion around displacement and belonging.”

On receiving the fellowship, Mirelle van Tulder stated: “Receiving this fellowship is an incredible honour. Over the past decade, I have witnessed how Framer Framed has shown a consistently ceremonial-political curatorial approach that is inspiring and sets an example for many others. I am extremely proud to be part of their journey in 2024. The Atelier KITLV-Framer Framed Artist in Residence program allows me to continue bridging the gap between the archive and the contemporary Art world through visual and oral research, defined by and directed to, the Ancestors.”

About Mirelle van Tulder

Mirelle van Tulder holds an MA in Fine Art and Design from Werkplaats Typografie (2021-2023). She was a Research Associate at the Research Center for Material Culture, Wereldmuseum (2021-2023). Mirelle has worked as an image researcher for MacGuffin Magazine from 2019-2023.

In 2022, she founded the magazine and publishing house Roots to Fruits, that explores the intersections between music, archives, and resistance. Roots to Fruits has been included in Printed Matter’s New York Art Book Fair 2022, Offprint London 2023, and the Melbourne Art Book Fair 2023.

As Mirelle’s research expands and evolves, her work stands as a testament to her commitment to uncovering hidden histories and fostering dialogue around the power structures that shape graphic design, art history and society as a whole.

From the series Being Part European. © Mirelle van Tulder, 2023

During the Atelier KITLV-Framer Framed Artist in Residence program, Mirelle plans to investigate how graphic design has determined the classification of cultures and objects. By re-contextualizing archived materials such as catalogues and photo albums, she aims to reclaim the authority of the material and its associated histories. The aim of her research is to help us understand how power is organized through publishing doctrines, and to reveal the colonising principles that structure them.

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About

Framer Framed is a platform for contemporary art, visual culture, and critical theory and practice. Each year the organisation presents a variety of exhibitions alongside diverse cultural and educational programs at its main location in Amsterdam Oost, as well as its project space Werkplaats Molenwijk in Amsterdam Noord. With the belief that critical and contextualised programming is best explored with an open door and low threshold, Framer Framed’s public programs are always free of charge and resources are made readily available to emerging and established local and transnational communities, artists, and curators to turn their own ideas into tangible realities.

Atelier KITLV is inspired by a longer standing interest in exploring colonial structures of knowledge – in which the research institute KITLV was founded – and in seeking ways and forms to decolonize knowledge. At the same time, it is motivated by a need for an atelier in its own right, a place defined by experimentation among artistic and academic professionals in search of new methods, perspectives, and approaches.

The Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) is an interdisciplinary research centre based in Leiden. It carries out innovative research across the humanities and social sciences domain and is part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

 

The members of the jury of the Atelier KITLV-Framer Framed Artist in Residence are: Dr. David Kloos (Senior Researcher and Management Team at KITLV), Kerstin Winking (curator, writer and PhD candidate at Leiden University and guest researcher at KITLV), Alison Fischer (researcher and PhD candidate at KITLV) and Emily Shin-Jie Lee (researcher at Framer Framed and PhD candidate at University of Amsterdam)

The post Announcement: Atelier KITLV-Framer Framed Artist in Residence appeared first on Framer Framed.

Visit the Framer Framed YouTube Channel or watch below:

Interested in learning more? Read more about the exhibition here or visit us at on location at Oranje-Vrijstaatkade 71, Amsterdam!

Credits

The exhibition Performing Colonial Toxicity (2023-2024) is a co-production of Framer Framed and If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution. The project is supported by Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. Special thanks to the Observatoire des armements, Centre de documentation et de recherche sur la paix et les conflits; the Établissement de communication et de production audiovisuelle de la Défense (ECPAD); and to filmmakers Élisabeth Leuvrey and Larbi Benchiha with producer Farid Rezkallah for use of images and film excerpts in the exhibition; as well as to Prof. Dr. Roxanne Panchasi, Simon Fraser University for her support for the Tamasheq-to-French translation of Algerian testimonies.

Image credit
Photograph by Bruno Barrillot, the co-founder of the Observatoire des armements in Lyon, France. The images were taken during a visit to France’s nuclear sites in Reggane and In Ekker in the Algerian Sahara, with the filmmaker Larbi Benchiha and his team in November 2007. Courtesy of Observatoire des armements.

Videography: Ryan Oduber
Editing: Frederique Pisuisse

The post Video: Megan Hoetger in conversation with Samia Henni appeared first on Framer Framed.

Naast onze activiteiten in Werkplaats Molenwijk organiseren wij in de Molenwijk in Amsterdam-Noord ook binnenschoolse activiteiten. Zo zijn wij in schooljaar 2021/2022 gestart met kunstlessen op (voorheen) basisschool De Krijtmolen, die vanaf schooljaar 2022/2023 onder de naam MKC Oostzanerwerf is verder gegaan.

Redesigning the classroom

In het voorjaar van 2022 hebben wij voor 2 groepen 7 een reeks van vier lessen Redesigning the classroom verzorgd, onder begeleiding van Saja Amro, een jonge Palestijnse kunstenaar die zich richt op het creëren van ervaringen en vormen van publieksparticipatie om een dialoog te creëren rond sociaal-wetenschappelijke kwesties. In de lessen op De Krijtmolen werden leerlingen uitgenodigd om het concept van het klaslokaal als omgeving van het formele leren te bevragen, evenals de veelal hiërarchische relatie tussen leerkracht en leerling. Alternatieve vormen en thema’s voor het schoolgebouw, het lokaal en het meubilair zijn samen onderzocht en verbeeld, waarna enkele eigen ontwerpen van tafels en stoelen tot realisatie zijn gebracht in een prototype. Ten tijde van de lessen studeerde Saja zelf af aan het Sandberg Instituut.

Kunstlessen bij de Krijtmolen van Saja Amro

Kunstlessen Anan Striker

Om meer beweging, spel en creativiteit in het klaslokaal te brengen, startte Anan Striker – voormalig resident van Werkplaats Molenwijk – begin 2023 met zijn kunstlessen op MKC Oostzanerwerf. In het verlengde van de alternatieve schommels die Anan maakte en een plek gaf in de publieke ruimte tijdens zijn residentie, werd het concept van beweging en speelsheid ook de school in gebracht. Leerlingen ontwierpen en maakten hun eigen schommels die vervolgens in de school werden tentoongesteld. Het concept spel kreeg daarnaast ook een eigen invulling met het maken van een levensgroot bordspel met een eigen ontwerp van de leerlingen, zelf ontworpen houten pionnen en gezamenlijk overeengekomen spelregels. En tot slot werd gespeeld met het begrip tekenen en tijd, en werden hun eigen ‘door de jaren getekende’ gezichten in de verre toekomst verbeeld.

Kunstlessen van Anan Striker. Foto: Anan Striker

The post Art Lessons at the Krijtmolen / MKC Oostzanerwerf appeared first on Framer Framed.

Architectural historian and curator Samia Henni emphasises the importance of including the voices of Sahara’s inhabitants in her latest project. Her exhibition, Performing Colonial Toxicity (2023), at Amsterdam’s Framer Framed explores the enduring impact of France’s nuclear program in the Algerian Sahara (1960-1966) on both human and non-human life. Henni’s ongoing research reveals that the consequences persist beyond colonial occupation, affecting various life forms. The exhibition layers many forms of evidence: written, spoken, and felt in an attempt to give a voice to the voiceless, and appeal for redress and reparation. Her new book, Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Nuclear Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara (2024), and an online database, the Testimony Translation Project, showcasing testimonies from French and Algerian victims accompany the project.

Moreover, Samia explores other exhibitions that shed light on violence during the Algerian War and human experimentation in the struggle for Algeria’s independence from France. These exhibitions prioritize amplifying the voices of victims, preserving their stories, and raising awareness about the enduring consequences of colonialism. Through innovative approaches and collaborations, these exhibitions seek to educate and engage visitors, sparking crucial conversations about the ongoing impacts of nuclear colonialism and the necessity for action and change.

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In het najaar van 2022 starten de Breitner Academie, de Hogeschool van Amsterdam en Framer Framed een samenwerking in een 3-jarig project om een interdisciplinaire minor te ontwikkelen over kunst, activisme en burgerschap. Studenten van de docentenopleiding Beeldende kunst en vormgeving aan de Breitner Academie worden gekoppeld aan studenten van de docentenopleiding Maatschappijleer (HvA) en ontwerpen een educatieve interventie met en voor VMBO leerlingen om hen te inspireren voor kritisch burgerschap en sociaal engagement, geïnspireerd door en gebaseerd op activistische kunstpraktijken.

De samenwerking komt voort uit het gelijknamige onderzoek en de publicatie Dealing with the real stuff, ontwikkeld door docent en onderzoeker Nathalie Roos. Met de focus op het vmbo-onderwijs, beargumenteert Nathalie het belang van burgerschapsonderwijs in combinatie met activistische kunstpraktijken binnen het klaslokaal. Vertaald naar een vakoverstijgend en interdisciplinaire onderwijspraktijk zou deze combinatie het vermogen hebben om onder leerlingen zowel een kritische beschouwing van de maatschappij te ontwikkelen, als wel begrip voor conflicterende meningen te bevorderen. Ook is het van belang jonge mensen te leren dat zij weerstand kunnen bieden aan ontwikkelingen die gaande zijn in hun omgeving, en in de wereld. Activistische kunst en kunstenaars kunnen leerlingen hierbij inspireren.

Dealing with the real stuff. Foto: Bora Sekerci (2023)

De aanleiding voor dit project is tweeledig. Enerzijds blijkt dat VO-scholen zoekende zijn in het aanbieden van burgerschapsonderwijs. Anderzijds leren studenten van de Breitner Academie, zijnde docenten in opleiding, niet of nauwelijks hoe zij kritisch burgerschap en sociaal engagement bij leerlingen kunnen stimuleren, terwijl hedendaagse artistieke en maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen hiertoe uitnodigen. Denk bijvoorbeeld aan de focus op sociaal engagement in de kunsten en het toegenomen activisme. Tegelijkertijd zijn studenten van de Hogeschool van Amsterdam, zijnde leraren Maatschappijleer in opleiding, nog nauwelijks bekend met de manier waarop activistische kunstpraktijken ingezet kunnen worden als tool om maatschappelijke vraagstukken bespreekbaar te maken. Dit biedt kansen voor interdisciplinariteit. Een minor over kunst, activisme en burgerschap biedt mogelijkheden voor vakoverstijgend onderwijs, gerelateerd aan actuele, maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen, waarin studenten van verschillende opleidingen kritisch burgerschap en sociaal engagement ervaren en leren hoe zij dit op interdisciplinaire wijze kunnen vertalen naar de onderwijspraktijk.

In schooljaar 2022/2023 kwamen studenten van beide opleidingen voor het eerst samen en maakten in de minor kennis met theorieën over kunst, burgerschap en activisme. Door het verweven van de twee opleidingen leerden de studenten, naast de aangeboden artikelen en expertise van de docenten, ook van elkaar. Onder begeleiding van kunstdocenten binnen Framer Framed gingen de bachelor studenten in gesprek met leerlingen van het MLO over onderwerpen waar de leerlingen meer aandacht voor zouden willen op school. Deze onderwerpen vormden de basis voor de verschillende workshops die de studenten ontwikkelden voor de leerlingen, waar thema’s als prestatiedruk en racisme op toegankelijke en creatieve wijze aan bod kwamen.

Het tweede jaar van het project, schooljaar 2023/2024, staat voor de samenwerkingspartners in het teken van doorontwikkeling en ook al een voorzichtige blik op eventuele continuering na de pilot. Ook in dit schooljaar heeft een nieuwe lichting van bachelor studenten uiteenlopende workshops ontwikkeld en uitgevoerd, bij zowel Framer Framed als het MLO. Er werd geverfd, gefilmd en geprotesteerd. Onder begeleiding van de studenten gaven leerlingen op creatieve wijze vorm aan hun boodschap en deelden dat met een groter publiek, om hun stem te laten horen en aandacht te vragen voor wat zij belangrijk vinden in de wereld.

Dealing with the real stuff wordt georganiseerd in samenwerking met CASE (Centre for Arts & Sciences Education).

Dealing with the real stuff. Foto: Bora Sekerci (2023)

Luister hieronder naar een gesprek met Natalie Roos

The post Dealing with the real stuff: Art education, activism and citizenship appeared first on Framer Framed.

Subjective Atlas of Palestine

In the Subjective Atlas of Palestine, artists, photographers and designers have mapped their country as they see it through drawings, poetry, cuisine, architecture and landscapes. This publication maps individual human experiences of Palestinians beyond their circumstances of oppression and occupation.

Published by NAi Publishers
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Available at Framer Framed

Greater than the Sum of Our Parts: Feminism, Inter/Nationalism, and Palestine

by Nada Elia

In this bold book, Palestinian activist Nada Elia unpacks Zionism, from its hypermilitarism to incarceration, its environmental devastation and gendered violence. She insists that Palestine’s fate is linked through bonds of solidarity to other communities crossing racial and gender lines, weaving an intersectional feminist understanding of Israeli apartheid throughout her analysis.

Published by Pluto Press
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Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment

by Mazin B. Qumsiyeh

Armed resistance, suicide bombings, and rocket attacks, populate the Western media’s depiction of Palestinian resistance. Synthesising data from hundreds of original sources, Dr Mazin Qumsiyeh provides the most comprehensive study of the always creative, often peaceful, civil resistance in Palestine.

Published by Pluto Press
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Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine

by Noura Erakat

Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine is both a book about Palestine and a meditation on the risks and benefits of international law for national liberation movements in pursuit of decolonization and emancipation. The book briskly covers an enormous expanse of Palestinian history, as refracted through the international law framings that have facilitated Palestinian dispossession.

Read more

Erasing Palestine: Free Speech and Palestinian Freedom

by Rebecca Ruth Gould

Erasing Palestine focuses on internal politics in Britain that have encouraged a focus on words over substance. It tells a history of free speech and antisemitism which is inclusive of the continuous erasure of violence against the Palestinian people and why it matters to Palestinian freedom.

Published by Verso
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Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism

by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay

Potential History is an urgent call to recognise the imperial structures of knowledge that underlie the institutions that constitute our world. Ariella Aïsha Azoulay argues that we can and should refuse the imperial violence that dispossessed Palestinians in 1948 its reverberations felt today.

Published by Verso
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The Least of All Possible Evils: A Short History of Humanitarian Violence

by Eyal Weizman

In the book The Least of All Possible Evils, Eyal Weizman explores the philosophy of ‘the lesser evil’ in humanitarian intervention, using the separation wall in Israel-Palestine as one example of transformation and humanitarian violence.

Published by Verso
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Palestinian Art: From 1850 to the Present

by Kamal Boullata

This analysis by Kamal Boullata presents insights into the development of Palestinian art before and after the cataclysmic events of 1948 during which Palestinian society was uprooted and dispersed.

Published by Saqi Books
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Origins Of Palestinian Art

by Bashir Makhoul and Gordon Hon

Origins of Palestinian Art provides the most comprehensive survey of contemporary Palestinian art to date, while exploring in depth the relationship between art and nationalism in the context of colonialism and conflict.

Published by Liverpool University Press
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Palestine: A Socialist Introduction

Edited by Sumaya Awad and Brian Bean

Palestine: A Socialist Introduction systematically tackles a number of important aspects of the Palestinian struggle for liberation, contextualizing it in an increasingly polarized world and offering a socialist perspective on how full liberation can be won.

Published by Haymarket Books
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Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History

by Nur Masalha

Starting with the earliest references in Egyptian and Assyrian texts, Nur Masalha explores how Palestine and its Palestinian identity have evolved over thousands of years, from the Bronze Age to the present day. Drawing on a rich body of sources and the latest archaeological evidence, Masalha shows how Palestine’s multicultural past has been distorted and mythologised by Biblical lore and the Israel–Palestinian conflict.

Read more

De honderdjarige oorlog tegen Palestina

by Rashid Khalidi

The 100-year war against Palestine is not a story of victimisation, nor does it attempt to deny the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or the rise of nationalist movements on both sides. But by clearly mapping history from the Palestinian perspective, this book provides a fresh perspective on a crisis that continues to this day.

Read more

Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question

Conceived by the Institute for Palestine Studies as part of a joint project with the Palestinian Museum, the Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question traces the history of modern Palestine, from the end of the Ottoman era to the present.

Conceived by the Institute for Palestine Studies as part of a joint project with the Palestinian Museum
Read more

All profits from the Framer Framed bookshop will now be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) to support urgent relief in Gaza.

The post Reading List: Books on the Palestinian experience and struggle for liberation appeared first on Framer Framed.

“[Ethical loneliness] is the result of multiple lapses on the part of the human being and political institutions in failing to listen well to the survivors, to deny them redress by negating their testimony and thwarting their claim to justice.”

This episode is a recording of a talk by Shahd Hammouri that took place at Framer Framed on Saturday, 14 October 2023, during the symposium Revisiting the Past, Shaping the Future. Through a set of short roundtable talks, the event aimed to understand pivotal historical events and their influence on today’s global political environment. Hammouri speaks about how the words of former Chilean president Salvador Allende specifically give agency to peoples around the world and links them to the ongoing Palestinian struggle for liberation and self-determination.

Shahd Hammouri is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Kent. Her research lies at the intersection of Public International Law, International Economic Law and Legal Theory. She is a member of the Executive Committee at Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights.

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The symposium Revisiting the Past, Shaping the Future was co-organised by SOMO, TNI, OLAA and Framer Framed.

The post Podcast: From Allende to Gaza - Claiming the Agency of the People appeared first on Framer Framed.

In 2018 opende Framer Framed de deuren van Werkplaats Molenwijk; een projectruimte gelegen in de Molenwijk in Amsterdam-Noord. De Werkplaats heeft zich in de afgelopen vijf jaar ontwikkeld tot een ruimte vol leven en activiteit. Dankzij evenementen en projecten die zorgvuldig zijn ontwikkeld in nauwe samenwerking met lokale initiatieven en bewoners, evenals met kunstenaars en activisten die zijn uitgenodigd om bij te dragen aan het succes van de Werkplaats. Ter gelegenheid van het vijfjarig bestaan van Werkplaats Molenwijk presenteren we de publicatie Kunst in de Molenwijk door Sietske Roorda. Lees de introductie van het boek hier en koop het in onze webshop!

De Molenwijk: een dorp van flats

Het is inmiddels bijna niet voorstelbaar, maar zes jaar geleden waren Overhoeks en de IJ-oever nog niet de culturele hotspots voor de stad Amsterdam die het nu zijn. Die ontwikkeling is razendsnel gegaan. Toch ervaren ‘noorderlingen’ niet altijd de voordelen van de veranderingen in het stadsdeel. Ook blijkt er een barrière te zijn om de kunstinstellingen in het stadsdeel te bezoeken. Veel bewoners van Noord profiteren nog te weinig van de culturele infrastructuur. Vandaar dat Framer Framed in 2016 besloot zich te verdiepen in de Molenwijk, een buurt in het noordwesten van het stadsdeel, waar nog weinig culturele infrastructuur bestond. De Molenwijk is een kleine flatwijk, eind jaren zestig van de vorige eeuw gebouwd, volgens een patroon van molenwieken, vandaar de naam van de wijk. De flats zijn tien verdiepingen hoog. Tussen de flats is veel groen. Auto’s moeten aan de rand van de wijk parkeren in parkeergarages. De Molenwijk voelt door zijn bijzondere ligging en het vele groen als een dorp, maar dan wel met alleen flats. Samen met partners in de buurt ontstond het plan voor Werkplaats Molenwijk. Vanaf dat moment duurde het ongeveer twee jaar totdat de werkplaats geopend werd, in het 50ste levensjaar van de buurt.

Op 30 september 2018 was het dan zover: na meer dan een jaar voorbereiding werd Werkplaats Molenwijk door Framer Framed geopend. Nu, ter gelegenheid van het vijfjarige jubileum, vieren we deze mijlpaal met de uitgave van dit boek. Door middel van residenties, tentoonstellingen, bijeenkomsten en een educatief programma worden bezoekers en buurtbewoners niet als passieve toeschouwers, maar als actieve deelnemers betrokken. Werkplaats Molenwijk is een plek voor kunst en cultuur, waarbij ruimte is voor samenwerking met buurtbewoners. Zij kunnen programma’s initiëren en deelnemen aan de organisatie.

Opening van Werkplaats Molenwijk (2018). Foto: Marlise Steeman

Het programma van de Werkplaats verhoudt zich tot de Molenwijk, waarbij de relevantie van het programma voor de buurt voorop staat. De Werkplaats Molenwijk is een plek in de buurt geworden met daaraan verbonden een diverse gemeenschap. ‘Werkplaats’ Molenwijk is ook een verwijzing naar de onderwijsvernieuwers Kees Boeke en Betty Boeke-Cadbury, die een unieke school startten in 1929 waar leerlingen en leraren op een gelijkwaardig niveau werkten. Deze school die nu bijna een eeuw geleden werd opgericht was een wereldwijd voorbeeld van vernieuwing: onderhoud en dagelijkse taken waren net zo belangrijk als schoolwerk. Ook stond democratische besluitvorming hoog op de agenda, de school werd gezien als een ‘kindergemeenschap’. In de afgelopen jaren is onze Werkplaats Molenwijk ook steeds meer een plek voor ‘gezamenlijk leren’ geworden, in samenwerking met scholen en jongeren- en buurtinitiatieven.

Borduursessies met de ‘Molenwijk door Elkaar’ groep. Foto: Padrick Stam

Werkplaats Molenwijk is onderdeel van een zoektocht naar het creëren van een culturele organisatie die met beide benen midden in de samenleving staat. Die samenwerking begint lokaal, met actieve mensen uit de buurt, maar betrekt ook diegene die dat (nog) niet zijn. Een voorbeeld was de tijdelijke voedselbank.

De coronapandemie verstoorde het leven van veel mensen in de buurt op een ongekende manier. In 2020 werd door onze toenmalige coördinator Nizar el Azouzi en in nauwe samenwerking met de buurtvereniging de werkplaats tijdelijk ingericht als voedselbank. Toen dit een steeds omvangrijker initiatief werd voor honderd gezinnen, en dus steeds meer mensen afhankelijk werden van de voedselbank, realiseerde het stadsdeel een nieuwe plek voor de buurtvereniging waar de voedselbank een duurzame plek kon krijgen. We zijn trots dat de Werkplaats hier een steentje aan bijgedragen heeft.

Twee jaar geleden startten we in samenwerking met Stichting BMP een buurtproject omtrent het maken van een gezamenlijk wandkleed. Het begon met de 87-jarige Annie van Riel, die al ruim dertig jaar in de Molenwijk woont. 28 jaar geleden maakte zij met een groep mensen een oecumenisch wandkleed. Tijdens corona was ze haar huis aan het opruimen en dacht: “Wordt het niet tijd voor een nieuw Molenwijk-wandkleed, want er wonen hier zoveel verschillende mensen met allerlei religies en ideeën?” En zo geschiedde: wekelijks werd door een groep bewoners gewerkt aan het wandkleed. En als het even niet door kon gaan vanwege de lockdown werden thuispakketjes rondgebracht. Het resulteerde in een bont wandkleed dat rond zal reizen langs publieke plekken in de buurt. Daarnaast werkt Framer Framed samen met tal van binnen- en buitenschoolse educatiepartners. We bieden kunst- en cultuuronderwijs aan op scholen in de buurt, zoals het Montessori Kindcentrum Oostzanerwerf (voorheen: de Krijtmolen) en Kolom Praktijkcollege Noord voor het voortgezet onderwijs. Altijd vanuit de kinderen en jongeren zelf gestuurd, en met oog op het feit dat denken én doen beide even belangrijk zijn wordt de Werkplaatsgedachte gekoesterd.

De Werkplaats is ook doelgroepen te betrekken die niet vanzelfsprekend in een tentoonstellingsruimte komen en juist hen kennis te laten maken met beeldende kunst, door deze te zien, te beoordelen en zelf te maken. Dat draagt bij aan het zelfvertrouwen, biedt mogelijkheden om je te uiten en leert je kritisch denken. Daarnaast is het doel om ontmoetingen en gesprekken te faciliteren tussen verschillende groepen in de wijk en nieuw talent te ontdekken.

Suat Ögüt, The First Turk Immigrant (2018). Foto: Ozkan Golpinar

Sinds de opening van de Werkplaats ontvingen we tal van kunstenaars, fotografen, architecten en filmmakers die zich tijdelijk in de buurt vestigden, waaronder Florian Braakman, Laura Alvarez, Tina Lenz en Magda Augusteijn, Tunch, Erin Tjin A Ton en Gosia Kaczmarek, Bert Scholten, Domenique Himmelsbach de Vries, Anan Striker, Ratu R. Saraswati, Jacub Ferri en Golrokh Nafisi. Deze publicatie markeert de afgelopen vijf jaar van kunstresidenties. Hierin vindt je onder meer interviews met een deel van de kunstenaars die zich afgelopen jaren verdiepten in de buurt. We willen hen uiteraard bedanken voor hun bijdrage aan de Werkplaats en hun inspanningen voor de buurt. Samen met de Rijksakademie gingen we een samenwerking aan en één keer per jaar wordt de ruimte gezamenlijk als residentie voor het ontwikkelen van een sociale praktijk beschikbaar gesteld.

Deze publicatie laat ook zien wat er al aan kunst in de buurt aanwezig was voordat Framer Framed Werkplaats Molenwijk opende, zoals kunst in de publieke ruimte of het kunstenaars atelier van Hanna Mobach die de Werkplaats jarenlang als atelierruimte gebruikte. Hopelijk biedt deze publicatie een nieuwe bril – aangereikt door (mede)bewoners en kunstenaars – om de Molenwijk door andere ogen te zien.

Verkoop
Kunst in de Molenwijk (2023)
door Sietske Roorda
een uitgave van Framer Framed.

De publicatie is voor € 5,- verkrijgbaar in Werkplaats Molenwijk, bij Framer Framed in Amsterdam Oost of via onze webshop.

Presentatie van Jakup Ferri voor de deur bij Werkplaats Molenwijk (2023). Foto: Cas Bool

The post Bookshop Selection: Kunst in de Molenwijk appeared first on Framer Framed.

Listen to a new episode featuring an excerpt of the roundtable discussion that took place on 11 July 2023 titled Decolonizing the Gaze – Textile Cultural Heritage vs Colonialism – Cultural Appropriations? organised in collaboration with Thami Mnyele Foundation. The discussion is based on visual artist Caterina Pecchioli’s research project, Decolonizing the Gaze: The Colonial Heritage of Italian and International Fashion Design and Its Impact on the Collective Imagination.

Decolonizing the Gaze – Textile Cultural Heritage vs Colonialism – Cultural Appropriations? was an open debate about what different fabrics and their history tell about interculture, colonialism, and cultural appropriations. The discussion, which involves Afro-descendant stylists, artists, and fashion designers with origins from countries with a history of Dutch colonisation, intended to identify new meanings about widespread colonial dressing practices and body policies, and the effects of colonialism on the individual/collective imagination and design practices.

Together with fashion designer and creative director Zinzi de Brouwer and publisher and designer Willem van Zoetendaal, the roundtable offers insight into the Dutch Wax fabrics and the implications of its designs and messages produced in Holland and sold in Africa – and its complex and controversial identity representation. These fabrics present images and messages that are like archives of meanings that tell of an ambiguous relationship linked to the European colonial period. Fashion designers and creative directors Semhal Tsegaye Abebe, Bubu Ogisi, and Zinzi de Brouwer  also highlight initiatives and design projects that reveal the richness of African textile heritage still little known in Europe today, and their connection with sustainability. Some of the topics brought to the discussion emerge from a participatory workshop that Caterina Pecchioli previously lead at CBK Zuidoost Broedplaats Heesterveld and interviews collected on these issues by Caterina Pecchioli and Roxane Mbanga between Amsterdam and Paris.

Listen to the episode below:

We will continue to post recordings of events or behind-the-scene snippets as bonus episodes. Check out the full episodes, interviews and reflections, on your favourite platform: 

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This project was supported by the Italian Council (11th edition, 2022), Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity within the Italian Ministry of Culture. The programmes are in collaboration with Framer Framed (NL), Thami Mnyele Foundation (NL), Tilburg Textile Museum (NL), CBK Zuidoost NL (NL), Africa & Mediterraneo Magazine – IUAV Venice (IT). 

The post Podcast: Decolonizing the Gaze - Textile Cultural Heritage vs Colonialism appeared first on Framer Framed.

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Text by: Ania Molenda

Digital publishing is an inseparable part of our everyday lives. At the same time, it has become a weapon in the battle for attention, clicks, and political influence. Information overload and obscure mix-ups between commerce, content, and political manipulation give a headache to readers, content producers, and publishers. In times when most content is cheap and abundant, especially independent publishers, who focus on high-quality cultural content and do not rely on endless funds from advertising have a hard time surviving the competition with large media corporations, and tech giants–now dominating not only social media but also AI. The intensifying pressure on countering fake news, keeping up with developments in tech, and protecting the democratic character of media calls for new forms of resistance for cultural critical publishing that will be able to respond to both contemporary media culture and changing reading habits. The current situation of maneuvering between corporate and political powers puts independent publishers in a position that is counterproductive for the role and relevance they ought to play in the social and cultural realm. Creating independent critical content requires plenty of time and effort, and it is not meant to be consumed within seconds. While on the Web 2.0 content is cheap, fast, abundant, and addictive it is increasingly difficult to keep even the most dedicated readers interested as they grow more impatient, quickly distracted, and disengaged.

Beyond the Essay – a mindmap of the research process. Courtesy of Ania Molenda and INC.

Is critical reflection online a mere fable from the past or does it still have a space and readership today? Could ways in which content is created and published allow the readers to gain more agency in the way they behave online? What technologies can assist them with that? Could we imagine that the same digital technologies, which are currently used for economic exploitation become a support system to stimulate reflection in the online sphere? What cultural and digital strategies could be used to create alternative ways of online publishing, that expand the room for reflection and possibly reconstitute a form of collectivity online?

In the search for answers to these questions, across the past two and a half years Andrea Prins and I have been developing a research project titled Beyond the Essay: New Ways of Critical Reflection and have led a corresponding workshop series New Ways of Reading: Between Experiment and Accessibility realized in collaboration with Framer Framed in the fall of 2022. Beyond the Essay is an ongoing project and an evolving process where we start to identify some of the building elements of new spaces for critical reflection online. In our research, we are looking for possibilities to encourage reflection, engagement, collectivity, and polyvocality that would offer writers, readers, and publishers the opportunity to make critical writing more relevant for contemporary audiences. A part of our research methodology developed into conducting hands-on workshop experiments where we attempt to re-imagine critical reading, writing, and publishing through slower, more reflective ways of creating and engaging with content.

Critical reflection is a powerful tool that allows one to formulate questions, confront bias, point out contradictions, and look for new directions. Especially in a time when navigating online media becomes so complex and confusing, it is of critical importance to find ways in which we could re-discover critical reflection and tool up for it. Let’s be honest, it is not a fight, we will be able to win without technological assistance, and how we create and use computational tools also needs to be considered.

In a series of work sessions with Varia we explored three methods developed with or by Varia members. The first one focused on exploring a collective annotation system by using a spellbook of __MAGICWORDS__; the second played around with the idea of inversing indexing formats into unexpected relational forms of reading, which they call x-dexing; and the third one unfolding an understanding of how algorithms such as word2vec could help us embrace complex relations within texts instead of simplifying and quantifying them (word2complex).

These exercises, with what Varia provisionally calls more-than-computational practices, were collaborative and speculative acts of questioning and discovering unobvious forms of using existing digital tools for new ways of reading existing content. What emerged out of these highly engaging experiments was as Manetta Berends and Cristina Cochoir described it in their report from our collaboration––a formation of a social environment in and around the text. These relational approaches between readers, writers, computational tools, use protocols and their entanglements allowed us to explore a spatial and collective dimension of how readers, writers, and publishers can engage with each other through text.

INC Conference. In-between Media: Hybrid Tactics in the Crisis Era. Photo: Sonia González

While looking for new ways of thinking about critical reflection and how it affects reading, writing, and publishing we realized that the tension between experimenting to discover new possibilities and keeping them accessible to audiences beyond the niche of digital culture was rather challenging.

Exploring that tension further and looking for more low-threshold ways to look for potential future ways of embracing critical reflection we dove deeper into more basic ways of approaching the technology and the audience. Through different forms of experiments with assisted close reading and deep reading using at times less ethically pure technologies we aimed to engage users, who are not engaged with the critique of digital culture in their day-to-day practice. Yet, who do have a vested interest in finding new ways to engage with text online.

We started our event series from the premise that the quest for finding new ways of imagining critical reflection online ought to start by reclaiming agency by readers themselves. In the first workshop organized as a part of the New Ways of Reading series titled Owning Readership, embracing text collectively through an array of deep and close reading exercises turned out to not only be joyful but also allowed to create a degree of focus and attention for reading, which the participants had not been able to experience in a long time. One of the key takeaways was the role of the interface in activating a reflective mindset by not asking too much of the user. The more complex the possibilities within the interface and the familiarity required to navigate it the more distracting and dysfunctional the reading environment has been perceived.

The second event Imagining Accessibility took up the act of writing to explore the relationship between the mutability of the text (both in terms of its polyvocality and evolution in time) and the results this could have for increasing accessibility for various users. Here different ways of engaging with text as well as peer readers or other writers were explored through three exercises: collective writing, building up non-linearity, and summarizing with AI. Seeing the text as a playground of versions offered critical perspectives not only stimulating the creativity of writing but also forming a contrast with static institutional forms of text.

Workshop ‘New Ways of Reading: Imagining Accessibility’ at Framer Framed. Photo courtesy of Ania Molenda and INC

In Publishing Experiments for all, which combined a presentation and a workshop we aimed to bring the experiences from the first two sessions together with the publisher’s perspective on the possibilities of introducing such new forms of reading and writing to the industry. The views about the future of digital publishing shared by the participants ranged from exploring the possibilities of radical change and breaking the current patterns, through imagining inter-media hybrids or cross-connections, to concerns regarding sustainability of experiments and ensuring broad spectrum of participation. New experimental forms of publishing envisioned in that session included inviting critical reflection through engaging with visual argument maps; introducing formats that would allow the readers to add their own ‘voice’ or to read through the eyes of another person; and the use of good old modular publishing. At the same time, a general conclusion emerging from this and other discussions we had throughout the project seems to be that the publishing sector is and will be rather unwilling to change.

Workshop ‘New Ways of Reading: Imagining Accessibility’ at Framer Framed. Photo courtesy of Ania Molenda and INC

There seems to be a certain paradox between the need of urgently building forms of resistance and the general slowness with which many online users embrace the tech. Introducing new tools or methods will always require curiosity and most likely will push audiences outside of their comfort zone. Yet the experimental side of tech in its geekiness tends to create a literacy barrier that scares away many older and younger folks relying on the frictionlessness of contemporary corporate UI’s. Is critique of the digital culture bound to always be inaccessible? Is that a productive course of action? Can we create critical interfaces that would also allow to build safe spaces for critical reflection and at the same time create more critical mass for resistance in online media?

Ania Molenda
August 2023

This article was originally published on the Research Blog of the Institute of Network Cultures, as part of the collaborative project, Going Hybrid.

Beyond the Essay was made possible by Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie.

The post Online Critical Reflection, a Fable from the Past? appeared first on Framer Framed.

Ashley and Ebissé interrogate the concept of ‘hybrid publishing,’ a term that spans traditional, self-publishing, print and digital, and open access models in the scientific community. Ebisse shares her distinctive experiences in academic and literary publishing, contrasting them with her role at Framer Framed. The episode wraps up by examining event reporting’s significance in art institutions, advocating for standardised reporting, and expressing optimism for future research in hybrid event reporting.

Ashley Maum works at Framer Framed on exhibitions, publications and research. She also works as an editor at Errant Journal. Ebissé Wakjirais publications, magazine and podcast coordinator at Framer Framed. Going Hybrid is a research project into the future of hybridity for the cultural field initiated by Institute of Network Cultures (INC).

Listen to the episode below

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The post Podcast: Going Hybrid - A Deep Dive into Cultural Publishing and Programming appeared first on Framer Framed.

In de zomer van 2023 organiseerde Framer Framed in samenwerking met stichting ELANCE een zomerprogramma voor jonge meiden, waar deelnemers op laagdrempelige wijze kennis konden maken met verschillende technieken om op creatieve wijze hun eigen verhaal te maken. ELANCE biedt verschillende coachingsprogramma’s met als doel om meiden en jonge vrouwen in de leeftijd van 10 tot 27 jaar te steunen om sterke, ambitieuze vrouwen en rolmodellen voor de volgende generatie te worden.

Rode draad in het zomerprogramma van 2023 was het maken van een eigen verhaal en het verkennen van verschillende manieren van verhalen vertellen. Zes weken lang werden de deelnemers begeleid door Malin Ryberg, multi-disciplinair kunstenaar en auteur die het peer-to-peer principe van vrouwelijke rolmodellen van ELANCE voortzet in de structuur van het Strong Girls Meet-programma. 

Van tekst naar beeld, van beeld naar leven. De deelnemers werden meegenomen op een creatieve reis om hun eigen verhaal in tekst om te zetten in verschillende artistieke vormen. De meiden waren vrij om eerst in een eigen gekozen taal het verhaal te schrijven, waarna speelse oefeningen werden gedaan om de creativiteit op gang te brengen en na te denken over de personages en de verhaallijn.

Vanuit tekst gingen de deelnemers aan de slag om hun verhaal in de vorm van een stripverhaal te gieten, met de uitdaging om hun woorden in beeld weer te geven en naar verschillende scenes.

Van tekst en beeld werd de stap gemaakt naar 3D, en uit het stripverhaal verrezen personages in de vorm van een papier-maché sculptuur. Met enige voorzichtigheid hier en daar, en vooral heel veel plezier, werden het verhaal en de personages vervolgens leven ingeblazen in een workshop theater/spoken word van gastdocente Cherella Gessel. Op die manier maakten de deelnemers ook kennis met performatieve kunst, wat nieuw was voor de meeste meiden.

In de laatste bijeenkomst stond het opbouwen van een tentoonstelling centraal. De meiden leerden samenwerken om tot een ontwerp te komen voor hun ruimtelijke presentatie aan het publiek, en dit ook daadwerkelijk uit te voeren. Tot slot werd de tentoonstelling feestelijk geopend voor ouders, andere meiden en het team van Framer Framed.

 Het zomerprogramma maakte deel uit van Midzomer Mokum 2023, een initiatief van de gemeente Amsterdam om tijdens de vakantieactiviteiten te organiseren voor kinderen en jongeren tot 23 jaar.

The post ELANCE: Midzomer Mokum 2023 appeared first on Framer Framed.

Golrokh Nafisi (b. 1981, Isfahan, Iran) is a visual artist based between Amsterdam and Tehran. Graduate of Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam 2010-2014, from 2000-2005 she studied design at the University of Art in Tehran. In 2019 her work was featured at Prospects, Art Rotterdam 2019.

Her main artistic practice is to imagine alternative ways of counting time and locating ourselves; shaping a new imagination for calendars as well as a new imagination for maps. Designing these two elements that measure and define our time and space gives us new directions for the current moment. Her aesthetic is strongly influenced by popular local handcraft of the cities that she travels to and works in. Nafisi is interested in discovering new forms of collective action, involving bodies and human ideologies.

Manifesto Against Nostalgia (2019). Foto: Betül Ellialtıoğlu / Framer Framed

In 2019, Nafisi made a performance titled Manifesto Against Nostalgia (2019) together with Giulia Crispiani and Ahmadali Kadivar at Framer Framed. The project responds to increasing xenophobic tendencies that are emerging in a variety of different contexts worldwide. The performance and installation happens in collaboration with local folk musicians, informed by longstanding traditions combining music and enunciation, departing from the universal image of a town crier who shares announcements with a music register. The performance adopts a site-specific linguistic form each time, from manifesto to poetry, from religious ritual to chant. The audience was invited to become an integral part of the event, as witnesses of this nostalgic dissidence.

In summer 2022, Framer Framed worked with Nafisi on a book launch Gham/Tristezza/Sorrow, a work that documents a correspondence between Golrokh Nafisi and Giulia Crispiani, between Tehran and Rome. The book explores the elaboration of mourning through drawing and poetry which transforms pain into a political tool. It is also dedicated to all the mourners of the last two years, those who have lost loved ones in the distance or have not been able to mourn collectively in the days of Covid-19.

We look forward to welcoming Nafisi in the Molenwijk and share her work and practice with the neighbourhood.

Address
Werkplaats Molenwijk
Molenaarsweg 3
1035EJ Amsterdam

Werkplaats Molenwijk is made possible by:
Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap; Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst; De Alliantie and Stadsdeel Noord. This residency is in partnership with the Social Practice Workshop of the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten.

Werkplaats Molenwijk is an initiative by Framer Framed. Framer Framed is supported by Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Stadsdeel Oost.

The post Golrokh Nafisi is the new Artist in Residence at the Werkplaats Molenwijk appeared first on Framer Framed.

Gwangju Biënnale Paviljoen Project

Framer Framed had de eer het eerste Nederlandse paviljoen als onderdeel van de 14e Gwangju Biënnale in Zuid-Korea te mogen vormgeven in het Gwangju Museum of Art. Samen met curator Juhyun Cho en onderzoeker Radha D’Souza en kunstenaar Jonas Staal werd hier een nieuwe editie van de Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes gepresenteerd.

Het Gwangju Biënnale Pavilion Project, dat in 2018 van start ging, omvat tentoonstellingen van vooraanstaande internationale culturele organisaties om de grenzen tussen verschillende kunstomgevingen te doorbreken en een boodschap over te brengen die uniek is voor de stad Gwangju. Met drie organisaties vertegenwoordigd op de 12e Gwangju Biënnale in 2018 en twee op de 13e Gwangju Biënnale in 2021, groeide het project in 2023 uit tot een presentatie van kunst- en cultuurorganisaties uit negen verschillende landen.

De Gwangju Biennale is een biënnale voor hedendaagse kunst, opgericht in september 1995 in Gwangju, provincie Zuid-Jeolla, Zuid-Korea. De biënnale werd opgericht ter herdenking van de door studenten geleide Gwangju-opstand van 18 mei 1980, waarbij pro-democratische demonstranten werden geliquideerd door de militaire dictatuur. De Gwangju Biënnale in Zuid-Korea is Azië’s oudste en meest prestigieuze biënnale voor hedendaagse kunst.

Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes

In 2021 werd de eerste presentatie van de Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC) gepresenteerd bij Framer Framed in Amsterdam. Gebaseerd op het boek van Radha D’Souza, What’s Wrong With Rights? (2018), vonden openbare hoorzittingen plaats waarbij de Nederlandse staat en transnationale ondernemingen zoals Unilever, ING en Airbus, werden berecht voor het plegen van klimaatmisdaden. Aanklagers en getuigen hebben bewijs geleverd van hun wandaden. Het publiek trad op als jury en moest een oordeel vellen op basis van de Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act, de juridische basis van de CICC.

In 2023 volgde een nieuwe editie, de Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes: Extinction Wars, gepresenteerd in het eerste Nederlandse paviljoen van de Gwangju Biennale. Deze editie belicht de rol van het militair-industriële complex bij klimaatmisdaden met het argument dat het bestaan van het op fossiele brandstoffen gestookte militair-industriële complex een ecocidale misdaad is tegen natuur en volkeren. Oorlogen hebben een verwoestende generationele impact op menselijke gemeenschappen, maar ook op de complexe ecosystemen die hen in stand houden. Klimaatcatastrofe zou als een oorlogsmisdaad moeten worden beschouwd: een uitstervingsoorlog tegen levende werelden.

Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes: Extinction Wars werd door de 19th Monthly Art Award geselecteerd als een van de  10 beste tentoonstellingen van 2023.

Installatiefoto van de tentoonstelling CICC: Extinction Wars (2023) van Jonas Staal en Radha D’ Souza, een co-productie van Framer Framed in samenwerking met het 14e Gwangju Biennale Netherlands Pavilion. Samengesteld door Juhyun Cho, in samenwerking met Gwangju Biennale Foundation, Gwangju Museum of Art en Framer Framed. Foto: © Jonas Staal

Curator & Onderzoeker
Juhyun Cho (조주현)

Artiesten
Radha D’Souza
Jonas Staal

Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes: Extinction Wars kwam tot stand in opdracht van Framer Framed in samenwerking met het Gwangju Biennale Pavilion

Gepresenteerd door
Gwangju Museum of Art
https://artmuse.gwangju.go.kr

Mede mogelijk gemaakt door
Arts Council Korea (ARKO), het Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap (Nederland), Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst (AfK), de Ambassade van het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in Korea en het Mondriaan Fonds.

The post CICC: Extinction Wars selected by Monthly Art for exhibition award appeared first on Framer Framed.

Dutch text by: Padrick Stam

For the past few months, Werkplaats Molenwijk was home for Jakup Ferri. “I heard through Framer Framed that it is a quiet and green neighbourhood where many people with a refugee background live. And that it’s very diverse.” During the months he was able to call himself a ‘Molenwijker’, Jakup experienced the neighbourhood in his own way. “It is wonderfully peaceful and quiet. It’s different from the city at large, but for me, it was a relaxing place.” He also enjoyed the Molenwijk’s location between the greenery of the Twiske and the hustle and bustle of the city.

During his residency, Jakup worked with the Molenwijk door elkaar group, a community project organised by Framer Framed and Stichting BMP. The group, composed mainly of women from the neighbourhood, gather weekly at the Werkplaats. They worked with Jakup on a number of embroidered textile pieces. Throughout this process, Jakup worked on sketches and drawings, which were then applied to fabrics. The ladies of the group then embroidered the lines of the drawings, bringing them to life.

Jakup Ferri’s presentation at Werkplaats Molenwijk (2023). Photo: Cas Bool

In the past, the group embroidered a tapestry for the neighbourhood and they found it valuable to work on a new project together. Some group members took the fabrics home to continue the work. Even though it was a new way of working for Jakup, he enjoyed the collaborative process. “It was laid-back. I didn’t work with hard deadlines for this project, which suits my own working method. I will develop the drawings I made in the Molenwijk into a new artwork at a later date.” So, in addition to his collaboration with the residents of the Molenwijk, Jakup has laid the foundations for a future work.

Wandkleed gemaakt door de ‘Molenwijk door elkaar’ groep

Borduursessies met de ‘Molenwijk door elkaar’ groep. Foto: Padrick Stam

“My individual works are part of a bigger picture and a continuous process.” Jakup’s works constitute a complete practice. They are a reflection of his nomadic existence and his personal development as an artist. In this bigger picture, Jakup has already collaborated with women from Albania, Kosovo, Burkina Faso, Suriname, and now the Molenwijk. Jakup’s artwork is characterised by a simplicity and directness. He portrays people in their isolation, estranged from their surroundings. In the Molenwijk, too, he felt somewhat alienated from his environment. “I don’t easily feel at home anywhere. Because I’ve lived in many different places for so long, you kind of lose the feeling of being at home. So I’m also not looking for that feeling.” Jakup prefers to meet people at a distance. “You don’t always need a conversation to get to know someone.” Still, sometimes it felt like coming home to the Werkplaats. During his residency, he had to leave the Molenwijk several times due to personal circumstances. “When I came back to the neighbourhood, it did feel like home. For the upcoming period at least!”

Jakup’s drawings, whose outlines were embroidered by Molenwijk residents, will travel to Kosovo where they will be finished in a traditional style by local artisans to create colourful tapestries. The tapestries will soon tell a poetic story about the Molenwijk, Kosovo and all the places Jakup has visited on his personal and artistic journey. The works will return to the Molenwijk at the end of the year for all to see. And Jakup? He will begin a two-month residency in Bern, Switzerland. “I don’t know much about it at the moment, I like to be surprised. I’m quite spontaneous. I find a space and see what happens, which is exactly what I did in the Molenwijk.”

Borduurwerk van dames uit de Molenwijk. Foto: Padrick Stam

Translation: Evie Evans

The post A dialogue of embroidery: from Kosovo to Molenwijk with Jakup Ferri appeared first on Framer Framed.

Text by: Rose-Anne Gush

I am interested in how the exhibition Charging Myths interrogates and materializes global energy culture, with lithium taking the heroic position in the name of the green revolution to rescue us in our battery dependency.³ Lithium’s history is bound up with its role as a remedy against bipolar disorder. As such, its presence in the earth has been historically used as the site of therapeutic bathing grounds. In drinking water, lithium is known to lower depression and suicide rates. In this vein, Anastasia Kubrak writes that just before the Wall Street crash in 1929, “lithiated” lemon soda became available on the market, sold as a mood enhancer, and with each minor and major depression, lithium served to restore our energies.⁴ While lithium continues to be activated against depression, its current role is now settled as a component of rechargeable batteries. Its importance is raised as whole continents of the world attempt to divest from fossil fuels; lithium is their replacement.⁵

Alexis Destoop, The Pits (2022). Photo: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

The works in Charging Myths explore how energy is economized and commodified. Alexis Destoop’s work, The Pits (2022), contains a video installation and print that hangs in the center of the space contributing to lithium’s origin myth. The print depicts a cross-section of a mineshaft on the Swedish island of Utö, where the first lithium deposits were found in the early 1800s. Utö’s mining history, or history of the pits, goes back more than 1000 years to times when Vikings extracted iron. Destoop modified an early nineteenth-century topographical etching, magnifying or enlarging the 25 cm (9.8 inch) image to 4,75 m (187 inches). With a lot of painstaking work, he erased, amplified and enhanced certain elements, creating a reappropriation.⁶ This radical upscaling is designed to challenge a normative top-down point of view that captures the earth’s surface in order to quantify and measure it. We are forced to look up as though we are in the belly of the pits, our gaze follows the dotted lines up to the surface.

As an extractable resource, energy is finite, which is part of its «myth.» Yet we also use the word energy to name intangible and capacious notions that connote life and liveliness, power, vigor, effort, force. In 1847, Hermann von Helmholtz published the essay, “Über die Erhaltung der Kraft”, which inaugurated energy’s present-day definition regarding its conservation, evident in the first law of thermodynamics. Cara New Daggett writes that “Thermodynamics mapped the new Earth through the figure of energy, a unit that retained its identity through time (energy conservation), even as its tendency to dissipate (entropy) imparted a tragic edge.”⁷ The entropic, the tragic aspect of finite, inevitably dissipating energy led to the anxiety that it needs fixing and recharging. The term energy then expanded to include a technical sense, and was, in the 1970s, conjoined to its pair, crisis. Kubrak notes that the 1970s energy crisis of gave rise to the invention of the rechargeable lithium battery, developed within ExxonMobil for the electric car⁸ – and soon after abandoned, to be renewed today in light of permanent wars, most notably taking place in Ukraine, and imminent climate collapse, in a large part due to burning fossil fuels.

Marjolijn Dijkman, Depth of Discharge (2021). Photo: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

Femke Herregraven’s video work, A Prelude To: When the Dust Unsettles (2022) takes the images produced by the Australian mining company AVZ as digital model or «twin» of the exploratory tunnel in Manono, looking at how capitalized nature is rendered an ideal image. We see the extraction process, as demonstrated to convince investors of the promise of future profit, as a terra nullius, a landscape showing only minerals to be extracted. In this video, the real Manono landscape and the virtual model, a discrete sociotechnical object, are juxtaposed, introducing the difficult constraints of existent lifeforms that inhabit the land, and thus the inherent devastation that mining causes to its landscapes and the lives that occupy it. In its rendering of the digital twin, Herregraven’s video reflects the smoothness of the ideal energy landscapes, or what Jeff Diamanti terms “energyscapes”, the settings where capital finds its energy infrastructures optimized for capital’s growth.⁹ Yet the unevenness of the energy transition, as it is rendered in A Prelude To: When the Dust Unsettles, illuminates the geography of extraction that Martin Arboleda calls the “planetary mine”. For Arboleda, the novelty invoked by the word ‘planetary’ refers to the geography of industrialization decentered from the West, following Achille Mbembe’s claim that Europe has been provincialized as a center of capital; “Europe is no longer the center of gravity of the world,” Mbembe writes.¹⁰ Arboleda’s use of planetary also indicates a «quantum leap in the robotization and computerization of the labor process», culminating in what he calls the fourth machine age,¹¹ to describe technological modernization in the global South after the 1980s. In particular, he looks at East Asian economies which have destabilized such “metageographical categories”: core/periphery or global North/South, in turn significantly increasing technological innovations.¹² In this schema, the fourth machine age designates the fusing of technologies that produce this upscaling. Computerization, machine learning, biotechnology, and their utilization across all domains, physical, digital, biological etc. form the basis of Arboleda’s claim to this epochal shift. In sum, this shift signals the huge economic profitability of the smart or robotized mine, as well as, crucially, its carbon footprint – it produces more than a thousand times more solid waste.¹³ The planetary mine exceeds the mine as a “discrete sociotechnical object” – the object we explore in Manono – expanding into a network of infrastructures and spatial technologies.¹⁴ It traverses the entire geography of the earth. And it blurs the boundaries between “manufacturing and extraction, waste and resources, biologically and non-biologically based industries.” ¹⁵ Extraction goes beyond taking minerals from the earth. It expands to include logistics, transoceanic corridors, finance capital, labor. Mining becomes global supply chains, state powers, neo-imperialism and its dependencies, as illustrated by the abstraction in Herregraven’s video.

Pélagie Gbaguidi, Hunger (2022). Photo: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

The dialectical counterpart to such energyscapes seen in the DRC can be found in Georges Senga’s photographs, Tshanga-Tshanga (2022), shot by drones that look down on scarred landscapes functioning as artisanal mines, where subsistence miners work in mud with basic tools, independently of mining companies, on the grounds of former industrial mines. The withdrawal of corporations leaves a landscape where people are then forced to continue working in informal economies. The work Hunger (2022) by Pélagie Gbaguidi, as its title signals, indexes survival. Giant, ravenous, gaping mouths with flaring teeth make up a graphic display which overlays two benches that we are invited to sit on while we listen to the poem We Are a New Sun or read booklets available on the table. The poem was written after Gbaguidi traveled to Lubumbashi, where she worked with women subsistence miners who were extracting cobalt – a mineral that is also necessary for lithium-ion batteries – in devastating life-threatening conditions. Charging Myths is made up of materializations of energyscapes that speak, or scream silently, like these mouths. The mine in Manono, located 500 km away from Lubumbashi, like many of its kind, is both the site of historical extraction – in this case, since 1919, tin – and now the site of the promise of green energy. The exhibition takes this paradox, the fact that the transition to green energy demands the extraction of large swaths of nature, as its premise.

Installation of the exhibition Charging Myths (2023) at Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Photo: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

Likewise, addressing Tesla Inc, one of the biggest buyers and users of lithium batteries, Sammy Baloji, Jean Katambayi Mukendi and Daddy Tshikaya created a Tesla car made from copper wire, called Tesla Crash: A Speculation, a miniature version of which was hung in the entrance of Framer Framed. Musasa’s and Maarten Vanden Eynde’s Material Matters Li3 (2018) is a painting that appears as a didactic wall chart showing a symbolic map of lithium’s forms and symbols, from the mine to battery and the repeated Tesla motif adorned with wings. Marjolijn Dijkman’s Cloud to Ground #1 (2021) consists of a large, raised bed littered with fulgurites, «lightning tubes» made of sand after it has been struck by lightning. In Charging Myths, Dijkman’s tubes are artificial, made of soil from Belgian and Congolese mining areas. As such, they are energyscapes that are lit up and, more crucially, extinguished in the artwork. In relation to Cloud to Ground #1, the exhibition suggests an epistemic shift from historical materialism to considerations of matter and its energies that are symptomatic of a broader turn towards the ontologizing of matter within more than human life-forms (consider new materialism [Jane Bennet, Karan Barad], Object-Oriented Ontology [Graham Harman et al.], and Actor Network Theory [Bruno Latour et al.]). As objects are elevated as agential entities, this tendency often leads to a depoliticization of social relations. For example, the power of lithium to combust is part of its potential to sabotage or explode the objects it sits within. Yet – I want to argue that this potential auto-sabotage remains continuous with the social relations that have led to lithium being used in car batteries. I follow Diamanti’s argument that these philosophical tendencies (new materialism, OOO, ANT) are connected and “articulate a shared fantasy” whereby they constitute a “post-industrial philosophy that imagines capital as a form of energy,” cut off from of any relation to what it is underpinned by, its conditions of production, thus naturalizing it.¹⁶ Although the works in Charging Myths speak discretely through their matter, materiality and its potentials, their social and historical contexts envelop them, as energy and its infrastructures remain tethered to capitalist exploitation in its most virulent forms. Indeed, in a discussion hosted by Framer Framed, the artists described the challenge of the landscape in Manono as one of finding the human story, as it is submerged by the global corporate and state actors.¹⁷

In Aesthetic Theory, Theodor Adorno describes the artwork as a forcefield that materializes as a process of becoming. Interestingly, Adorno describes the parts that make an artwork as «centers of energy that strain toward the whole on the basis of a necessity that they equally perform.» He continues, “[t]he vortex of this dialectic ultimately consumes the concept of meaning”.¹⁸ Can we say that Charging Myths enacts this dialectic on a larger scale, wherein the totality of the exhibition enacts this work, as the parts materialize energy both literally and figuratively and problematize our relation to and dependency on it? Lithium itself produces a non-synchronous temporal image of energy, as we use and consume it.

Installation photo from the exhibition Charging Myths (2023) at Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Photo: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

One of the most interesting temporal images in Charging Myths is A Chain of Events (2021) by Maarten Vanden Eynde. Snaking through the gallery, a large chain links pieces of rope to bulky chunks of crystal, oversized buttons, painted beads, light bulbs, balls, cogs, and other objects that might speculatively be used both for barter and exchange or to measure or record information. This work speaks to the relation between lithium’s gigafactories, recorded on the information timeline also included in the exhibition, and the artisanal mines where Gbaguidi’s colleagues search for cobalt in mud. Chain of Events formally scatters the moments that exist simultaneously with each other. The work gives us a sense of multi-directional temporality: it is not simply that colonial enterprises laid the groundwork for neo-colonial corporations, there are also reversals and regressions. We know Lubumbashi is the site of colonial era copper mines set up by King Leopold that were later taken over by Union Miniere de Haut-Katanga and recently bought up by today’s global corporations that administer the planetary mine, using the remains of the infrastructures built within empire. But when the companies leave and discard their sites, out of necessity and survival, the sites are reverted to pre-industrial modes of operation by local populations.

The exhibition space, Framer Framed, describes itself as focusing on the “social and environmental impact of mines on our society.”¹⁹ The institution frames this in relation to the price that we pay, environmentally and ecologically, for our energy dependencies, and I would add, energy compulsions – are we brave enough to ask if we can live without these prosthetic devices into which we project ourselves? Through its geographic dialogue, the exhibition reveals the inverted reality of both the direct encounter with the site of extractive mining – after fossil fuels – and the consumption of the shiny surfaces of electronic end products: battery operated cars and devices. Charging Myths brings the mine into relation with the networks of relations that sprawl out from its mouth, spitting out the future of battery-operated devices, especially the car (as countries legislate targets for ending fossil-fueled cars), showing how this so-called renewable future comes at the cost of the devastation of the planet, and the continuous rotation of new suns.

Rose-Anne Gush

27th June 2023
Originally published by Brand-New-Life

I would like to thank Anastasia Kubrak and Lucie Kolb for their careful and astute editing.

• • 1. Charging Myths was a co-production between Z33 (Hasselt, BE) and Framer Framed (Amsterdam, NL). “On-Trade-Off: Charging Myths — Announcements — e-Flux,” E-flux, accessed June 7, 2023, https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/457806/on-trade-offcharging-myths/.
  • 2. The artist collective On-Trade-Off includes Alexis Destoop, Marjolijn Dijkman, Pélagie Gbaguidi, Femke Herregraven, Dorine Mokha & Elia Rediger, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Musasa, Alain Nsenga, Georges Senga, Pamela Tulizo, Maarten Vanden Eynde.
  • 3. Lithium is presented as the (tragic) hero of the present-day energy crisis that can get us out of our energy-addiction predicament, decreasing our CO2 emissions – as Cristobal Bonelli has described it.
  • 4. Anastasia Kubrak, “From Burnout to 7UP: On Bathing and Mining Grounds,” in Lithium: States of Exhaustion, eds. Diaz, Kubrak, Verzier (Ediciones ARQ/Het Nieuwe Instituut, 2021), pp. 16–19, 17.
  • 5. “Energy Strategy,” European Commission, accessed May 18, 2023, https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/energy-strategy_en.
  • 6. My account relies on a correspondence with the artist. Alexis Destoop, The Pits, June 19, 2023.
  • 7. Cara New Daggett, The Birth of Energy: Fossil Fuels, Thermodynamics, and the Politics of Work (Durham: Duke University Press Books, 2019), p. 11.
  • 8. Kubrak, pp. 18-19.
  • 9. Jeff Diamanti, Climate and Capital in the Age of Petroleum: Locating Terminal Landscapes (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021), p. 62.
  • 10. Achille Mbembe, cited in, Martin Arboleda, Planetary Mine: Territories of Extraction under Late Capitalism (New York: Verso, 2020), p. 8.
  • 11. Arboleda, p. 4. The history of capitalism is made up of imperial cores, and dependent peripheries, since the C16, experiencing resource booms.
  • 12. Arboleda, p. 4.
  • 13. Arboleda, p. 11.
  • 14. ‘Planetary mine’ is a term that Arboleda borrows from Mazan Labban. Arboleda, p. 5.
  • 15. Arboleda, p. 5.
  • 16. Diamanti, p. 66.
  • 17. Framer Framed, “#03 – More-Than-Human Encounters,” Framer Framed (podcast), accessed May 18, 2023, https://framerframed.nl/podcast.
  • 18. Theodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, ed. Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann, trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), p. 244.
    19. Josien Pieterse and Evie Evans, “Introduction”, On-Trade-Off: Charging Myths — Catalogue (Amsterdam: Framer Framed, 2023), p. 5.

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This podcast episode, Art in Solidarity: Taring Padi’s 25-Year Artistic Evolution, is an excerpt from the roundtable conversation that took place during the first public program of Tanah Merdeka exhibition on 25th June. The exhibition, open until September 10th, brings together works by Taring Padi and various collaborators to reflect on the concept of land and its socio-political implications through a cross-cultural network of solidarity. Drawing from the Indonesian expression ‘tanah merdeka’ (liberated land), the exhibition sees land as a broad concept with many complexities.

Listen to the episode here:

Or check out our podcast on your favourite platform:

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Google,
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Participating Artists
Shigeo Arikawa
Makiko Yamamoto
Atsushi Watanabe
Riki Takeda
Kayako Nakashima.

“How I feel is not your problem, period.” serves to cast an eye on the difficulties of life that children in their teens may feel, and proposes to continue thinking about various unanswerable questions through engaging with contemporary art.

Central to the exhibition is the concept of empathy, the ability to empathise with others and to imagine the feelings and experiences of others. It is associated with being kind, attentive and open to the other. Skills that are needed to be able to see another person’s point of view and have an understanding of each other, and necessary for fine coexistence. This is taught early in school, and later expected in working life. However, gaining or receiving empathy is not always easy. We are not always waiting for empathetic responses. Particularly for teenagers, this can be a quest in relationships with family and friends and in developing one’s own identity. And if empathy is associated and perhaps even equated with kindness, is it ok to reject empathy from time to time?

Shigeo Arikawa’s work (Re)interpretation (2023) consists of a series of video works depicting fictional occupations. Working closely with Framer Framed, MLO students watched one of his video works in parts to stimulate critical reflection on the concept of labour/work. They then engaged creatively in making their own posters.

The posters are presented together with the video works in Arikawa’s installation, which looks like a job fair or trade show, where visitors are invited to suggest the job descriptions and hiring requirements of the people in the videos. By showing the works of the students from Amsterdam to the audience in Tokyo, including Japanese youth, Arikawa wants to exchange and further explore different (culturally coloured) interpretations.

For more information, see the exhibition page on the MOT Art Museum website.

Foto: Shigeo Arikawa

Location
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Exhibition Gallery B2F
4 Chome-1-1 Miyoshi
Koto City, Tokyo
135-0022, Japan

https://www.mot-art-museum.jp

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Framer Framed and documentary photographer Karine Versluis, who published a photography book Debaltsevo, Where Are You? (2023) about her Ukrainian roots, organised four weekly sessions for 14-16-year-old Amsterdam and Capetown locals. Photography and storytelling were the mediums of exploring family histories. Karine guided the participants by making photography accessible to those irrespective of one’s proficiency with photography. Each week, the results were exchanged with those in Cape Town who were partaking in a parallel programme.

The research started by looking through old photographs and interviewing family members about their past. Karine then guided the participants through different photography techniques and terminology to inspire the group to be creative when taking their own photographs. The group then captured photographs that represented their family histories and personal identities. Afterwards, a video call was organised between Cape Town and Amsterdam to share stories and cultural exchange that, in the end, provided more nuances to the ‘black pages’ of Dutch colonial history.

After the session in 2023, the participants were thankful for the opportunity to explore their roots, which led to a greater understanding of their own cultural identities. Personal stories about the meaning of herbs and rituals, familial connections, the importance of knowing one’s past and dual identities were researched and visualised through photography. The participants learnt about their personal family histories and who they are in relation to others – both in Amsterdam and in Cape Town.

Djizé

De muzikant is mijn opa, de vader van mijn vader. Hij was een hele lieve opa met een groot hart. De man naast de foto is mijn vader, de zoon van mijn opa. Mijn vader heeft een Nederlandse moeder en een volledige Molukse vader. Dit maakt hem half Moluks. Mijn vader kan zich volledig Moluks en volledig Nederlands voelen. Ik daarentegen voel me niet zo verbonden met mijn Molukse kant en heb daar soms best wat moeite mee. Het meisje op de foto ben ik.

Foto: Djizé Elzinga

—

Misha

Ik heb een foto gemaakt van munttakjes. Mijn eerste gedachte die ik heb bij munt is: Nana thee. Dit is de naam die mijn familie gebruikt voor muntthee, afkomstig uit Marokko. Ik drink altijd Nana thee na het eten bij mijn familie op vrijdagavond. Tijdens die avonden eten we gerechten die vaak ook afkomstig zijn uit Marokko. Die ook gekke namen hebben waar ik nooit bij stil sta. Tijdens het eten worden er ook soms verhalen verteld over hoe bijvoorbeeld vakanties vroeger waren, maar ook over familieleden die ik nooit heb ontmoet.

Foto: Misha Kanner

—

Paula

Dit is elke dag
Op de plek waar ik het meest ben
Met mensen die het meest dicht bij mij staan
Die ik het allerbeste ken
Het allermeeste zie
Maar nu kijk ik ze niet aan
Nu zijn ze anoniem
Want hoe weet ik wie zij zijn
Als ik niet weet wat zij waren?

Foto: Paula Raith

—

Julia

The easy availability of pin cushion proteas in the Netherlands – flowers indigenous to the Cape – shows how past colonial connections have forged contemporary links. The immigration of the flowers but also of people between South Africa and the Netherlands is no coincidence. This photograph represents my roots – it is taken in my student house in Utrecht, the Netherlands; yet it depicts two very South African symbols: dried proteas hanging from the ceiling and in the shadow underneath a cloth with zebras printed on it. The Netherlands and South Africa – my dual nationalities.

Foto: Julia Krantz

The post Report: Shared Waters and Family Histories - An exchange with Camissa Museum in Capetown, SA appeared first on Framer Framed.

In this conversation, we explore the journey behind the creation of the edited volume, Art for (and within) a Citizen Scene. Join us as we speak with co-editor Emily Shin-Jie Lee, who shares her insights on the creative practices within South-East-Asia.

Emily delves into the materialization of these practices and their relationship to the surrounding environment. We also discuss the meaning of collaboration in the present day and the roles artists play in these collaborative efforts. This book sheds light on communities where art is not just a profession but a way of life, emphasizing the importance of collaboration in daily existence.

Emily Shin-Jie Lee works at Framer Framed on residencies, partnerships and research projects. She co-edited this volume with Iris Ferrer, Julia Wilhelm and reinaart vanhoe.

Art for (and within) a Citizen Scene is available alongside the edited volume Be Water, My Friend via the Framer Framed webshop.

Listen to the episode below:

Or check out our podcast on your favourite platform:
Spotify,
Apple,
Google,
Castbox,
Overcast,
Pocket Casts, RadioPublic,
Stitcher or
RSS.

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This year, as we commemorate and celebrate 150 years of the abolition of slavery, Framer Framed recommends several books available at the Framer Framed Bookshop that provide must-read perspectives for anyone looking to better understand transatlantic slavery and the intersections of race, culture and global history.

In light of this, Framer Framed is closed on 1 July, but you are welcome to visit our exhibitions and bookshop on Sunday 2 July. 

The Dutch Atlantic: Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation

by Kwame Nimako & Glenn Willemsen
€30

Interrogates the Dutch involvement in Atlantic slavery and assesses the historical consequences of this for contemporary European society. Kwame Nimako and Glenn Willemsen show how the slave trade and slavery intertwined economic, social and cultural elements, including nation-state formation in the Netherlands and across Europe. They explore the mobilisation of European populations in the implementation of policies that facilitated Atlantic slavery, and examine how European countries created and expanded laws that perpetuated colonisation.
—

Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

by Walter Rodney. Foreword by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
€24

Early in life, Walter Rodney became a major revolutionary figure in a dizzying range of locales that traversed the breadth of the Black diaspora: in North America and Europe, in the Caribbean and on the African continent. He was not only a witness of a Pan-African and socialist internationalism; in his efforts to build mass organizations, catalyse rebellious ferment, and theorize an anti-colonial path to self-emancipation, he can be counted among its prime authors. Decolonial Marxism records such a life by collecting previously unbound essays written during the world-turning days of Black revolution.
—

Demonic Grounds: Black Women And The Cartographies Of Struggle

by Katherine McKittrick
€26

In a long overdue contribution to geography and social theory, Katherine McKittrick offers a new and powerful interpretation of black women’s geographic thought. In Canada, the Caribbean, and the United States, black women inhabit diasporic locations marked by the legacy of violence and slavery. Analysing diverse literatures and material geographies, McKittrick reveals how human geographies are a result of racialized connections, and how spaces that are fraught with limitation are under acknowledged but meaningful sites of political opposition.

Demonic Grounds moves between past and present, archives and fiction, theory and the everyday, to focus on places negotiated by black women during and after the transatlantic slave trade.
—

The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness

by Paul Gilroy 
€15

A profound and enlightening exploration of the complex relationship between modernity, race, and identity. By examining the concept of double consciousness, Gilroy effectively addresses the complex legacies of slavery and colonisation on black political culture. Gilroy skilfully weaves together various thinkers and artists such as Adorno, Hendrix, hip-hop culture, Du Bois, Wright, Hegel, and more, providing a clear and eloquent analysis. This seminal work provides an invaluable perspective for anyone interested in understanding the intersections of race, culture, and global history.

Our bookshop, and the following titles, are curated in collaboration with KIOSK Rotterdam & Het Fort van Sjakoo.

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Text: Sun Chang

By following the installation in the centre of the space, Galaxy of Care works as a platform for participants to openly discuss the diversity of the M(Other)ing. It was guided by facilitators through a game in which participants could experience motherhood. Differentiating the domestic work in the terms of love and labour, and connecting with their personal experiences – new versions of Galaxy of Care were collectively created by participants, based on their own experiences of parenthoods.

Queer pedagogical methods were applied and participants were invited to imagine different forms of family structures. Our ‘new (non-nuclear) family’ were encouraged to form various groups, and more gender aware languages were used. The ultimate question was: ‘how can we become families?’

This event is organised by To M•Other’s, as the yearly gathering of the project settled on M•Other’s Day. Instead of making the role of the mother as one of a hero, or capitalising it into gifts and flowers, To M•Other’s is dedicated to making the work and the wisdom of parents and caretakers visible, and sharing in affinity of the spectrum of M(Other)ing.

This edition was realised in collaboration with Framer Framed at Werkplaats Molenwijk and supported by Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst.

The installation and pedagogical tools are made by Sun Chang, graphically designed by Léo Ravy, and facilitated by Sterre Herstel, Lorita and Marije from Framer Framed. Food was contributed by Nancy Winklaar, family DJ by Dani Andrews and door guard by @lsllwrnc.

Special thanks to Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, RoSa vzw – kenniscentrum voor gender & feminisme, Center for Reproductive Labor for the book contribution, VoorUit Molenwijk and Casco Art Institute  for communication support.

Photos: by Ania Lenartowska

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Drawing from the Indonesian expression ‘tanah merdeka’ (liberated land), the exhibition features large-scale banners, woodcut prints and cardboard puppets with a focus on land as the primary object of decolonial struggles. These works, stretched over more than two decades of the collective’s practice since their foundation in 1998, are realised through methods of storytelling and co-creation with communities and activist groups around the world. From resource extraction, state violence, to corporate exploitation towards the environment, Taring Padi’s work manifests their vision of art as a political tool for social action. Their commitment and consistency in being part of ongoing struggles and changing relations through artistic work inspire us to embark on this journey to share and learn from their anti-colonial, collective practice.

Taring Padi emerged within a context of oppression and resistance, marking their collective work for a span of 25 years. The group has remained fluid in nature, with members joining and departing throughout the years. They have engaged directly with individuals and communities all around the world and employed a democratic methodology rather than demanding centralised control over their work. The collective consistently advocates for freedom and democracy while opposing the forces that impede them. Their vision embraces the aspiration for liberated land, the concept of Tanah Merdeka. Through this exhibition, Framer Framed endeavors to spark a dialogue about Taring Padi’s practice and perseverance over the past decades, accomplished in collaboration with numerous local communities and marginalised groups.

Over the past years, Framer Framed has been invested in creating discursive events and exhibitions addressing Dutch colonialism and its legacy, and how systems of oppression continue to affect living conditions of communities today. Framer Framed wants to create avenues where marginalised histories can be told and seen from other perspectives. For example, with artist Kevin van Braak, we organised the exhibition Pressing Matters (2018), in which 24 artists from Indonesia – amongst them several Taring Padi members – were invited to address pressing socio-political issues in Indonesia. Curated by Sadiah Boonstra, On the Nature of Botanical Gardens (2020) examined the colonial operating structures in the classification of nature and its representations of botanical gardens through the works of nine contemporary Indonesian artists. In spring 2022, Framer Framed facilitated Taring Padi’s Wayang Kardus Workshop with local artists and participants and co-produced cardboard puppets that were later presented at documenta fifteen in Kassel, Germany. These efforts originated from a similar desire to not only represent, but make liveable – through artistic practice and collective work – a plurality of voices in a globalised society.

Installatiefoto Pressing Matters (2018) bij Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Foto: Maarten van Haaff / Framer Framed

DIT – Wayang Kardus Workshop at Framer Framed. Photo: Ju-An Hsieh

In response to the discussions that unfolded surrounding the depiction of antisemitic figures in one of Taring Padi’s early works People’s Justice (2002) during documenta fifteen in Kassel, Germany, the artwork was removed from the public space. Taring Padi openly apologised for the figures that had sparked the controversy, stating:

“We deeply regret the extent to which the imagery of our work People’s Justice has offended so many people.” ¹

The experience was particularly disconcerting for the collective, given their history and practice against forms of dictatorship, racism, and fascism. The complexity of the situation motivated us to continue the dialogue regarding how this incident occurred and the genuine intention behind the artwork. If the members of the collective express an intention contrary to what was perceived, it is essential to allow for a space of discussion. Such conversations have already taken place in numerous forms over the past year, both in person and online.

Amongst the many meaningful things that developed from these conversations was a collaborative project by Taring Padi, Casa de Povo, Landless Workers’ Movement of Brazil (MST) and Framer Framed. This joint allyship started from collective learning sessions, site visits, and resulted in the creation of a new banner. The work titled Retomar Nossa Terra / Rebut Tanah Kita (2023) – translated as ‘Reclaiming the Land’ – is an expression commonly used in both Brazil and Indonesia by many social movements. The creative process involved over ten individuals, including members from Taring Padi, MST, and their comrades. Through its rich imagery, the banner conveys the notion that land serves as a shared foundation for comprehending the causes and effects of colonialism and capitalist exploitation. Furthermore, it serves as a platform for resistance against various forms of injustice.

Retomar Nossa Terra / Rebut Tanah Kita (2023) by Taring Padi, Casa do Povo, MST and Framer Framed. Photo: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

Our initial conversation with Casa do Povo and Taring Padi took place towards the end of documenta fifteen. During that time, Framer Framed organised the symposium (un)Common Grounds: Reflecting on documenta fifteen (2022), where participating artists, collectives, and individuals from diverse political backgrounds and disciplinary fields gathered to provide contextual understanding of the 100 days in Kassel, Germany. This symposium emphasised the importance of enabling open, equitable, and respectful conversations, as well as the significance of initiating a healing process through co-creation and collaboration. It taught us invaluable lessons on the power of open dialogue and collective healing, and the significance of maintaining a free space for encounter, experimentation and exchange.

Image Courtesy: Casa do Povo, Brazil

Collaborating with Taring Padi, MST, and Casa do Povo has been a humble learning experience. In our preparations for this exhibition, we also reached out to friends both within and outside the Netherlands. These individuals generously shared their knowledge about various historical events and contexts, including the Second World War, the Shoah, the decolonisation process, Dutch aggression, the atrocities committed by the Suharto regime in Indonesia in 1965, as well as the ongoing situation in Papua New Guinea and the Moluccas.

Considering what happened at documenta fifteen, we believe it is crucial to engage in conversations with individuals, particularly from the Jewish community, who have been affected by the banner People’s Justice shown in Kassel in 2022. We are therefore particularly grateful for the courageous and generous gestures of our colleagues at Casa do Povo, with whom we have been collaborating intensively for the past year. We extend our gratitude and appreciation to all those who were willing to join us in this ongoing journey and look forward to creating new relations and bonds with you, through Tanah Merdeka.

 

Framer Framed

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¹ Taring Padi, Statement by Taring Padi on dismantling People’s Justice, 2022.

The post The making of Tanah Merdeka - Dialogue through collaborative practices appeared first on Framer Framed.

Text: Alexander Supartono
June 2023

In 2011, Taring Padi published the book Art Smashing Tyranny. The publication recorded and contextualised the collective’s politically engaged practice against the ills of militarism and neoliberalism and its social commitment to gender equality, the rights of workers and peasants, and environmental justice. Thirteen years on, the work showcased in the 25th-anniversary exhibition Tanah Merdeka (Liberated Land/Space) addresses the same issues. We continue to fight for “openness, social prosperity, the sovereignty of the people, justice among generations, democracy, human rights, gender perspectives, the reformation of global relations, and the preservation of the environment.” Taring Padi, Manifesto (1998).

In December 1998, Taring Padi was established in the office of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, which was the operational hub where activists gathered to organise demonstrations and press conferences or seek help for friends who were detained during the Suharto dictatorship. This activist ecosystem still supports Taring Padi’s radical art practice. It also enables new members to grow in an atmosphere where art and the praxis of life are interconnected, thus securing Taring Padi’s inclusive and non-hierarchical organisational structure.

With equity, diversity, and openness being paramount values, the collective embraces old and new members from different backgrounds and age groups whose multiperspectivism not only feeds and renews Taring Padi’s radical art practice, but also prevents the development of any form of exclusivity. Such an attitude is reflected in the change of the collective’s official name from ‘Lembaga Budaya Kerakyatan/LBK Taring Padi’ / The Institute of People Oriented Culture of Taring Padi to ‘Kolektif Pekerja Seni Taring Padi’ / The Collective of Art Workers Taring Padi. The former prescribed an orthodox, old-school left organisation, which required a rigid organisational discipline; the latter reflects the evolvement of the collective’s connective principle, which merges ideology and camaraderie in utilising art and activism as tools for political action and education. There is no guidance on how individual styles may be applied to collective works. There is only shared understanding and respect for Taring Padi’s identity, character, and mission. Artistic matters are addressed in an ‘organic’ manner: once the topic, theme, approach, general compositional structure, and text are agreed upon, the execution rests, carte blanche, upon the hands of individual members, who may often invite their friends and acquaintances to participate. Visual details are born out of creative dialogue, debates, or banter while working in situ. This process exemplifies Taring Padi’s principle of learning and working together.

Political art is often considered a reflection of social relations. In volatile social situations, where violence, exploitation, and censorship are part of daily reality, art practice tends to depart from traditional values and canons; it becomes part of history in the making, actively affecting societal change. The radicalisation of Taring Padi’s artistic practice was part and parcel of social and political upheavals in Indonesia in 1998 that brought down the 32-year-long military dictatorship of Suharto. Taring Padi produced woodcut posters, cardboard puppets, and large-scale banners for street protests, which became political tools in its involvement in the 1998 Indonesian popular movement.

With the restoration of democracy in Indonesia, many Taring Padi members left the street to return to their academic studies or launch individual artistic careers. However, the collective has retained its radicalism, its anti-capitalist and anti-establishment ethos. This is the reason why large art institutions and related events have not been Taring Padi’s preferred channels for the dissemination of collective work. Yet, its measured involvement with the international art circuit has enabled Taring Padi to engage with local and global struggles for socio-political changes. In 2022, Taring Padi participated in the National Congress of the Indonesian Alliance of Indigenous Communities, in the context of which a series of murals was created in the Sentani market in West Papua. In the same year, Taring Padi members joined peasants in Banyuwangi, East Java, in their fight to defend their land against corporate exploitation. Activities such as these illustrate how Taring Padi’s artistic practice does not just function as a mirror reflecting social relations but becomes an organic part of these relations.

Presentation of Alex Supartono in the exhibition Tanah Merdeka (2023) of the artist collective Taring Padi at Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Photo: © Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

The invitation to participate in documenta fifteen in Kassel, Germany in 2022 seemed like an excellent opportunity to contribute to one of the most renowned art events and bring visibility to the solidarity work of Taring Padi. The extensive exhibition of woodcuts, drawings, paintings, collectively produced banners, cardboard puppets, and pamphlets at Hallenbad Ost specifically referenced the struggles of social movements in the ‘Global South’ against dictatorships, corruption, and capitalist systems. The depiction of antisemitic figures in the mural People’s Justice (2002), one of Taring Padi’s early works created as a critique of Western democracies supporting the oppressive Suharto regime, deeply hurt many people. We deeply regret the pain caused by this iconography and continue to apologise.

To commence the restorative process, Framer Framed and Taring Padi approached the progressive Jewish art space Casa do Povo in São Paulo, Brazil. With their help, a collaborative network has been established, including Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement and the Brazilian branch of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research. The aim of this alliance is to gain a deeper transnational understanding of cultural and historical specificities in raising public awareness about the colonial legacies behind state authoritarianism, land division and violence and to produce collective new work.

Starting in 2022, this collaborative work, facilitated by the Amsterdam art space Framer Framed, materialises the lumbung principle of solidarity work, mutual knowledge exchange, and sharing of resources. Such a proposition is set in motion in the Tanah Merdeka exhibition, to which individuals, communities, and collectives of Moluccan, Papuan, Indonesian, and Indonesian-Jewish backgrounds will actively contribute by co-creating new works. The nature and vision of Framer Framed provide a unique cultural platform that supports the political activism and collectivism of Taring Padi’s work. Towards these ends, the exhibition concept recreates Taring Padi’s inclusive habitus as a Tanah Merdeka, a liberated land where all are welcome to participate and find their voice.

Alexander Supartono, Taring Padi

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Text: Benjamin Seroussi

Seeking Restorative Processes

Many asked us: why would Casa do Povo, a Jewish institution, invite an Indonesian collective that was accused of antisemitism during documenta fifteen for an artistic residency? We typically respond to this question with another one: who better than a Jewish Institution to do this? In this particular instance, it is not just any Jewish institution, as Casa do Povo had already been working with the artistic team of documenta fifteen prior to the event’s opening. In fact, Taring Padi paved the way for our invitation to happen. Their apologies and almost immediate taking down of the panel with antisemitic figures was a clear acknowledgement of what had transpired. It was enough for us to engage with them in a restorative conversation about antisemitism and other issues. Framer Framed offered the perfect context – the production of a new work – and financial conditions to make it all possible.

Taring Padi’s Wayang Kardus workshop at Florestan Flores National School in Brazil, April 2023

As a place that works with contemporary art, Casa do Povo couldn’t limit itself to a distant critical analysis of the images produced during documenta fifteen; it needed to meet with the artists who had produced these images. The fight against antisemitism, racism, transphobia and many other forms of oppressions cannot be done solely through denunciations and cancellations. It is fundamental to seek out restorative processes as well. We know such dynamics are often lengthy (and sometimes frustrating), but they are also catalysts for transformation. Few people will openly declare themselves as antisemites or racists, but that doesn’t mean they cannot behave as such. None of us is entirely free from prejudice. Therefore, it is more important to focus on understanding how antisemitism operates, its impact, and how to combat it, rather than merely identifying individuals who are perceived as holding prejudiced beliefs. Additionally, one must also be aware of the instrumentalisation of this struggle by conservative agendas – as it has happened in documenta fifteen when the rightful stand against antisemitism was used to silence many artists and the exhibition as a whole.

The time we spent in Brazil with Taring Padi was fruitful. The residency functioned as a safe zone where we had the chance to engage in friendly conversations about delicate issues such as antisemitism and its history, the differences between the nation state of Israel and diasporic Judaism, the Suharto dictatorship, colonialism, and the common struggles for land in Brazil and Indonesia. All this was done as Taring Padi was working and hanging out – what documenta fifteen called “nongkrong” – with MST members. One year later, we do not think that all the issues have been resolved, but we bonded, formed connections and somehow managed to move forward together.

Taring Padi in residency at Casa do Povo. Image courtesy of Taring Padi.

The art world should not be reduced to be an endless series of shallow celebrations. Sufficient time should be given to open-ended initiatives such as this residency. Cultural gaps, language misunderstandings, and idiosyncratic histories are part of our reality. It is always painful when someone initially doesn’t grasp what you are trying to say, or when your pain is just not acknowledged. However, in a globalized and often dully homogenized world, such challenging encounters (and misencounters) also serve as a sign that there are still many radically different worlds out there. As we reflect on this experience, we hope it can help tackle other connected struggles with greater empathy in order to go deeper into discussions about the production and reception of art, the representation of the other, and the fight against all forms of oppressions.

Benjamin Seroussi
Artistic director, Casa do Povo

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The Open Atelier is a program for participants with a migration background, guided by therapists specialised in intercultural psychiatry and creative therapy. Since September 2020, there has been an Open Atelier at Framer Framed every Monday.

Exhibition Reflections (2022) by the Open Atelier. Photo: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

We spoke to the people behind the Open Atelier Community: art therapist Suzanne Delshadian, and participating artists Anne Krul, Nirvana (Youssef), Celine Abu-Zahideh, and Hassan. In this episode, Arabic, English, and Dutch is spoken.

Since early 2020, Framer Framed has been collaborating with a close-knit group of individuals from the intercultural psychiatry field. Following budget cuts in mental health care and the bankruptcy of PsyQ Amsterdam, Framer Framed has provided a permanent space for creative therapy at Oranje-Vrijstaatkade in Amsterdam.

Listen to the episode below:

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This collaboration will bring together two groups of artists and writers based in Fiji and Amsterdam to look at the ecological crisis from the specific locality of the Pacific Islands and its roots in the violent (neo-) colonialist practices of deforestation, militarisation, nuclear testing and pollution. Climate change itself is adding further threats to the liveability of the islands due to increasing floods and drought, storm surges and Pacific tropical cyclones, ocean acidification and coral reef bleaching.

By working parallel between the two different social and political contexts, we aim to open a dialogue in which the crisis can be understood and taken on collectively via artistic contributions. Through a call and response format, the artists will be invited to prepare “gifts” for one another, which will be developed under the guidance of the artists Susie Elliott and Dorine van Meel. Participants will come together for one online meeting, three consecutive workshops taking place both in Fiji and Amsterdam, and a final online presentation. The first workshop will include a special guest lecture to provide a collective framework to speak and work from.

The workshops take place at the Oceania Arts Centre (University of the South Pacific) in Fiji and at Framer Framed in Amsterdam on 5, 6, 7, and 8 June 2023.

Schedule

Workshop #1
Date: Monday 5 June, 10:00 – 13:00
Location: Framer Framed

Workshop #2
Date: Tuesday 6 June, 10:00 – 13:00
Location: Framer Framed

Workshop #3
Date: Wednesday 7 June, 10:00 – 13:00
Location: Framer Framed

Presentations
Date: Thursday 8 June, 10:00 – 11:30
Location: Online

The title of the exchange ‘wasaliwa’ is an iTaukei word meaning open, deep ocean. The collaboration is part of the project Making Waves and of the new masters programme Planetary Poetics that is starting at Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam.

This project is part of the Climate Imaginaries at Sea programme, a collaboration between the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (Visual Methodologies Collective), Amsterdam University of the Arts (DAS Research), the Sandberg Institute (Planetary Poetics), Gerrit Rietveld Academie (Art & Spatial Praxis), with ARIAS. The project is kindly supported by the Centre of Expertise for Creative Innovation (CoECI).

Image: Susie Elliott, Ocean painting I (detail), 2023. Courtesy of the artist.

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Irene de Craen, editor and creator of the cultural & political publication, Errant Journal, has conducted a series of interviews on the Framer Framed podcast in connection with A Very Short and Incomplete Guide to Subversive Publishing Strategies. Read the introduction below and listen to the podcast series!

You can purchase a copy of the publication through our webshop!

Text by: Irene de Craen

I love books. I love letting my eyes glide along rows or piles of them inside bookstores, seeing old friends and new authors writing about topics I’ve never even considered (but am dying to know about now!). I love buying books. To take them home, hold them in my hands to feel their weight and texture, smell them, decide which to read first and which to carefully add to my affectionately organised collection. I love reading. Being transported to different worlds and thoughts that unsettle my own, or slowly leaf through a picture book while my mind is racing a million miles an hour. It is no wonder that I also love making books. Making what I feel is lacking, what I would like to read myself. To think about paper, the feeling of the object, the relation between text and image. Being somewhat part of the publishing world – at least in that very niche corner of cultural/art/experimental publishing – I feel part of a community of people who all feel that way, more or less. We have to. Because in many ways, publishing doesn’t make any sense. The most glaring obstacle is that it is virtually impossible to make a living from it. From the writers, to the publishers, to the sellers: no one gets rich. Maybe the distributors are, but not from our kinds of books and other assorted printed matter, that’s for sure. Then there is the extremely labour-intensive process (it’s always more work than you think, no matter how often you’ve done it!), the strain on the environment paper, ink and distribution have. And after all that? Every bookmaker knows that in most cases, they’re left with quite a few copies in their storage, always more than anticipated.

But there is more to it that makes this labour of love very problematic at times. Especially when one is interested in addressing and dismantling the colonial, capitalist, and patriarchal structures in our societies, one quickly realises that in publishing it is not enough to do this through the content of our material alone. Who gets to speak in our printed material is the first obvious point of attention. The lack of payment available for writers – to name but one aspect – favours those who have other sources of income, and excludes those already excluded. The same applies to language. English is the most widely spoken language in the world, and it is arguably essential for partaking in the art ‘world’. But English is a colonial language, not available to all, and if our goal is to be truly international, diverse, inclusive, and accessible, how do we address this? The fact is that publishing as we know it is very much a Western/ Global North dominated activity, that additionally is historically based on the exclusion of women. The academic side of publishing, the very premise of ‘knowledge production’, is built on the solid institution of ‘white men’.¹ In fact, it turns out all facets of publishing are deeply rooted in colonial, patriarchal and capitalist structures. No surprises there of course, why would publishing be any different?

Still, there is quite a contradiction between these structures and the people who – at least in my little niche corner – do the publishing, as well as the topics we aim to address. Ever since I started thinking about directing my professional activities towards publishing, I’ve been trying to pick these things apart. While doing so – sometimes successfully, often less so – I keep encountering more contradictions, and more questions to which I have no answer. Nonetheless, I do really enjoy the world of independent publishing, and I am definitely not the only or first person to ask these questions. In fact, I’ve had so many conversations about it, it made me think I could probably put together a guide on it that can serve as both a record of conversations had, as well as a starting point for those to come.

I could have been very trendy and called this a guide to ‘decolonial publishing’. But to me, subverting encompasses that, and more. What I particularly like about the concept of ‘subverting’ is that it can ‘undermine the power and authority of an established system or institution’ (says the Oxford Dictionary) almost without noticing. As you will see, many of the strategies covered in this little publication are things we do behind the scenes. Considerations we make regarding the way we organise our offices, what images we (do not) use and why, or why not to publish at all. Many of these strategies will never be apparent to a reader, but they are essential to the questions we ask, the work we do, and the published material we put into the world. So, this is not another book that fetishises printed material – albeit you can see from this introduction that I am very much such a fetishist.

To get the conversation going, I had – well – a series of seven conversations with independent publishers and collectives in Mexico, Uruguay, Indonesia, Paris, Paris/Beirut, Berlin/ Dakar/Milan and Lubumbashi, which were subsequently turned into a limited podcast series. I am eternally grateful for the people who gifted their time to talk openly about the ways they’ve approached publishing over the years. Each conversation was based on a strong conviction that sharing, collectivity, and accessibility are essential aspects for the kind of publishing world we envision together. In order not to limit ourselves to a notion of publishing that is printed matter on paper – something we return to several times in these pages – we have included QR codes to the full-length interviews which form the basis of this modest investigation and which can be listened to on various podcast platforms. For the printed part of this project, I have cut out and pasted fragments of these conversations; both mixing them into a larger discussion, as well as a way to draw out some very specific and useful strategies and thoughts. It is the type of cutting and pasting we know from zines: arguably the ultimate intimate, collective form of subversive publishing, historically associated with struggles for social justice. It is a form that enables to break the linearity of text, allowing for a kind of jumping to and fro, and free association between views and facts, allowing a reader to find additional meaning in the spaces in-between. Additionally, it is a practise that is particularly accessible as well as joyful to do.

I hope that this Very Short and Incomplete Guide to Subverting Publishing Strategies is helpful to individuals, collectives or cultural institutions that have or are considering publishing practices but are struggling with some of the contradictions within them. Those of us who are already up to our necks in this particular subculture – if one can call it that – you’ll probably recognise some of the questions and dilemmas tackled and can rest assured that you are not alone. In any case, this modest publication is a starting point to a conversation. One that I am particularly looking forward to continuing.

Irene de Craen
Berlin, March 2023

¹ Ahmed, Sara. ‘White Men’ Feminist Killjoy Blog (2014).

The 8-part podcast series, Subversive Publishing Strategies will be broadcast on Radio Alhara on the 3rd Wednesday of each month, starting 17 May 2023.

A Very Short and Incomplete Guide to Subversive Publishing Strategies that was commissioned by Framer Framed in Amsterdam as part of the project The New Social. Hybrid Strategies for Cultural Spaces with support from Stimuleringsfonds.

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Text by to M•Others

On International Women’s Day, we collaborated with Buurtzus for a two-week workshop at Werkplaats Molenwijk. Inspired by the poster previously made with mothers from Bijlmer, we worked with the slogan “I am more because we are more” to explore women/girl power and group dynamics. We shared women role models and identified the powers with self and/or others in the group.

Sun Chang, I am more, because we are more, banner made in Werkplaats Molenwijk, Amsterdam. Photo: © Sun Chang

We also made spirit masks to express personhood, referencing the idea of chimera, a hybrid creature of lion, goat, and dragon in Greek mythology. This reflected on how women are perceived as both symbols of domesticity and potential threats. We re-imagined, re-explored and re-embraced the self in multiple identities and powers with the sisters from Molenwijk.

Finally, we collectively wore a Sister-Hood to celebrate all the women/girl powers identified during the workshops. It is a three-metre-long cloth with an illustration of an ant-shaped anthill. It represents the spirit of motherhood in the Bijlmer and now in its new context, it crosses Amsterdam diagonally into Molenwijk as sisterhood.

The Sister-Hood workshops are organised as part of talent support given to Sun Chang (initiator of to M•Others) by Mondriaan Fonds for an artistic research series and experiments of queer pedagogy that stem from ideas of M(Other)ing.

*mothers, parents and care-workers regardless of gender and social roles

to M•Others was initiated in Amsterdam-Bijlmer in 2020 and has since expanded to the sister neighbourhood Molenwijk in Amsterdam-Noord.

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Op 19 maart 2023 hebben we in Molenwijk de lente verwelkomd en het voorjaar feestelijk ingeluid. Op initiatief van Afghaanse bewoners uit Molenwijk en samen met de Molenwijk door elkaar groep hebben we Noroez gevierd. Met de Pretvormers zijn we in optocht door de buurt getrokken met Parade Molenwijk. Duo Belan heeft de dag muzikaal afgesloten.

Werkplaats Molenwijk is een ruimte waar bewoners elkaar ontmoeten, kunstenaars werken en waar de buurt bij elkaar komt. In 2018 startte het project De Molenwijk door elkaar, het communityproject van Stichting BMP en Framer Framed. Deze groep van (jonge) vrouwen komt wekelijks samen om thema’s die in de wijk en in hun levens spelen te bespreken, te werken aan hun taalvaardigheid én om de handen uit de mouwen te steken. Tijdens een van de bijeenkomsten in de Werkplaats werd gevraagd of we dit jaar niet iets met Noroez konden doen? Nou, daar konden wij ons wel in vinden.

Daarom was het op 19 maart feest in Werkplaats Molenwijk. Samen met De Molenwijk door elkaar groep en Parade Molenwijk van Pretvormers hebben we de Lente groots gevierd. Al vroeg zijn we samengekomen in de Werkplaats om de dag voor te bereiden. Sonya, die wekelijks aanschuift bij de taallessen in de Werkplaats, heeft de hele dag in de keuken staan zwoegen om alle aanwezigen te voorzien van een hapje en een drankje: zelfgemaakte Harira, versgebakken broodjes met kruidige vulling en authentieke Marrokaanse thee. We zijn verwend!

Samen met de Afghaanse bewoners hebben we de Noroez-tafel gedekt. Tijdens Noroez kan je in Perzische huishoudens de Haft Sin vinden, ook wel de 7 s’en. Op een Noroez-tafel komt allerlei symboliek bij elkaar in de naam van voorwerpen die in de Perziche taal met de letter Sin begint. Liefde, overvloed, wedergeboorte en voorspoed. Thema’s die in meer culturen hand-in-hand gaan bij het voorjaar en de lente.

Lentefeest & Lenteparade (2023) in Werkplaats Molenwijk. Foto: © Padrick Stam

’S middags verzamelde de fanfare zich in de Werkplaats om hun ritmes te oefenen voor de parade door de wijk. Duo Belan werd uitgenodigd om mee te spelen en zo ontstond een mooie muzikale dialoog tussen de fanfare en de buurt. Nadat iedereen was voorzien van een kostuum van de Pretvormers en de mensen een pot, pan, tuba of wok hadden gepakt, ging de Parade vol energie en vrolijkheid door de wijk. Voor de achterblijvers in de Werkplaats waren de blije klanken tussen de flats door goed te horen. Niet gek dat de Parade die vertrok een stuk groter was geworden bij terugkomst in de Werkplaats.

Daar hebben we de dag met zijn allen afgesloten met prachtige muziek van Duo Belan. Deze twee muzikanten spelen oosterse melodieën geïnspireerd door de eeuwenoude Koerdische muziektradities. Op ud, gitaar, daf en met prachtige zang waanden de bezoekers van het Lentefeest zich even in een andere wereld. Of juist thuis. Samen met de Nederlandse bewoners uit Molenwijk hebben we nog Tulpen uit Amsterdam gezongen en Duo Belan speelde Arabische muziek voor de Marrokaanse buurtbewoners in de Werkplaats.

Het was een dag waarop verschillende culturen en tradities bij elkaar kwamen, waar de diversiteit van de buurt goed te zien was, maar waar ook de overeenkomsten tussen de bewoners in Molenwijk mooi zichtbaar waren. We hebben dan ook met zijn allen besloten, volgend jaar weer een Lentefeest met Lente Parade!

Lentefeest & Lenteparade (2023) in Werkplaats Molenwijk. Foto: © Padrick Stam

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Al meer dan 30 jaar vindt jaarlijks de Kunstschooldag[en] plaats, een evenement van twee dagen waarbij op ruim vijftig locaties door heel Amsterdam culturele activiteiten worden aangeboden door kunst- en culturele instellingen aan de groepen 8 van alle basisscholen in Amsterdam.

Op initiatief van Stichting JAM, organiseren diverse kunst- en culturele instellingen tijdens de Kunstschooldag[en] bruisende activiteiten op ruim vijftig locaties door heel Amsterdam. Van dans- en theatervoorstellingen tot wereldmuziek- en hiphopconcerten, van films en documentaires tot podcasts, van musea tot exposities, van creatieve workshops tot dans- en muzieklessen, van architectuur- tot wereldtours. Scholen kunnen zich aanmelden bij Stichting JAM en aangeven welke instellingen zij willen bezoeken. De school krijgt vervolgens een programma met drie activiteiten per dag waar hun groepjes leerlingen verwacht worden.

Sinds 2019 doet ook Framer Framed mee en ontvangt met veel plezier de kinderen die in de bijzondere en spannende fase zitten van de overgang van de basisschool naar de middelbare school. Elk jaar maken we speciaal voor deze leerlingen een educatieprogramma in de context van de lopende tentoonstelling.

De Kunstschooldagen van 2019-2023

In 2019 bezochten de 8e groepers in 2019 de tentoonstelling HERE/NOW: Current visions from Colombia, gecureerd door Carolina Ponce de León. In deze tentoonstelling lieten kunstenaars hun werken zien over het gewapend conflict dat al zestig jaar lang het land teistert. Na dialoog over de werken, gingen de leerlingen zelf aan de slag. Ze maakten een kunstwerk over een conflict binnen hun eigen leefwereld en verbeeldden concepten zoals angst, verzet en uiteindelijk ook hoop.

Met de 35^e editie van de Kunstschooldag[en] in 2022 mochten wij 12 groepjes leerlingen ontvangen van o.a. de basisscholen Wereldwijs, Crescendo en de Oostelijke eilanden. Leerkrachten en leerlingen gaven aan bijzonder blij te zijn om er weer op uit te mogen, voor velen was het het eerste uitje na de corona-tijd. Met de leerlingen hebben we op verschillende manieren (kritisch) gekeken naar de werken in de tentoonstelling The Silence of Tired Tongues, gecureerd door Raphael Fonseca, waarna de leerlingen in tweetallen een maakopdracht kregen om het kritisch kijken nog meer te stimuleren.

Kunstschooldagen 2022 bij The Silence of Tired Tongues expositie. Foto: Framer Framed / Esther Vane

En in 2023 gingen wij met de 8e groepers van o.a. IKC Noordrijk, IJdoornschool en IKC Tuindorp het gesprek aan binnen de tentoonstelling Charging Myths, van het kunstenaarscollectief On-Trade-Off. De leerlingen brachten onderwerpen in als het klimaat, slavernijverleden, oneerlijkheid, verandering en ramadan. Vanuit hun perspectief en interpretatie maakten zij met verschillende materialen hun eigen verhaal in woord en beeld.

Kunstschooldagen 2023

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Jakup Ferri (1981, Prishtina, Kosovo) is a contemporary artist and professor at Prishtina Art Academy and guest advisor at Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. He studied at Prishtina Art Academy and Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. In 2006 he received a prestigious award Kunstpreis Europas Zukunft (The Future of Europe), Museum of Contemporary Art (GfZK) Leipzig. In 2008 he received the Buning Brongers Award in Amsterdam and in 2003 the Muslim Mulliqi Prize and the Artists of Tomorrow Award.

While studying at the turn of the new millennium, Jakup Ferri sensed that his home city Prishtina was invisible and isolated from the western (art) world. These impressions of alienation influenced his early work, primarily films in which he established an ironic distance to issues of cultural identity, history and the place of the peripheral artist. They have continued to colour his practice in the decades since.

In recent years, Ferri has focused on making drawings, tapestries, mosaics and paintings. He has also conducted extensive research of, and established enduring collaborative relationships with, outsider and folk artists, seeing huge value in their engagement with handmade materials such as carpets, glass, wood and textiles and the locally-specific methods for their production. Recurring subjects in his practice include the desire for contact and to feel a part of something, as well as experiences of failure and questions involving identity.

Ferri has been an artist-in-residence at numerous places, including the International Studio and Curatorial Program New York, Kultur Kontakt Austria. In the summer of 2023 he will start his residency at Werkplaats Molenwijk, a project space of Framer Framed in Amsterdam.

In addition to private collections, his work is also part of the collection of Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest. Ferri’s work has been shown extensively at international (solo and group) exhibitions in museums and galleries, festivals and biennials, including Venice Biennale, Istanbul Biennial, Cetinje Biennale, Manifesta 14, amongst others.

Ferri’s work will also be featured in the Kunstmuseum Luzern exhibition we, we or me from 18 March to 28 May 2023, in Kooperation mit Fumetto Comic Festival.

Jakup Ferri’s presentation at Werkplaats Molenwijk (2023). Photo: Cas Bool

Adress
Werkplaats Molenwijk
Molenaarsweg 3
1035EJ Amsterdam

Werkplaats Molenwijk is made possible by:
Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap; Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst; De Alliantie and Stadsdeel Noord. This residency is in partnership with the Social Practice Workshop of the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten.

Werkplaats Molenwijk is an initiative by Framer Framed. Framer Framed is supported by Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Stadsdeel Oost.

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In 2021 and 2022, Kaaitheater and VUB Crosstalks hosted a series of lectures entitled A Series of More-Than-Human Encounters, which highlights different ways of being and alternative forms of knowledge. The series looks at what we can know and what can never be known. With the forest, the mountains and the deep sea as our fellow thinkers, we invite you to discover what lies beyond the horizon of human knowledge.

In 2023, the cooperation has expanded with more European partners, namely Framer Framed, Rosendal Teater and the environmental humanities research group at NTNU (Trondheim), and Artea – Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (Madrid). This new series will consist of four programmes, within which contemporary thinkers and artists will focus on the relationships between human beings and more-than-human beings. We begin to question: how can we co-exist in a world that has been modelled within the context of imperialism, patriarchy and capitalism?

More-Than-Human Encounters

Framer Framed, and online
29 March 2023, 19:00 – 21:00

The More-Than-Human Encounters event at Framer Framed revolves around the exhibition Charging Myths, which takes the recent run on lithium in Congo as a starting point to delve into technological, social, and mythical dimensions across global extractive chains. During the event, artists and members of the collective On-Trade-Off Femke Herrgraven, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Jean Katambayi Mukendi and Georges Senga will partake in a dialogue on the evolving narratives and counter-narratives surrounding extractive practices in Manono. Keeping an eye on the human and more-than-human connections that are drawn from the mined landscape of Manono, the artists engage with a question central to their collective practice: how is technological innovation dependent on natural resources?

Less-Than-Human

La Casa Encendida, Madrid and online
5 May 2023, 19:15 – 20:45

Performance on practices of decentralizing classical-western human condition by artist-researchers Amanda Piña, Paz Rojo and Victoria Pérez Royo.

We, humans, cohabit on this planet with a wide variety of living and inert or lifeless beings. The title of this encounter aims to question the possible minor condition of humanity in this assemblage. While the series proposes to consider forms of life and knowledge outside the classical human state, we wonder how to add by subtracting. That is, through certain renunciations rather than acquiring new or extra skills. Hence, we propose the less-than-human.

The three guests invited to the encounter have a long trajectory in this regard and hold active concerns on this subject in their current projects, which can be summed up in the general proposal of decentralizing the classical-Western human condition to its possible limits. Amanda Piña works around the decolonization of choreography, introducing what she calls Endangered Human Movements at many levels: oral knowledge, shamanism, diplomatic rituals, or plant wisdom, among others. Paz Rojo works on the remains of exhausted bodies after what she calls the decline of neoliberal choreography, proposing concrete operations of re-subjectification through body movement. Victoria Pérez Royo currently investigates other affectivities, focusing her gaze on what she calls the anachronistic body, the one moved by rites such as magic, for example, or by any ritual modality that counteracts the hegemonic modern-colonial corporeality. The three guests will dialogue with each other through a discursive game device generated from their own practices, interwoven and put into mutual relationship.

See the La Casa Encendida website for more information, or watch the live-stream for free on YouTube.

More information about the partnering programs will follow!

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Global capitalism is fuelled by fossil energies, which are most often extracted for the benefit of transnational companies collaborating with national governments, but to the detriment of local populations. In the past decades, extractivism has been theorized mainly in South American scholarship highlighting the “dramatic material change to social and ecological life that underpins [racial capitalism]”.2

In an extended viewpoint, the critical discussion of power structures in the global art world refers to extractivism to describe the frequent incorporation of artists from the Global South into galleries, biennales, fairs and exhibitions located mostly in the urban centres of the North, often without long- term engagement for the sustainable working structures in their countries of origin. While the symbolic surplus of the artists’ practice is appropriated unilaterally, the power of the metropolitan centres remains largely untouched.

How can an artist collective address the profit-maximizing structures of extractivism? A collaboration between a dozen artists and writers on three continents, On-Trade-Off enters the ‘extractive zone’, critically examines its functioning, and searches for alternatives. Several artists and thinkers gravitating around the initiatives Enough Room for Space (co-founded by Marjolijn Dijkman and Maarten Vanden Eynde, Brussels, 2005) and Picha (co-founded by Sammy Baloji and Patrick Mudekereza, Lubumbashi, 2009) pushed their long-term conversations further and started to collaboratively inquire about lithium mining in the Congo, the pitfalls of the promises of the green energy revolution, and more broadly, the unequal distribution of risks, destruction, wealth and opportunities along global value chains. The group’s configuration are evolving and dependant on the specific focus chosen for an exhibition or an event.3 It is nevertheless of crucial structural importance that the project relies on a collaboration between a collective in Lubumbashi, in central Africa, and another in Brussels, at the centre of Europe, with members joining from changing geographical locations, including Australia, requiring constantly to take into account the realities experienced on all sides.

The geographical starting point for the project is a site of extractivism par excellence: the Manono mine, situated in the Tanganyika province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 500 kilometers from Lubumbashi. While the mine has been exploited for its tin reserves since 1919, it recently became the focus of international speculation on strategic raw material for the green revolution: as explorative drillings conducted by the Australian company AVZ in 2018 have shown, the soil contains high concentrations of lithium, an alkali metal with high capacities to store electricity. The prospecting on the mine’s ores that also contain cassiterite and coltan, both metals of strategic importance for wireless communication, constitutes a conundrum that On-Trade-Off examines: while promising to provide a more sustainable technology, the future extraction of the ore will most prob- ably reproduce the exclusion of local populations from the wealth of their soils.

A collaborative project between two artist collectives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Belgium renders today’s asymmetrical structures of the world-economy and their colonial history a palpable reality on many levels. While being connected through the value chains of global industries, artists participating in the On-Trade-Off project do not experience the same realities, due to their geographical situation. They work with different tools, undergo heteroge- nous journeys, and adhere to diverse aesthetic approaches. The frequently abstract terminology that conceptualises extractivism materializes in the artworks as concrete takes on the world, engaging with the local aftermath of globally traded ores, and their transformation into consumer products.4 It is precisely this interconnected reality that the transnational artistic research project On-Trade-Off critically interrogates.

In this text we will stress that On-Trade-Off strives, by its very structure, its multi-sited geography, its collaborative intention, and the internal redistribution of resources, to resist the rampant extractivist logics of the global art field, including the neo-exotic tokenism of artists from the Global South. By developing On-Trade-Off as a permanent dialogue between artists living and working closely connected to the sites of extractive mining, and group members confronted in their direct environment rather to the seducing surfaces of the electronic end products, the project systematically connects the extremities of the world spanning value chains that oftentimes are dissociated.

Installatiefoto van de tentoonstelling Charging Myths (2023) bij Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Foto: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed.

Ambiguous Crossroads
How to work with the vocabulary of the neoliberal economy? On-Trade-Off advances in a field dominated by powerful corporate interests and the language of financial speculation. The collective’s work is permanently obligated to deal with forces that exceed its own possible impact. Reformulating Audre Lorde’s fundamental question, it must ask incessantly if the available conceptual and aesthetic tools can contribute to dismantle the extractivist house.

As a consequence, the group engages in continuous criticism and selfreflection, not only in the visual production, but also at a linguistic level: in neoclassical economic theory, a trade-off designates situations where increasing one part of an equation requires diminishing another.

Transnational Collaborations and Technology
On-Trade-Off develops through evolving iterations and context-specific exchanges, taking part in a growing network of activists, researchers, and fellow artists. It considers that the plurality of experiences allows for a more precise understanding of the global realities of extractivism. The photographic work of Georges Senga (DRC/NL, 1983) is for example closely tied to the mining history of Lubumpichbashi, testifying of the decisive impact of the mining giant Gécamines for generations of the cities’ inhabitants.

The artists Edmond Musasa (DRC, 1950) and Maarten Vanden Eynde (BE, 1977) work together on a series of tableaux representing the chemical elements, playfully quoting chalkboards and school charts and their educational usages (Material Matters, 2018-ongoing). Their approach breaks with the division of applied art and high art, brings together two artists of different generations and living situations, and explores how a collaborative learning and transmission process can look like.

But approaches can also remain distinct and still create strong resonances allowing for all parts to reach new dimensions. Such is the case for Jean Katambayi Mukendi’s (DRC, 1974) hand-made speculative drawings and machine-sculptures, and the slickly designed multi-media installations of Femke Herregraven (NL, 1982), that often draw on financial data sets and the visualisation of speculation. Katambayi’s work challenges the detrimental effects of mining on local populations by imagining how to appro- priate the technological potential of the industrial tools, and to feed it into future design and urbanism. The research of Herregraven examines the abstract finan- cial renderings of the world, which she interrogates critically as a means of domination, but also explores as a source of imagination.

Digital Working Tools and Their Global Entanglement
None of the complex structural questions interrogated by On-Trade-Off are external to the group itself. It is a transnational collective based on three continents that is strongly dependent on the very technologies scrutinized by the groups’ research: the Covid-19 crisis with its worldwide impact presented a particularly paradoxal situation for the work of the highly mobile artists group. During the lockdown, members have been based in Lubumbashi, Sydney, Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam, and Zagreb. The transnational collaboration remained generally possible via computer and smart-phone screens, revealing the striking differences in quality, cost and accessibility of the internet connection, and more broadly electricity in each location. Even if the massive extension of internet-based communication led to decreasing international air-travel with its destructive ecological footprint, it nevertheless remains dependent on raw material consuming technologies, and their ongoing supply: we know about the energy consumption, water usage, toxicity, and waste caused by the production and use of digital media, that belie corporate myths of their immateriality.5 On-Trade-Off’s research depends heavily on electronic media, and thus takes part in an economy that extracts labour from bodies; minerals, gas, and oil from the ground, and that has no inherent limits to the permanent accumulation process.

Still, the ongoing research demonstrates that transnational collaboration can contribute to counterbalancing the structural exploitation. Efficient technologies, presented as the solutions of the ecological crisis in the North; the concentration of extraction and outsourcing of hazardous waste in the South, and anti-migration laws, and increasing social exclusion go hand in hand.

Australian based artist, Alexis Destoop (BE/AU, 1971) is working on a film on the history and becoming of lithium, reaching from cosmological tales of origin to its role as a supercharger in energetic cycles, and (re)tracing the journey of the transformation of this volatile element. From the vantage point of the Asia-Pacific, he sees the geopolitical struggle over the control of strategic resources intensifying. Destoop’s research engages with the blind spot of his life in between Australia and Belgium, and their particular colonial histories, and strives for narrative and visual elements allowing to navigate a horizon obstructed by dystopia.

Pélagie Gbaguidi’s (BJ/BE, 1965) work addresses the existential urgencies generated by techno-capitalist exploitation and connects its local realities to global entanglements. During a residency in 2019, she travelled from Brussels to Lubumbashi, where she worked with women labouring in an informal mine close to the nearby town Kipushi, where cobalt, another central ingredient for the production of lithium batteries, is extracted in health-threatening conditions.

Unravelling Speculation
The group evolves between analytical criticism of extractivism in the artworks, and its own implication in the asymmetries of the global economy, without ever claiming to remain unaffected by the powerful structures that it interrogates. Marjolijn Dijkman (NL/BE, 1978) dives into the history of electricity, its pre-scientific staging as a spectacle, and the constitution of scientific electrical knowledge in the 18th century. Dijkman’s research highlights the parallels drawn by Benjamin Franklin, author of core elements of today’s electricity storage. For Franklin, the control over power promised to master nature, and to counterbalance poverty by wealth. Dijkman questions his faith in progress, and connects it to the promises of today’s green revolution.

Making and Crashing Together
Today, the rhetoric of sustainability and global responsibility is common in the communication of global companies. Tesla Inc. for instance announces to accelerate the “world’s transition to sustainable energy” by selling high-end electric cars, designed to move with regenerative energy, stored in lithium batteries. For its batteries, Tesla Inc. requires huge supplies of lithium – and may thus be one of the clients of the prospective mining of the ore in the city of Manono.

In the present distribution of power, it is likely that “the promise of the green car of the future is valid only for the part of the world that will enjoy its use, [while] the environmental impact is displaced in the areas of extraction and refining of materials that compose it.”6 Challenging this situation, the artists Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Sammy Baloji (DRC/ BE, 1978) and Daddy Tshikaya (DRC, 1986) conceived and constructed, in their hometown Lubumbashi, a realsize Tesla car using copper wire: Tesla Crash: A Speculation. The remarkable object is an outcome of collective intelligence and collaboration, using copper, a raw material that is pres- ent in high quantities in the soils of the Katanga region, and has been mined extensively since pre-colonial times. The copper-wire Tesla car has been skilfully constructed over several months at Picha in Lubumbashi (2018-2019), gathering numerous concerned and interested audiences around the daily construction process, or in workshops dealing with energy and technologies for the future.

Far more than an object, the car is still generating collaborations. During the Lubumbashi Biennale in 2019, artist Dorine Mokha (DRC, 1989 – † 2021) weaved his perfor- mance around it, entering call-and-response with the audience, and initiating future collaborations with the On-Trade-Off project. In close conversation with the three conceivers of the wire car, Marjolijn Dijkman prepared the performance Charging Tesla Crash: A Speculation. Jean Katambayi led through the ceremony, while Dijkman discharged from a home crafted electric Tesla coil 3 million volts over a distance of 2 meters on the highly conductive copper car

At the modest scale of an artist collective, On-Trade-Off strives to counter extractivist structures and to collaboratively speculate on possible scenarios for alternative manners to live together on an interdependent planet, to open ideas beyond the protective localism of wealthy ecological policies, and the structural racism of global technocapitalism. Examining future modes of travel and transnational collaboration, and the continuous self- reflecting on the group’s structure and its inherent biases, are among the challenges for the coming months and years. While it cannot pretend to mitigate the destructive power of capital, it “stays with the trouble” (Haraway 2016) and engages enthusiastically in collaboration as a source of learning in multiple perspectives, and mutual transformation.

By Lottel Arndt and Oulimata Gueye
Februari 2023

1. Heather Davis, “Blue Bling. On Extractivism”, Afterall, no. 48, Autumn 2019. https://www.afterall.org/journal/issue.48/blue-bling-on-extractivism

2. Macarena Gömez-Barris, The Extractive Zone. Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives, Duke, 2017, p. xvii.

3. At different moments, the group involved so far the artists Sammy Baloji, Alexis Destoop, Marjolijn Dijkman, Pélagie Gbaguidi, Femke Herregraven, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Dorine Mokha, Musasa, Alain Senga, Georges Senga, Daddy Tshikaya, Pamela Tulizo, Maarten Vanden Eynde, and the writers and curators Lotte Arndt, Oulimata Gueye and Rosa Spaliviero.

4. Chéneau-Loquay Annie, “Mobile Telephony in African Cities. A successful adaptation to local context”, L’Espace géographique, 2012/1 (Vol. 41), p. 82-92. https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-espace-geographique-2012-1.htm

5. Laura U. Marks: “Let’s Deal with the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media”, Afterimage, 2020, 47 (2), p. 47. https:/doi.org/10.1525/ aft.2020.472009

For a critic of the rhetorics of dematerialized communication see: Lisa Parks and Nicole Starosielski (eds.), Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures, Champlain, Illinois, Universi- ty of Illinois Press, 2015.

6. Oulimata Gueye, “No Congo, No Technologies”, Digital Earth, 2019. https://medium.com/ digital-earth/no-congo-no- technologies-163ea2caec0a

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About the Artist in Residence Program

The Atelier KITLV-Framer Framed Artist in Residence program aims to sponsor and support concrete, innovative, provocative, and societally relevant projects. Artists in residence work on urgent topics at the intersection of art and culture, academic research, and scholarship in the field of Southeast Asian and/or Caribbean Studies, and in relation to (post)colonial theory and discourse.

Clara Jo

It is our great pleasure to announce Clara Jo as the selected artist for the coming year. Clara Jo is an artist based in Berlin. She is a graduate of Bard College (NY) and the Institut für Raumexperimente / Universität der Künste Berlin. Her work has been exhibited and screened at ARKO Art Center (Seoul), Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst (Oldenburg), Spike Island (Bristol), Royal Academy of Arts (London), Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), and Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin). 

She has presented her work at the Centre Pompidou (Paris), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), King’s College (London), The Barbican Centre/The Trampery (London), and the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL London).

In 2018, she received the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. From 2020-2021, she was a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. From 2022-2023 she was in residence at Art Explora Paris. In 2023 she became a resident at Atelier KITLV-Framer Framed Artist in Residence. The outcome of her research will be presented at KITLV in Leiden and Framer Framed in Amsterdam in 2024.

Epidemiological routes and ruptures in the Afrasian Sea. Film still: © Clara Jo

Epidemiological routes and ruptures in the Afrasian Sea

Clara Jo will pursue research that locates intersections, political entanglements, and ruptures along epidemiological routes embedded within the Afrasian Sea, which have often been narrated in flawed terms to bolster the imperial nautical imaginary. She is particularly interested in historical erasures and amnesia within the practice of quarantine, especially when looking at scars in the terrain as witness. By incorporating speculative narratives into her research, she questions how these stories feed into collective imaginations and fictions during moments of crisis.

About

You can read more about our former participant of the Atelier KITLV-Framer Framed Artist in Residence Theo Frids Hutabarat, and the programs we developed together here.

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Text by Megan Hoetger

In the spring of 2022, I visited the Rijksakademie Open Days with several recommendations from friends and colleagues, and with one thing on my personal checklist: the studio of Ratu R. Saraswati (Saras) where there were to be closed performances periodically across the week. I attended on a Sunday, arriving just in time as everyone settled into the chairs that encircled a large book on a specially-made stand in the centre, which was based on the design of those used for the Qur’an. For something like thirty minutes, we listened to Saras read from her Route of Flowers, a collection of parables and photographs created during her two and a half years living and working in Amsterdam Oost.

The stories she shared combined the phonetic plays of poetic verse and the temporal rhythms of narrativity into a form – the parable form – through which the artist articulates intense questions of commitment to place, to memories, to practices of remembering, and to the durationality of these kinds of commitments. My imagination was captured by her writerly voice and its capacity to weave the everyday and fantastical, structural and spiritual, ethical and aesthetic; by the space it makes – the space that it performatively writes into being – for faith-filled enchantment in the realms of both critical, decolonial analysis and contemporary artistic practice.

—

Six months later, nestled into the Molenwijk neighbourhood of Amsterdam Noord, I met with Saras again as she slowly settled into her fall residency with Framer Framed. We spoke at some length about her artistic research process. Shifting to this Dutch residential area with large housing projects and winding green spaces, as she explained, had already made a significant impact. The studio at the Werkplaats Molenwijk is a warm wedge-shaped workspace with a slanted ceiling and glass wall facing the green space outside.

View of the Molenwijk workspace during a studio visit with Ratu R. Saraswati, 28 October 2022. Photo: © Megan Hoetger

It feels tucked away and, yet, with a parking garage just above and the Molenwijkkamer (a community multi-purpose space) right next door, it is anything but quiet. It is tucked into the folds of the neighbourhood’s social fabric, and, for this reason, particularly well-suited for a practice like Saras’s, which has foundational coordinates in everyday acts of conversation. Such social exchange is at the core of her writing process, as we discussed over tea that afternoon. My questions throughout were led by my interest in hearing Saras’s thoughts and ideas on social practice as a performance form. To my surprise, I learned that her earliest experiments in performance had been within traditions of feminist body art and endurance-based actions. While she’s since moved away from that kind of physically strenuous way of working, the body has remained central in terms of its relationality.

Connecting with others – “the people that I know every day” – and their situated experiences, Saras described to me, is the reason for making art. Underlying the work, I realised, are questions of belonging. Bullied during her childhood and often struggling throughout her youth to feel connection with others around her, her practice has with time become a site from which to explore communication and the vernaculars of belonging: fragility, trust-building, currencies of exchange, common ground: “I’m trying to learn what is the limit of free speech,” Saras said in our conversation. Indonesian cultural cues install a tendency to not speak about things that one does not agree with, she continued, “so how to speak in such situations?” “What are the limits of conversation?”, I asked.

Here another facet of the work enters: her own diasporic positionality in the Global North (the difference between two and four seasons being, in particular, a recurrent embodied point of reference in her writing). Living in the Netherlands as an Indonesian woman and practicing Muslim, many of the conversations she has entered into during her research have either rubbed up against or directly engaged the ongoing presences of Dutch colonial histories, as well as the relation of the Netherlands to Islam and the heterogeneity of Muslim Dutch identity. How do we really find common ground in practices, much of her writing ruminates on, unfolding the gaps and schisms between how we learn to act toward others in principle and how we actually act toward others in practice.

A shared sense of space is one of the primary ‘currencies of exchange’ that the garden has offered for Saras, during her time in Amsterdam Oost and especially here in Molenwijk. It has also brought the artist a renewed awareness of the embodied mapping practices that she has been cultivating since re-locating to the Netherlands.

How does one map a new place?

Create a picture of it so she knows where to go and not go?

Draw routes through it?

Bird songs versus territory lines.

The plants and the gardens, their seasonal cycles of bloom and decay, and practices of carrying for them have been ways of entering this new place through affective points of reference, which move fluidly between ‘the world out there’ and ‘the world in here’ of the artist’s imagination. Sketching out a personal psycho-geography of the neighbourhood, Saras used her time in Molenwijk to establish ongoing dialogues with a range of residents: Annie, a neighbourhood resident for 32 years (originally from Friesland) and founder of the Wipmolentuin community garden 30 years ago; Hella, another resident working with Annie in the garden; Toon, a neighbour who frequents the Molenwijkkamer; and Muhammad, a municipal gardener tending to the green spaces around the neighbourhood outside the garden. I left with the intention of returning for the final presentation at the conclusion of her residency, when Saras would share a new performative writing piece penned over the course of her time with these new conversation partners.

Six weeks after that afternoon conversation with Saras, I entered the workspace again, this time for the opening of A Rising Flower Makes a Garden (Saras’s final presentation for the residency). I was met by a walled-sized photographic print suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the room with chairs and a long line of flower prints stretched across the floor in front of it.

Installation photo from the exhibition A rising flower makes a garden (2022) at Werkplaats Molenwijk, Amsterdam, Ratu R. Saraswati. Photo: © Ratu R. Saraswati

On one side of the print was a large-scale image of the back side of a rose taken from below so that viewers looked up into the infrastructure of the rose’s sepal and stem – into its ephemeral yet robust infrastructure. On the other side of the print was a photograph of the top side of the same rose with its luminous and lush pink petals in that golden moment of early bloom. Printed in the smaller scale, versions of this image were also left in a stack near the wall with the invitation for visitors to take one. In the corners of the room were pinned up sheets of drawing paper with Dutch words carefully written out in black ink – practice sheets. From the floor all the way up to the ceiling, then, the studio became a kind of garden mapped. It also became, that day, an environment within which Saras performed her new writing as a script with lyrics and recitations, exegetic notes and parables woven together.

Installation photo from the exhibition A rising flower makes a garden (2022) at Werkplaats Molenwijk, Amsterdam, Ratu R. Saraswati. Photo: © Ratu R. Saraswati

Installation photo from the exhibition A rising flower makes a garden (2022) at Werkplaats Molenwijk, Amsterdam. Photo: © Lina van den Idsert / Framer Framed

Steel pots make a fence

Brick stacks make a wall

Tooth rows make a fort

And a fellow suggested to her, “Rest your tongue.”

“But I think my tongue is bigger than my mouth.:

“How do I rest my tongue?”

“Should I stick my tongue out?”

First rice field passed

Second sea passed

Third coconut tree passed

Fourth day passed

Firth year passed

Sixth decade passed

Seventh century passed

—Excerpt from Parable of the Tongue by Ratu R. Saraswati

“You are living in the North now, the North has four seasons. Not like in our homelands of South, there we have two seasons,” he continues explaining to her relentlessly and then leaves with more footsteps everywhere on the ground.

She is shocked, once again, grieving for the loss of flowers.

—— The falling leaves cover land

—— The falling leaves cover paths

Not all the falling leaves fall into place.

Not all abundance falls into place.

This abundance is everywhere, overwhelming. It takes such patience to orientate yourself.  

**

Since we are talking about paths… Do you know the path that is formed by repeated walks of people when they find a route the is more convenient to them, the most practical route? In English, they called it the desired path, in Dutch they called it een olifantepad, the elephant path. Hannah brought this up to me in our conversation in Werkplaats a while ago.

And then it raises a question for me. The elephant is not native to this continent, Europe. Their habitat is in Asia and Africa. I wonder, how do they, the people who invent the phrase, know very well about the path of elephants?

They must have been there long enough to know about the elephants’ life.

—Excerpts from Parable of the Falling Leaves by Ratu R. Saraswati

The falling leaves cover paths.

Leaves in many shapes and different colours overlap in many layers. I did not see the path.

The abundance is overwhelming, I need to orientate myself.

On Monday, while helping Annie and Hella in the garden, I ask Annie if I can step of the path. She says I can. It makes sense because I help to tend the shrubs and other greenery that spreads over the whole garden. I told myself I need to watch my steps so I will not step on the plants. While being there, I feel the garden immersively. I realise that I breathe among living beings.

— Excerpt from A Rising Flower Makes a Garden script by Ratu R. Saraswati

During her time in the Framer Framed residency, the artist was able to push to another place, experimenting with her layering of writerly voices, with permeating of genre boundaries, and with how to generate new kinds of density in her articulation of experiences. Alongside the move to Molenwijk, which exposed her to dialogues with many different kinds of people outside ‘the centre’, a trip home to Indonesia (the first more than two years) was also personally grounding. In particular what I noticed – and what Saras herself spoke to me about the week after the performance – was a new kind of confidence to speak into and from the different situated positions that she holds in her body about the relational forces that organise, undo, nurture and challenge her.

The use of first-person throughout the performance script, as well as the introduction of the names of her interlocutors (including myself), shifted the work from recitation of a parable to an encounter with a storyteller. If the parable as a form is an extrapolation from experience that is placed outside the individual, the storyteller as an embodied position of witnessing holds the possibility to weave in and out, using parables amongst other forms to track big questions about humanity, relationality, and spirituality through small moments of poetic – and at times quite practical – observations on how to relate to an/other.

The storyteller – Saras – is immersed in the garden. She is immersed in the intergenerational and cross-cultural relationships with Annie and Toon and Muhammad, absorbing new vocabularies and the world-views they articulate. With her and her fellow travellers, we move between metaphors of the path and its materiality. We also move between metaphors of communication and its materiality. ‘The limits of conversation’ that Saras and I had discussed earlier in the fall is still something I am thinking about in regard to her research, and it is still an active element in her writing – the swollen muscle of communication and the grappling with what to do with it, which is made palpable in the Parable of the Tongue, makes this clear. It’s also made clear in the opening lines of her performance script: “I’d like to start by sharing a prayer from the Prophet Musa, or Moses, or Moshe. I’ve always said this prayer in my heart when sharing stories. ‘My Lord, expand for me my breast [with assurance] and ease for me my task, and untie the knot from my tongue. That they may understand my speech.’”

At the close of her residency, I got to know Saras’s readerly voice better, and it is here that I would like to close this field report: by returning to the faith-filled enchantment of the artist’s performative writing and offering a few preliminary thoughts on the kind of pedagogical encounter that is, with time, emerging from it. In our last conversation before the end of 2022, Saras spoke about a shift in her writing form, from the parable to the Ceramah, which is a form of oration within Islam in Indonesia that she describes as somewhere between the sermon and the public lecture. The Ceramah is not a sermon – that is too Christian of a reference point. It is also not a lecture – that is too classed within regimes of educational industrial complex.

The more Saras described to me, the more I was reminded of what I know as Jumu’ah, which is a weekly gathering at the mosque on Fridays, replacing normal the mid-day prayer (Zhuhr) with a pedagogical lesson from the khatib/the imam. My partner often attends Jumu’ah, especially in moments of psychic or spiritual crisis, so I know it as a space of collective healing. I imagine Ceramah to have a similar role. Perhaps I am wrong; but in any case, I think what is shared across these two spaces of address is an understanding of a collective something that can happen in what Saras expressed as “the shared publicness of the mosque”. The depth of feeling with which she is able to tap into this tradition – her own tradition – of “shared publicness” through the garden (as a material, a map, a metaphor and a state of mind) opens up a much-needed space for faith and/as an ethics of belonging in the secularised ‘currencies of exchange’ within much of contemporary artistic practice. It’s not an easy path, for sure; but, as Saras reminds us: “It takes such patience to orientate yourself.”

— Megan Hoetger

Amsterdam, 2023

*You may find the script of Saras’s performance in the attachment bellow. The full video of the performance and more photographs of the opening can be accessed via the website of Saras.

The post The Garden as Material, Map, Metaphor, State of Mind appeared first on Framer Framed.

About the programme

Planetary Poetics is a two year master’s programme at the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, that enables participants to develop artistic research exploring key concepts of the ecological crisis, including questions of climate justice, land restitution and reparations, reproductive justice, and constellations of co-resistance. Planetary Poetics is and initiative of Dorine van Meel and Josien Pieterse from Framer Framed.

The unfolding ecological catastrophe is one of the most pressing challenges of our times. The devastating consequences of economies based on extraction and exhaustion can be found in dilapidated lands, rivers, seas and oceans, forests, animals, plants and peoples. Some of the violence of the ecological crisis occurs slowly and out of direct sight, gradually altering our environment, climate and bodies. Most of the violence however, has been playing out for centuries already, on a local scale, directly affecting millions of people and their livelihoods.

How do we arrive at a critical and imaginative position with regard to this crisis and its long history that casts dark shadows far beyond the present? Which artistic strategies can be employed by cultural practitioners to engage and intervene? How to connect to the struggles and the movements of people who have been enduring and resisting these neo-colonial forces on a daily basis? How to learn from and with, and embrace alternative visions for this planet, beyond relations of property and extermination? Through Planetary Poetics, we want to connect different social ecologies across the globe and experiment with new possibilities of collective imagination, creation and intervention.

Keep an eye on our agenda for events related to the programme! There will be a series of public lectures, workshops, performances and podcasts coming up. We welcome you to join. To be updated about the program you can follow our socialmedia channels or subscribe to our newsletter.

On 26 September 2023, we kicked off the Planetary Poetics master’s programme at the Sandberg Instituut, welcoming the course participants and hearing more about their practices. We’re looking forward to our two-year collaboration with the students, together with the team of core tutors and coordinators: Dorine van Meel, Milena Bonilla, Ada Patterson, Chihiro Geuzebroek, Josien Pieterse and Angelo Christiaan.

Sarah Ndele’s performance for Maintaining the Root (2024) at Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Photo: © Marlise Steeman / Framer Framed

Team

Dorine van Meel, Course director
Josien Pieterse, Co-organizer, Framer Framed
Milena Bonilla, Core tutor
Teresa Borasino, Workshop tutor
Rosa Marina Flores Cruz, Project tutor
Chihiro Geuzebroek, Project tutor
Ada M. Patterson, Core tutor
Marnie Slater, Thesis supervisor
Jorrit Smit, Theory tutor
Jean-Sylvain Tshilumba Mukendi, Project tutor
Ashley Maum, Assistant organiser

Guests tutors

Hernando Chindoy
Staci bu Shea
Clementine Edwards
Ismal Muntaha
Khairani Barokka

Guest lecturers

Rebecca Edler
Wilma Esquivel Pat.
Mare Advertencia Lirika
Sherlien Sanches
Emanuele Braga
Raki Ap
Marinette Jeannerod
Sammy Baloji

Students

Arthur Guilleminot
Bethany Copsey
Eshwari Ramsali
Finn Maätita
Hinne Vos
Imke Hullmann
Lucila Pacheco Dehne
Marik de Koning
Naomi Kreitman
Olivia D’ Cruz
Tirza Balk
Toni Steffens

Fellow

Sarah Ndele

The post Planetary Poetics: a two-year Masters programme appeared first on Framer Framed.

Text by Anna Bitkina

Looking Beyond Reality

A long awaited exhibition To those who have no time to play (2022-2023) came into sight in Amsterdam in the midst of a very uneasy moment of contemporary political history when the wrestling between the world powers driven by imperialism has broken out in the centre of Europe (again). Composed as an imaginary living environment with elements of vernacular architecture, the logic of Gluklya‘s exhibition resists global world collapse by juxtaposing it with the potentiality of interpersonal kinship and interspecies exchange. Constructed with care, her world demonstrates multifunctional purposes and the social role of art under capitalism and in the situation of growing political suppression and escalating militarisation. Being an outstanding example of creativity and ingenuity the exhibition serves as a public forum for gatherings to provide trans-regional and trans-personal exchange on common political and ecological history and economic interdependency. Gluklya’s generous and diverse visual language wishes to feel in the emotional void in the time of local and global human segregation caused by wars, racial superiority, social and economic privileges, ideological suspicion even among like-minded people, unresolved historical traumas and contested worldviews, bodily fears, psychological barriers and biological conditions.

Strongly believing that private life is inextricably linked to political processes Gluklya follows her artistic principle to be on the side of those whose lives are most vulnerable and defenceless. She often contrasts the language of governmental and militant power with the positions of unprotected individuals without political voices who are abused by these structures, underclassed and labelled within social stratasstrata. Fragile lives of individuals whose bodily and physiological states are affected by the political system are at the centre of Gluklya’s creative stories. What exists as a steady state order in the public domain in Gluklya’s exhibition becomes inherently private and manifests as ongoing and “normalised” violence and injustice embedded into different social and power structures. Through her practice Gluklya strives to build channels of interclass engagement to renegotiate the processes that shape contemporary conditions and divisions. Gluklya opts to disrupt the apparent normality of reality and to propose alternative support structures and means for communication.

Scaffolding the Future

In To those who have no time to play we find several narratives of individual and collective protest against oppressive institutions of powers. The exhibition could be imagined as interconnected layers and superpositions of different personal stories by individuals with intersectional identities as well as beddings of local and global political processes and times. It’s a journey through the bodies and minds of creative visionaries that have much in common but might never have met if not in Gluklya’s exhibition which interweaves their lives to stress the significant meaning of the collective and polyphonic voices.

Through her visual and performative language, Gluklya creates a so-called “visionary fiction”, a method proposed by Walidah Imarisha, an American writer, activist, educator and spoken word artist whose practice is rooted in the social change movements. Walidah Imarisha advocates for a form of “fantastical art that helps us to understand and challenge existing power structures and supports us in imagining paths to dreaming and creating more just worlds”.[1] She stresses, “We cannot build what we can’t imagine or see. We should remember to imagine and scaffold the future.” Therefore, Gluklya’s exhibition serves also as a “laboratory of radical imagination” where different geographical locations, political realities, and communities are interconnected.

In order to understand the mechanism and the logic of To those who have no time to play we should try to play with it and deconstruct, as much as curious kids who dismantle toys to check what is inside. Keeping this in mind, we can start looking at different layers of the exhibition body and to dissect it part by part. It should be mentioned that Gluklya initially designed the exhibition as an anatomical experience consisting of structures in the shape of internal human organs – heart, lungs, brain that are connected through long red arteries. We still see some remnants of this artistic vision in the show but in a modified way.

The Stage

The first layer of To those who have no time to play is very architectural, therefore, to have a closer look at the exhibition landscape will require to the viewer the optic of the architect. What stands out first is the two-level stage topped with the red velour canopy. The stage is given to the main characters, supposedly, alive and dead bodies, of “Antigone Update”, a new version of Sophocles’ “Antigone”, a classical Greek tragedy that forms a genesis for Eurocentric norms, principles of democracy and logic of justice. Sophocles’ “Antigone” is considered a “must read” literary piece in European education that is focused on the eternal struggle between state power and personal (political) will. Being influenced by different readings and studies of “Antigone”, including the scholar of feminist democratic theory Bonnie Honig, Gluklya questions the notion of power and subverts the idea of individual heroism, love, female solidarity and “forms of corporeal care”. Gluklya’s version of “Antigone” has a potential for legislative imagination which undermines the letter of the rational law and focuses on an alternative set of rights that are more responsive to personal needs, emotions, and beliefs.

All “alive” protagonists of the play are materialised as standing at the stage costumes with elements of their characteristics: militant figure of Creon; thin, curving and submissive his wife Eurydice; well-behaved but traumatised and with a big hole, their son Haemon; emotional and in pain Antigone in a dress also full of holes; doubtful, law-abiding and pierced with the net of blood arteries her sister Ismene; frightened as a bird Messenger; torn by contradictions and doubts Sentry, wise Tiresias accompanied by a little boy. The body of dead Polynices is also given the agency by being placed at the lower level of the stage, in a niche of another world. To dramatise the antagonism and tension between Antigone and Creon, Gluklya has framed the stage with two red costumes: a ragged screaming in despair wooden mask of Creon and a dark dramatic flower of Antigone, the personification of two forces: a man who make the laws and a woman who does what she feels is right. The question of what is right is central to “Antigone Update”.

Photo by Eva Broekema / Framer Framed

The architectural structure of the stage is composed as an imaginary microsociety and accompanied by a cohort of humanised sewing machines, which, on the one hand, acts as a collective social majority (the chorus, in the tradition of the Ancient Greek tragedy), and on the other, plays a utilitarian symbolic function, namely, they sew together all the exhibition narratives. The chorus is represented by the costumed characters and figures of different age, gender, social class and emotional intensity. Textile and clothes are one of the main mediums and materials in Glyklya’s practice which she describes as an invented language: “For me working with textile is being alive and speaking with myself and the world via non-verbalised surrogate of different desires.”[2] The machines are accompanied by various biomorphic creatures, produced in collaboration with textile artist Natalia Grezina, that are placed throughout the exhibition space – sonic Narcissus flowers dressed in blue work jackets found in Amsterdam vintage shops and tree branches merged with sweatshirts and attached books.

The plot of Sophocles’ “Antigone” and its contemporary interpretation is a focal and connecting infrastructure for the exhibition that has been chosen in a search for an abstract and universal form to reflect on the current tragedy. In the light of the growing political and military trans-regional antagonism imposed by Russia in Ukraine, the moral choice between the state order and personal ties confronts millions of individuals with excruciating decisions to take sides which tear apart family members, beloved ones and friends unions.

Three other architectural structures of the exhibition are designed as temporal micro-universes with their unique cosmologies.

House of Female Imagination

One of them takes form of a Central Asian yurt (“боз үй” in Kyrgyz) which Gluklya turns from a traditionally regulated environment with a strict division of areas for women and men into a house of female imagination and care, a domain of listening and storytelling, a place of mastering craft.[3] Artist and architect Benjamin Roth, who constructed the yurt, kept in its design the main traditional elements. For instance, he has built the top of the yurt (tyundyuk), which is perceived as a unifying beginning in Kyrgyz culture. At the exhibition it is symbolically marked by the red dress with raised hand – a sign of liberation and freedom that has appeared across Gluklya’s projects for many years.

The nomadic home of the yurt has been set up in Framer Framed as a shelter to accommodate the life stories of Kyrgyz seamstresses Dinara, Rakhat, Zaina and Samira who work intensively in the clothing industry and have no time to play with their kids (hence the title of the show). They struggle from an ongoing bodily and mental violence caused by the harsh labour and poor ecological conditions of the industry as well as from sexual abuse embedded in working environments and domestic lives of many Kyrgyz households. Their stories manifest the post-Soviet colonial conditions and the consequences of regional capitalism by addressing the economy of Kyrgyzstan where the ‘slavery’ textile industry forms a major part of the country’s budget. Almost all clothing produced in Kyrgyzstan is exported to Russia and Kazakhstan to provide low-income segments of the population in these countries with cheap clothes.”[4]

Photo by Eva Broekema / Framer Framed

The video playing inside the yurt, titled Gulmira’s Fairy Tales and performed by Kyrgyz actress Gulmira Tursunbaeva, could be interpreted as a collective historical and contemporary female voice of Kyrgyzstan. The video narratives include part of biographies and dream fragments of Dinara, Rakhat, Zaina, Samira collected by Gluklya through a number of personal encounters with the seamstresses during her trip to Bishkek. Disrupting their automated and zombified 15-17 hours daily working routine, Gluklya conducted with them a series of listening and creative sessions in an attempt to make space in their minds and working schedule for play and imagination. The results of these collective creations are presented in the yurt in the form of zoomorphic textile and angel-like creatures.

Weaving personal stories into the overall political fabric and presenting them using popular media formats is a continuous artistic method of Gluklya, which she practises in her durational performative project Debates on Division. When Private Becomes Public (2014-2019). The presentation format of Gulmira’s Fairy Tales resembles a regular TV show for kids Good Night, Little Ones! (in Russian “Cпокойной ночи, малыши!”), which from the 60s until now is one of the most known and popular shows for kids among Russian speaking people of several generations and an integral part of Soviet identity. In the series of fairy tales “Blue Rabbit”, “Tango of My Grandmother”, “Ghost” and “Revenge”, Gluklya carefully combines the contemporary biographies of her heroines and historical memories. The archival records of female emancipation in Central Asia under USSR were collected by Gluklya in Moscow and Bishkek with the help of researcher and artist Katya Ivanova.

As in many of her works in To those who have no time to play Gluklya demonstrates not the external, but the internal freedom and strength of her characters. Through the visual tales that contain elements of humour, absurd and grotesque, she endows her heroines with a political voice, incredible will power, creativity and imagination by building a continuity of herstory through time, geographies and suppressive political ideologies. By giving “Gulmira’s Fairy Tales” the subtitle “TV for Seamstresses” Gluklya foresees a potentiality for this fairy tale series to become a common platform for conversations, exchanges and unity for the female working class to grow its power and rights.

The yurt is covered and framed with 16 prints, mats and carpets made from traditional woollen felt. To produce them, Gluklya collaborated with local craftswomen from Felt Art Studio (Issyk-Kul) that specialise in this felt pattern rolling technique. The felt prints depict different drawings by Gluklya that build associative links with the lives of the Kyrgyz seamstresses and their invisible hard labour: body parts like lungs and ribs that are merged with the sewing machine which the women spend most of their time at, the inner ear as a symbol of listening, the clock – endless working time or lifetime stolen by capitalism.

Chapel of Friendship and Affinity

The yurt neighbours another structure that could be called My Swollen-Hearted Friend, which materialises some aspects of Gluklya’s ongoing research on migration, displacement, cross-cultural misunderstandings and a search for a common language of care and hospitality.[5] Its textile top looks like a heart with cut red arteries and blue veins. This space embraces the story of a Kurdish political activist and writer Murad Zorava, presented at the exhibition through elements of design and a book project Two Diaries – a published exchange of parallel diaries written by Gluklya and Murad.

Murad and Gluklya met at the former prison Bijlmerbajes in Amsterdam where Murad was a resident of the asylum seekers’ centre (AZC) organised there in 2017. Following an open call by Lola Lik, Gluklya was offered to rent a studio at one of the prison towers together with other artists and creatives. It has since become apparent that this pop-up creative cluster was part of a major gentrification project and the masterplan The Bajes Kwartier of OMA, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture founded by Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis in 1975..

Through their diaries, we learn about the growing friendship and personal stories of the authors as well as their traumatic encounters with the state migration policy and business schemes that were cynically intertwined. Although, as Murad writes “the outlines of my life story are shared by tens of thousands of people in my country.”[6] He was imprisoned for his political views, actions and for just being Kurdish. He had to flee his country due to constant political persecution to find a home in the Netherlands. Gluklya proposed Murad to keep a diary “as a healing and exhaling” process, the practice that she started earlier to overcome the strict policies in Bijlmerbajes. The writing exercise was also for both a method for better understanding of each other’s inner worlds and an exchange of their experiences being residents of Bijlmerbajes, although in different statuses.

Photo by Eva Broekema / Framer Framed

The architecture of this ‘chapel of friendship and affinity’ has some references to the neighbouring yurt, however, it differs with a more personalised and intimate touch and the energy that resembles a place of solitude. The floor covered with felt carpets is encircled with many pillows of different forms that correspond with the Central Asian or Turkic tradition. Containing thematic embroidery and texts these pillows are dedicated to Murad, who suffered at the AZC in Bijlmerbajes without pillows that were forgotten to be put in his room. The lack of pillows has haunted him from previous imprisonment nightmares. The interior of the chapel consists of a bench or the ‘chair for two’ produced by Roger Cremers and a standing lamp in the shape of a lily flower with the stem of a human spine. Standing in the centre of the space, they are designed to invite the exhibition visitors to experience the collective writing of Gluklya and Murad. Another symbol of unity is a drawing of human lungs on the bench back. On the one hand, it is a metaphor of “writing in one breath”, and on another, it transmits the shared breathing conditions of Gluklya and Murad at Bijlmerbajes where it was impossible to open the windows in the buildings.

The publication Two Diaries has a distinct element of an artist drawing book that includes 64 over 40 of Gluklya’s drawings and watercolours which she drew while being a resident of Bijlmerbajes. They could be divided into three sections of drawings that are dedicated to several activities – the images that came out during the Language of Fragility workshops with asylum seekers, sketches of characters and costumes for the Carnival of Oppresed Feelings and different emotional states of Gluklya with which she is haunted during the time of her residency in the former prison building. The themes of Gluklya’s drawings are often associated with animal-vegetative themes, sensuality, empathy and caring in which she practises the connections between political imagination and ongoing events with existential states that leave traces in the subconscious. The set of emotions that Gluklya transmits through colourful or very dark images in Two Diaries gives different dimensions to the book by captivating the inseparable unity of the body, words, plants, elements of architecture and fantastic clothes. Some of the original drawings from the book can be seen at the exhibition space around the chapel.

Madhouse

Finally, a structure in the form of a white dome, titled Melting Snowball, serves as a screening space for the documentary chronicle of the May 1st demonstrations in St. Petersburg recorded by Gluklya and her comrades in 2017, 2018 and 2019. The installation “Melting Snowball” questions how to regain the future and get back what was lost or taken. The video documentation of the May 1st demonstrations in St. Petersburg not only guides through the recent alternative political history in Russia but also intends to look at what has anticipated this period of social life and speculate about what is next.

Being totally appropriated by governmental ideology during Soviet time, straight after the collapse of the Soviet Union in Russia, May 1st got its revival and regained its political meaning by becoming a gathering place for all possible political denominations from ultra-right nationalists, communists and anarchists to democrats and ultra-left including vegetarians, progressive critical thinkers and contemporary artists and performers with sharp and provocative banners. To contextualise Gluklya’s video and recall the emergence of citizenship in post-Soviet Russia, it would be pertinent to bring attention to the film by Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa The Event (2015) in which he revisits the dramatic moments of August 1991 known as Putsch that led to the collapse of the USSR. “In the city of Leningrad thousands of confused, scared, excited and desperate people poured into the streets to become a part of the event, which was supposed to change their destiny.”[7] A quarter of a century later, Sergei Loznitsa revisits the dramatic event by editing the archival footage that documents the life of the city at the time of a historical calamity and, possibly, the birth of something new. In The Event we can see how ordinary life turns into history; people’s faces, singular close-ups taken in the time, which cannot be found in history textbooks or transcripts of political speeches.”[8]

For the last 20 years, Russian civil society has been pragmatically and persistently dismantled through a series of legislative and power apparatuses engineered by Putin and his collaborators. The courage of the ongoing protests now and then is useful to juxtapose with the series of laws implemented in Russia during this period aimed at the severe punishment of any manifestation of citizenship, human rights and free thoughts. It would be also fair to mention that during this period, a layer of grassroots initiatives (cultural, academic, social) has grown and formed in Russia, which actively sought to create and popularise democratic principles and promote the basics of political literacy and critical thinking.

Gluklya, May 1st (2017-2019), film still (2022)

In her lengthy video Gluklya captures the last years of the May 1st demonstration before it faded out completely due to years of COVID-19 when public events were forbidden. The pandemic factor “conveniently” overlapped with the persistent and years-long agenda of Putin’s regime to disintegrate and demolish all possible political forces and alternative critical thinking in the country.

Intuitively imagining that May 1st is an important event to document as an image of Russia’s collective political life, Gluklya could barely have envisioned that this footage would become an important time document. Similar to the explicitly political film essays by Harum Farocki, in her video Gluklya uses the genre of ‘direct cinema’, by including in the video frame different participants of the events and keeping her point of view rarely revealed. Through this video recording of a relatively short period of political history we can observe the brewing features of the authoritarian regime, the peak of which we are seeing in today’s Russia. From year to year in the video we observe the growing control of public space and censorship of slogans.

Together with her friends and collaborators Gluklya also forms her own ‘Column of Fragility’ with costumes and slogans that aims at queering the vertical of power and addressing different pressing political inquiries. Examples of some of the costumes that formed the protests’ visuality are presented at Framer Framed outside of the screening dome. This line of ‘conceptual sticks’ includes protest art clothes that were produced for other demonstrations and performative actions across different years. One of them being Gluklya’s significant work that anticipated this installation: Clothes for the Demonstration Against False Election of Vladimir Putin (2011-2015), developed during the series of protests For Fair Elections in Russia between 2011-2013 and which some English language media referred to as the ‘Snow Revolution’. Presented at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015, the 43 objects ‘re-created’ representatives of protesters with different political positions.

Gluklya, Demonstration Against False Election of Vladimir Putin. Installation at the 56 Venice Biennale (2015), mix textile, wood, hand writing

In the video, philosopher Oxana Timofeeva says during the 2018 demonstration that “only being on the verge of madness wecan understand the essence of things”. Watching the documentation of these demonstrations from the present when Putin’s regime has entered its highest level of madness, we understand that this agony with the last convulsions of Soviet imperialism cannot last forever. As they say, the end comes unnoticed. This reminds one of Alexey Urchak’s famous book “Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More” about the paradoxes of the Soviet political project that were revealed by the peculiar experience of its collapse. Possibly after the end of the current totalitarianism in Russia, Gluklya’s video documentation of the May 1st demonstration in St Petersburg will serve as a historical record documenting the last years of Russia’s ill and decomposing political regime.

The exhibition To those who have no time to play finds its stage in Framer Framed, an institution that for many years has been a platform to rethink the role of art, and the position and purpose of art institutions in the cultural and political life of civil society. Since 2008, Framer Framed has provided possibilities for nurturing and developing different communities. The institution operates as a living organism of connections, exchanges, different cultures and learning approaches, visions and positions. It seems like there could not have been a better place to present Gluklya’s show which by nature is not a stable, finished and rigid structure. It’s not finalised. Even after the opening it’s in a process of adjusting, polishing, editing and growing into something new.

A version of this text has also been published in two parts by NERO Editions: To Those Who Can Imagine and New Communities of Care.

Photo by Eva Broekema / Framer Framed

1 Symposium “No Linear F*cking Time” at BAK basis voor actuele kunst, session Toward the Not-Yet: Art as Public Practice, May, 2022, presentation by Walidah Imarisha: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ilv_HsztTg.
2 Two Diaries: Gluklya and Murad, 2022, page 79
3 “Inside yurt is a very regulated area with clear division of the space: to the left of the entrance there is the world of men, the right is the female half.  The central part is the hearth, behind which is t a place for guests of honour. During the wedding, the engaged bride is seated on the male half, she no longer belongs to this family, she is like a guest. In the same way, during the funeral the deceased body is placed on the same part, the dead person is associated with the guest, which, like the bride, leaves the world of the family”. From the correspondence and consultancy with Inga Srasevich, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Central Asia Ethnology, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), St. Petersburg.
4 Based on the article Kyrgyz Sewing Slavery by Kyrgyzsoc, 2020 (available in Russian): https://kyrgsoc.org/kyrgyzskoe-shvejnoe-rabstvo/?fbclid=IwAR0Evi52tjtMZOHkNWyY7awktxCZ0F0dO8Muwj7NCpUhBjqpeTNYM1MdwF8.
5 Two Diaries: Gluklya and Murad, 2022, page 144.
6 Ibid, p. 146.
7 https://europeanfilmawards.eu/en_EN/film/the-event.4325
8 Ibid, Sergei Loznitsa’s statement.

The post 'To those who can imagine' by Anna Bitkina appeared first on Framer Framed.

In een landschap van de werken van internationale maatschappelijk geëngageerde kunstenaars, creëren wij ook plek voor onze jongste bezoekers. Op onze locatie op de Oranje-Vrijstaatkade in Amsterdam-Oost, zijn kinderen vanaf 4 jaar welkom om te komen spelen, onderzoeken, experimenteren, maken of simpelweg om te zijn in de Jonge Makers Studio.  

De Jonge Makers Studio is ontstaan in de context van het project Do It Together – DIT, waarbij het samenbrengen van tentoonstellingen en gemeenschapsvorming centraal stond. In een ruimte waar grote thema’s gepresenteerd worden, vinden wij het belangrijk dat ook onze jongste bezoekers mee kunnen doen en kunst kunnen beleven op hun manier. Met de Jonge Makers Studio bieden wij een uitnodigende leeromgeving voor jonge kinderen om zelf onderzoek te doen en op creatieve wijze te experimenteren met verschillende (natuurlijke) materialen. Hiermee willen we stimuleren dat kinderen autonomie en zeggenschap ervaren over hun eigen leerproces. Door telkens een nieuw ontwerp van de ruimte te presenteren en een diversiteit aan materialen ter beschikking te stellen, worden kinderen uitgenodigd om hun eigen verhaal te verbeelden en op creatieve wijze uitdrukking te geven aan hoe zij de wereld om hen heen ervaren.

Jonge Makers Studio 2022 in collaboration with De Rode Loper / Kunstlab voor Kanjers during DIT – Do it together. Designed by Jesse Greulich.

Jonge Makers Studio 2022 in collaboration with De Rode Loper / Kunstlab voor Kanjers during DIT – Do it together. Designed by Jesse Greulich.

Voor het ontwerp van de studio werken we samen met jonge beginnende kunstenaars. Op deze manier wordt de studio niet alleen gebruikt door de jongste makers (kinderen), tegelijkertijd geven we jonge afgestudeerde makers een kans om praktijkervaring op te doen en specifiek met het ontwerpen van uitnodigende leeromgevingen voor kinderen. Het ontwerp van de eerste Jonge Makers Studio in 2022 kwam van Jesse Greulich, in 2023 heeft Anastasia Afonina de studio ontworpen.

Jonge Makers Studio 2023 designed by Anastasia Afonina

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Building on our recent research into the foundations of access theory, we are now looking towards practical ways that our exhibitions and public programmes can be made inclusive to minority groups. In this second installation of Notes on access, we hope to make our learning about access support available to museums, galleries and interested people by sharing it on our website.

Eve Oliver, December 2022

Before proceeding with this report, it is important to explain our approach to terminology. Terms – their histories, biases and syntax – have the ability to perpetuate old misunderstandings, stereotypes and injustices. When talking about (dis)ability, a term with its own contestations, we must choose terminologies which reflect the thoughts and wishes of the community it is describing with their guidance. In the context of vision impairments, we have chosen the term “person with a vision impairment” to describe members of this community. In this way, we are not ascribing the condition to their identity in totality, as the term “visually impaired person” connotes, but rather, we describe that their vision is impaired in addition to them being a person first and foremost. We were advised about this terminology during our training with a member of the community, however, we understand that for many this choice of words may not be right and we do not wish to offend anyone. We also make use of ‘partially-sighted’, although we acknowledge that a vision impairment does not equate to a partial grasp of sensory experience. We are open to hearing your thoughts about terminology. Please email eve[@]framerframed.nl if you have any tips or reflections.

On Wednesday the 23rd of November, Framer Framed took part in some visual awareness training run by the VocalEyes charity. The session was facilitated by Kirin Saeed – an educator and advocate with a vision impairment who specialises in improving visual access support in cultural spaces – and Andrew Holland, who specialises in audio description work. The workshop gave museum and art gallery workers a framework designed to support inclusive practices for people with vision impairments. The session was split up into two sections: how museum workers can assist visitors with vision impairments, and, how artworks and installations can be diversified, supplemented, and equally communicated with audio descriptions, tactile models and relief drawings. In this second installation of Notes on access, we reflect on what we learnt through the themes of improving, new ways of seeing and contemplating a more accessible future.

Improving

First, the group of seven museum workers were asked to introduce themselves on Zoom. For Kirin and many other people with vision impairments, visual descriptions after personal introductions are essential to contextualising and visualising the speaker against their voice. Normalising this practice is yet to be done by many of us. Eve, one of our community members, described herself during the training:

“Hi, I am Eve. I have blonde hair in a choppy hairstyle and I am wearing a blue patterned turtleneck top. I wear silver glasses and I am sitting in front of a messy bookcase.”

Adding this layer of visual description to personal introductions encourages us to consider alternative ways of assigning identity and meaning to speakers. By giving everyone the agency to communicate their personal perception of themselves, (un)conscious bias related to personal identity and visual appearance is avoided, and listeners are encouraged to see the speaker as they see themselves.

Next, Kirin asked us to explore our own biases related to people with vision impairments. She asked us to think back to any close encounters we have had with people with vision impairments and to consider how we approached assistance, guidance, care, and guide dogs. In response to our stories, she highlighted how often the common denominator in difficult experiences between those with vision impairments and those without is the lack of contact between the two groups in general, which translates to a lack of understanding. She noted that to decrease fear and improve understanding, we should approach guiding with openness and inquisitiveness. Ask somebody if they need help and be responsive to their needs. Sometimes people will say no, and that’s ok.

Similarly, giving guidance to a person with a vision impairment is an important dimension of access. During the visual awareness workshop, we learned about the strength of attention to detail when it comes to guidance. If you are asked to guide someone with a vision impairment, ask where specifically they need to go, and describe the area back to them that they have requested. If you feel you need to introduce yourself, stand still, and allow the person to focus their vision on you. Ask them for consent to tap their arm so they can physically orient themselves in your direction. If they ask for or consent to guidance, offer your arm to them. Usually, the person needing guidance will hold the guide’s elbow, so that they are in control if they wish to leave the navigation. The guide’s elbow acts as a gear stick, orienting left and right to signal in which direction they are being taken by the guide. Some people prefer to take the shoulder of the person guiding – make sure this is communicated between you both before starting the guidance. As the person begins the navigation, attention should be paid to hazards in the room. Considering hazards as numerous in any space is important in this context, as they present much more of a risk to people with vision impairments. Consider that something as simple as a door needs to be described, as doors can move to the left, right, forwards and backwards unpredictably, and, although unhazardous to a seeing person, this is hazardous to someone with a vision impairment. Pay particular attention to things like rails and stairs, especially if the guided person is placing their balance on something.

New ways of seeing

Next, Andrew Holland, who works on audio describing in theatres and museums, shared his knowledge about how to translate visual information into audio information. Audio description is not novel, despite its rarity in cultural spaces. The execution of it centres on two dimensions: the practical and the experiential. The practical denotes assisting the person with physical orientation around the object being described, whether it is navigation to a piece of contemporary art or navigation to a toilet. By contrast, the experiential denotes the use of audio to create an interpretive experience for the person without the use of sight, making the artwork come alive within their imagination through carefully chosen words. This process relies on the listener having the ability to interpret the artwork themselves, hence the description should be unbiased and un-interpretive. Consider personal judgements and the visual evidence supporting that judgement, does the visual evidence support the judgement you have made? Is it informed by a stereotype? Describing the visual elements alone avoids the risk of describing personal biases and leads you towards objective storytelling.

There is also evidence that audio description can improve the interpretive experience for people without vision impairments by guiding the viewer towards the significant elements of the artwork, as, oftentimes, visitors can feel overwhelmed by the visual information on display. Transferring visual information to the audial not only offers a multi-sensory and layered analysis, but also enacts the belief that audience members contribute to the signification of artworks through their own meaning-making in addition to the original meaning assigned by the artist. Hence, it is in the interests of all museums and art spaces to give minority groups the resources to contribute to meaning-making, as it elicits diverse and meaningful engagement.

Contemplating

With sight holding a central role in the design of societies, we ask how we, as individuals, community members, and society members, can begin to subvert its centrality so that equality between individuals of all abilities can prevail. We are considering the routes of this inequality, looking towards the roles of religion, colonialism, neoliberalism, patriarchalism and capitalism as definitive in paving the way towards the able-centric society we exist in today. These roles are by-products of a world built for a majority by a majority, which has become increasingly dominant as globalisation grows. Although equalising these inequalities is not an easy task, we saw this training as a necessary starting point on which to build our community’s answer to this. As such, we are considering audio description, guidance and more diverse public programming as preliminary answers. In addition, we must remember the power of communication when it comes to access. By writing this magazine entry, we are initiating the circulation of our new engagement with access projects and will continue to keep you up to date with the new resources we have available.

Keep up to date with our public programme for our new access initiatives by following our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter pages.

Links

Notes on access 1: rethinking and relearning -> 

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Text and photography: Mina Etemad
December 2022

Karen Gregazarian, along with his wife and three children, came to the Netherlands from Abkhazia in 2010. They ended up in the asylum seekers’ centre Markelo (AZC). The AZC was once a holiday park, full of caravans, playgrounds and trees. ‘It was beautiful and green there,’ says Gregazarian. ‘But life was difficult. You didn’t know what would happen and whether you would be sent back.’

Without much to do and not knowing how to pass the time, Gregazarian started making presents for the asylum seekers’ centre staff, to whom he was so grateful for all their care. He loved being busy with his hands, so when he heard in 2012 that their AZC was going to close, he had another idea. ‘I wanted to have a memory of that place.’ He had never made a model before; in Abkhazia he repaired cars. ‘But here I walked the site every day and counted the distances between all the buildings and objects. I took in the 90-plus caravans and then drew everything on paper.’

Gregazarian collected branches, moss, cardboard, wood, pieces of iron, anything he could find to recreate his surroundings so faithfully. ‘Sometimes I did tests with the materials. For example, I wet the cardboard and examined how firm it was, to judge whether it would not break.’

With his family, he sat in caravan 404, somewhere in the middle of the site. There he started making the model, though that space soon proved too small. Staff assigned him a vacant building where he could work undisturbed. ‘I sat there mostly at night, when everything was quiet, until I heard the first birds chirping.’

After a few weeks, the model was ready. Everyone in the asylum seekers’ centre was impressed by it and the staff asked him what to do with it. ‘I said they could decide that. I had finished my work.’ He left the asylum seekers’ centre and lost sight of the model.

‘Maquette’ by Karen G. Foto: Mina Etemad

Lights

From then on, the maquette wandered around the country for years. Although several people felt responsible for it, no one could store or exhibit it anywhere for a long time. So it ended up in a museum in Markelo, in the office of a film company, and even in a dentist’s office.

Heritage professional Milena Mulders had seen the model pass by in a documentary and was fascinated by it even then. ‘I find it very poetic. I also find it very uncomfortable. You have certain associations with an asylum seekers’ centre, for example, that it is terrible there. We never actually think about what life there is like. We just don’t look at it.’

She thought it valuable that this object did force her to think about life in the AZC, so when she read in an appeal in early 2020 that the model had to be removed from its location within two days, she immediately sprang into action.

She called some acquaintances to find a new place for it to stay and to arrange a transport van. One of them was Migration Historian Hanneke Verbeek, who, like Mulders, was immediately convinced that this object should be preserved for the time being.

Together, they found a new temporary home, and have been taking care of the object ever since. They managed to track down creator Karen Gregazarian and reunite him with his work, making for a special moment. A video made of that event shows Gregazarian looking at the maquette endearingly. He remains silent for a while and grins a little, then he bends under the table to fix the button that turns on the 390 lights in the buildings and lampposts. When it works, Mulders and Verbeek let out a cry of amazement, although not all the lights turn on immediately. A few weeks later, Gregazarian repairs the model and all the lights are working once more.

‘Maquette’ by Karen G. Foto: Mina Etemad

Football

Mulders and Verbeek also felt it was important for the model to return to its place of origin. Thus, from the beginning of this year until August, it stood in cultural centre Het Beaufort in Markelo. There, former residents, employees and other interested parties could visit the reconstructed asylum seekers’ centre.

One of those former residents is Ferdos, who spent his teenage years there. When he saw the model, all sorts of memories came to him. ‘We used to play football here, on this field next to the school.’ He is silent for a moment. ‘I see it as a part of my life. This AZC may have made me the person I am today.’

Milica and Shkurta also spent their childhood in the asylum seekers’ centre and it was there they became best friends. Shkurta: ‘We had so much fun. I always went to Milica’s place at nine in the morning to play outside with her. It was always just the two of us.’ Their friendship seems somewhat unlikely: Shkurta’s parents had fled from Kosovo and Milica’s from Serbia, due to the war between the two countries.

Heritage

For many former residents, it is worthwhile to see the maquette again. However Milena Mulders wonders, ‘is this maquette also an important object for people who have not lived in Markelo or lived in the asylum seekers’ centre?’

Actually, this is a question about what we see as cultural heritage. Mulders: ‘What should we preserve to better understand today’s society later on? I have been asked several times by all kinds of cultural institutions: can you find another object related to labour migration? Maybe a Moroccan who wants to tell a story with a suitcase attached? The suitcase is always seen as the object of labour migration. Or they ask me: can you find any monuments of labour migration? But no, we don’t find them, we are just too late. We were completely unaware of them at the time they were important.’

According to Mulders, we saw everything as temporary; migrant workers, for example, were not seen as part of society. ‘But the guest workers stayed and society changed in part because of them, and also because of the people who came here as refugees and later became Dutch citizens.’

If thousands of Dutch people have memories of an asylum seekers’ centre, shouldn’t we also capture those memories in our cultural heritage? Whether the model can answer that question, Mulders and Verbeek continue to ponder. While the mini-AZC stood in Het Beaufort, they asked all kinds of stakeholders what they wanted to happen with it. Several answers came out of that, such as that the model should be digitised, or that it should go back to the old site. In place of the AZC there is now a solar park, but the owner is willing to make a shed available as a small museum. For now, however, the model has no permanent home. Currently, it can be admired at Framer Framed in Amsterdam Oost.

Translation: Evie Evans

This article by Mina Etemad originally appeared in Z! -De Amsterdamse Straatkrant, No. 14, 15 Oct – 4 Nov 2022, pp. 16-17. It has been republished by Framer Framed with the author’s permission.

Karen Gregazarian’s maquette is on display until 22 January 2023 at Framer Framed, Oranje-Vrijstaatkade 71, Amsterdam. Admission is free.

The exhibition While Awaiting an Unknown Future is part of the project Tussenlanding: a tangible memory of temporality. It is co-sponsored by the Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie / Verken de Faro-werkwijze, Stichting DOEN Foundation and the VSB Fonds.

An audio documentary about the maquette was made, Maquette zonder verblijfsvergunning (Maquette without a residence permit). It can be heard in the podcast DOCS, available on Spotify.

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Text byCharles Esche

Writing this in the summer of 2022, much of the social and economic architecture that maintained that 30-year-old system still feels to be in place. And yet… it also seems unremarkable to suggest that the disintegration of that liberal system is underway and will happen faster than anticipated even a year ago. The questions citizens of the Netherlands or indeed the European Union are faced with today, are not so much how to retain what was won, but how to respond to what comes next, both collectively (as a society) and as prec(ar)ious individuals. There are probably still a limited number of choices open to western societies, though the range is narrowing. One way to approach the future, could arguably be to look at societies where the loss or decay of a supportive social contract is already much further advanced. European citizens could look at what care and welfare; protest and reform; communality and individuality; tradition and spirit mean for people that did not benefit from the relative ease common in Western Europe in the past in order to start planning how to adapt.

The problem with that approach is that it ignores Western European history and its convoluted present. From the moment of colonial and imperial expansion, Europe became entangled with its “Others” in ways far too messy to ignore. Indeed, despite valiant attempts to build a false cultural border wall between enlightened modern European values and the dark side of colonial exploitation, the voices of the colonised would not be silenced. In a system based on economic engagement, trying to impose a moral or cultural separation was doomed to fail. Each new 21st century catastrophe only reconfirms the vitality of the entanglements and the dependency of the modern-colonial system on its others. The relative ease that Dutch citizens might have experienced in the 1990s and 2000s, was built on a whole set of destructive structures that reached right across the globe and were never likely to be sustainable, let alone socially just or ethically tolerable, over the longer term. It is precisely in the middle of this knot of past and present that Gluklya’s artworks enter the fray. What Gluklya’s work shows is not only empathy for that difficult truth, but how art offers a way to process the trials of global contemporary life and imagine a future that adjusts to reduced material security without despair.

To those who have no time to play is structured around four stories drawn from the artist’s own experiences. Each narrative is represented by its own form of architecture and mode of reception. As someone looking at the exhibition, you are asked to perform different roles during your time there. You become a reader, a viewer, a listener, an emotional participant, an outsider caught in the midst of a protest, a collective presence in a chorus of sewing machines or any number of other roles you can define for yourself. There is a beauty in how the exhibition unfolds and how your attention is called to other people’s struggles that ask to become part of your own, if only for a little while.

Two Yurts
There are two yurt-like structures, a dome, and a stage on which occasional live performances will take place. These are supplemented at intervals with wooden dividing screens on which the artist’s drawings serve as a kind of visual commentary or guide to the exhibition as a whole. Each structure houses a different social and emotional geography. The smallest is an intimate space to read the two parallel diaries written by Gluklya and Murad, a Kurdish activist and poet looking for sanctuary in the Netherlands. They met while Gluklya had the opportunity, through a commission by the public art agency TAAK, to rent a studio in a building where an asylum seekers’ centre was established. This building was in fact a disused prison called the Bijmerbajes, a few kilometres from Framer Framed. The Two Diaries broadly cover the same period in 2017 and touch each other in different places while chronicling two quite distinct experiences of migration, settlement and family. The environment in which you are encouraged to read the book is inspired by Central Asian yurts, as a way to displace both Gluklya and Murad’s own stories and entangle them with others both near and far. The stories in the book as well as the drawings circling outside the yurt seem to speak about how to build a precarious understanding across cultures, one always threatened with collapse or the return of misunderstanding in a way that beautifully mirrors the experience of migration and resettling itself.

Gluklya calls the larger yurt in this exhibition the Red Yurt, in reference to the Soviet emancipatory struggle and the ambivalent impact it had on its many different territories. The yurt form here is more directly associated with its origins as it introduces stories and artworks from Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. It is perhaps useful to know that of all the Central Asian republics that emerged since the end of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan has been the least authoritarian and most subject to influence by the citizens of the state. These democratic freedoms have also led to a poor economic record and consistently poor working conditions. The struggles of Kyrgyz women in particular are what animates the Red Yurt.

On the outside, a red dress is held aloft by felt compositions of bodily organs intermingled with the organic forms of nature. The felt drawings were produced together with women textile workers from the Felt Art Studio, Issyk-Kul. The dress has no head but instead a hand held up in protest, symbolising the rebellious dreams of the women, while the red tulip sewn onto some of the clothes references the symbol of the successful 2005 Tulip Revolution. This outer shell shapes the interior, where stories Gluklya gathered during her visits to Kyrgyzstan while researching post-soviet colonialism are dramatized by the actor Gulmira Tursunbaeva. The stories mix accounts of life in Bishkek told to Gluklya by Samira, a seamstress the artist came to know particularly well, and other women with older tales from the Soviet past, when socialist emancipation clashed with local patriarchy and the traditional oppression of women. Like the other textile workers, Samira does not live in a yurt but works under the harsh conditions of domestic production in Soviet-built apartment blocks in the capital city. Her language is a mix of Kyrgyz and Russian, meaning that Gluklya could often understand words or half sentences in her stories, while needing the rest translated for her. This impression of listening to something between music and language finds its way onto the interior walls. Russian for Gluklya is both familiar and a constant reminder of the presence of a European imperial occupier in the heart of Central Asia. In this way the entanglements of the past are shown to partly shape present conditions, while leaving room for productive misunderstandings to emerge and older mythologies to retake their place in people’s lives.

May 1st, Labour Day
Around a third space – a white dome that Gluklya named a Melting Snowball, a precarious relative of the revolutionary cobblestone – clothes are propped up against the base. Clothes are a returning motif in Gluklya’s work, and these items were carried as banners by people who participated in the May 1st (Labour Day) protests in St. Petersburg from 2015-2019. Inside, a film shows scenes from various years of the protests up to the year it was made illegal. On one textile, the words “Queer-Peace-May” appear, words that are also banned in Putin’s Russia today. The video surrounds you as though you have been unknowingly caught up in the middle of the demonstration. The clothes animate the walls of the dome and carry the figures in the video out into the Amsterdam gallery and beyond. In this way, then and now, here and there become confused. At the time of writing, this is even more poignant as many of Gluklya’s friends in St. Petersburg have had to leave the city in exile as the attack on Ukraine becomes ever more costly and destructive.

Antigone Update
The final element is not closed on itself but a stage that opens out to the exhibition space. On the stage, eight figures sing in turn in a new version of the classical Greek play Antigone. Keeping the structure of the ancient tragedy, Antigone Update features a chorus spread out among the actual visitors. In this new version, the protagonists sing as ghosts from the past and the chorus speaks from the present. The script has been developed in an experimental collaboration that Gluklya proposed to Matras Platform, an informal group of migrants and travellers from around the world who are living in Amsterdam.

The play follows most of the plot of the original Antigone, though changed in important ways such as the fact that both sisters plot to bury their brother together. As Gluklya explains:

“Antigone and Ismene are doing the act of burial together as opposed to the individual act of the heroic deed and romanticised loneliness of the single hero.”

Another innovation in the update concerns the chorus, which is split into two parts. The twelve dressed sculptures with sewing machine heads stand with the public, bringing the visitors into the action; a second chorus is sometimes present in real life and its script is based on comments and responses from the Matras Platform group to the plot of Antigone. The story concludes with the chorus questioning the meaning of the play but also demanding that it ends not in redemption or reconciliation but in simple, unending tragedy. “All is back, all is back, all is back” they shout in unison at the end, accepting fate and the cycle of events as a way to confront the cruelty of modern propaganda and progress that raise hopes only to crush them again.

Growing Solidarity
Although tragic returns and the social conditions in Bishkek, St. Petersburg or ancient Thebes might seem a long way from the contemporary Dutch social imagination, this exhibition brings them squarely into focus. This is achieved through the intimacy and ambiguity that art can access to create emotion and understanding out of raw material. Gluklya’s works rarely fail to elicit empathy for their subjects and they regularly short-circuit the distance between the old, colonial West and East that media and political analysts still strive hard to maintain. Simply by bringing different locations in dialogue through art already emphasises connections and relations, but the exhibition does more than this. It is not simply a report from elsewhere, but a clear statement of interdependency and the need to share the care that has been limited to
the chosen few. In the multiple disasters looming on the horizon – the climate collapse, extreme social inequality, the threat and actuality of war – there is little sense in defining a here and a there. The realisation that might be at the heart of this exhibition is that forced migration, economic globalisation, western comfort and the abuse of power all walk hand-in-hand, and that mitigating one can only be achieved by reordering the value systems of them all. To understand where this goes, we perhaps need to return to the title of the exhibition. To those who have no time to play appears at first glance to be a gesture of recognition of people who are not able to come to see this exhibition at all; a call to take note and remember them. But what if that is not its only intention? What if the people being addressed are precisely the people in this room; the one writing this text? What if we are the ones with no time to play, the docile subjects of Creon, following painstakingly the laws of apparently secure citizen-consumers in a rigid, careless Amsterdam?

To conclude with some optimism, I would like to quote what Murad writes towards the end of his contribution to the Two Diaries:

“We are like a summary of the marginalised of this world. I am not stating this from an arabesque sensibility or because of depression. I hate the literature of victimhood. Mine is an objective reading of reality… These people are running from the governance of those who cannot tolerate differences and who want freedoms only for themselves and at the expense of their desires. The reason they are here is to be as far as possible from the bigoted herds organised by these regressive governments and their dark worlds. It is not just running away to be safe. Coming here is a struggle and insistence for existence. And I think coming here carries with it the hope to return home one day stronger, having cultivated more freedom for those who are forced to migrate for political reasons. This is why to understand and to be understood is not that difficult. The sharing and solidarity between so many from different geographies and cultures gives one strength. If we, the marginalised – meaning those alienated because of their opinions, beliefs, ethnicity or sexual orientation – stand upright, grow our solidarity and bring our resistances from all over the world together, what a beautiful world this would be!”

The exhibition leaves me with just one last question. How can you and I, dear visitor and reader, join Gluklya, Murad, Samira, Antigone, the May 1st protestors and all the rest to find the long-term solidarity and resistance that will be necessary to become part of that beautiful world? I hope we can find an answer together before it really is too late.

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Werkplaats Molenwijk is een plek voor kunst en cultuur, maar ook een plek waar we graag samenwerkingen aangaan en mensen ontmoeten. Heb je een mooi idee voor een programma, een prangende vraag die je zou willen onderzoeken, of wil je gewoon een keer langs komen om de plek op je in te laten werken, dan kan dat! Laat het ons weten!

Bij Werkplaats Molenwijk willen we graag met nieuwe mensen samenwerken, zij het bewoners of mensen van buiten de buurt. Wil je een idee krijgen van we zoal al gedaan hebben in Molenwijk met onze partners en de buurt en haar bewoners?

Hier vindt je het programma van Workshop Molenwijk

Adres
Werkplaats Molenwijk
Molenaarsweg 3
1035 EJ, Amsterdam

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The Social Practice Workshop at Rijksakademie
Artists are increasingly working outside the framework of the established art world, and searching for a meaningful role within a social context. They work with individuals or groups on projects where the end result is not necessarily physical work, but a critical intervention, a debate or a social exchange. The Social Practice Workshop at the Rijksakademie is created to facilitate artists who work, or want to work, in this field. The workshop also explores how the individuals and communities the artists’ work with can be accommodated in their needs.

Partnership with Framer Framed
Since the Rijksakademie established its Social Practice Workshop in 2021, Framer Framed – as a neighbouring art and project space in Amsterdam East – has been working closely with several affiliated artists to create connections in the local context and beyond. This has included facilitating workshops, ongoing dialogue and developing artists projects. The collaboration is based on shared interests in the social potential of art and of artists working in broader social arenas. Projects have organically developed through an ongoing dialogue between the Social Practice Workshop and Framer Framed, which has enabled both organizations to expand their reach, depth of engagement.

This includes the project by arts and educational collective Homing (psychologist Charlaine Reval and Rijksakademie alum Laura O’Neill), where storytelling events around migration and the pandemic from the elderly Suriname community in Amsterdam first took place at Framer Framed, and later introduced to a wider public at Amsterdam Museum. In addition, the kitchen, originally established by Donghwan Kam at the Rijksakademie as a communal space between artists for a large part of the artists residency, was moved to the social centre BOOST via the Social Practice Workshop for a series of cooking sessions, and later on presented more publicly at Framer Framed.

Another project by Bert Scholten initiated within the Rijksakademie explored the history of baking moulds through a series of workshops and exchanges. The project was developed further together with Framer Framed and reached a wider range of exchanges with local residents via a residency at the Werkplaats Molenwijk, a neighbourhood space in the North of Amsterdam established in 2018 by Framer Framed. Lastly, artist Ratu R. Saraswati developed a series of works in close dialogue with the Social Practice Workshop during her residency at the Rijksakademie, and is currently undertaking a residency at Werkplaats Molenwijk.

Seeing the potential of institutional collaboration and collective forms of knowledge production, Framer Framed and Rijksakademie will continue to co-create exchanges around artistic and educational social practices together with affiliated artists. Future details of the programmes will be announced at a later date.

The activities and programmes of the Social Practice Workshop are developed in collaboration with resident artists from the Rijksakademie and with Framer Framed.

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On 11th December 2022, Disaster Haggyo Presentation will be hosted by Framer Framed, inviting participants to create dialogues around their shared experiences of mutual learning and the collaborative research process.

In this second part of the report, participant Kenneth Geurts reflects on his eight days of Disaster Haggyo in South Korea, following different keywords weaving through time and space. 

Participating in 8 days of Disaster Haggyo

by Kenneth Geurts
December 2022

While Disaster Haggyo’s actual programme started on the 14th of August, it was unexpectedly preceded by an environmental event (in disaster studies they don’t use natural to describe disasters, more on that later). This environmental event occurred in Seoul in early August, after the worst rainfall in about eighty years. On the 8th of August, certain areas of Seoul flooded heavily; most noticeably the Gangnam district (a district of which the wealth and poshness have been worldwide knowledge ever since a certain chart-topping hit in 2012). But aside from the prevalence of eccentric and excessive wealth, the area is located in one of the lowest-lying areas of Seoul, thus very prone to flooding. As the water spread to the streets of Gangnam, images of floating Mercedes, BMWs and Audis spread around the internet. The area has a lot of high rises, and thus the upper classes are relatively safe from the floods down below – aside from their surficial material possessions, that is. Meanwhile, Seoul’s Banjihas – souterrain/half-basement apartments, which account for about five percent of all households in Seoul – were subjected to the floods, leaving many lower-income families in damaged homes or without a home at all. The scenes of the flooding were very reminiscent of Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 Academy Award-winning film Parasite. The striking similarities between the cultural phenomena Parasite and this material disaster was something that three of the speakers, all independently from one another, used to frame the discourse of Disaster on the first day of the Disaster Haggyo. NYU Professor Jacob Remes used this very example to illustrate how fiction shapes our experience and analysis; how we anticipate disasters and how this anticipation shapes our futures, in beneficial and non-beneficial ways.

In this report, I will be reflecting on the eight days of Disaster Haggyo #1. Due to the recurring themes in the Disaster Haggyo programme, I thought it was better to go about this thematically, rather than chronologically, weaving the different talks and sessions of different days together, finding connections and parallels. This Haggyo (meaning learning institution) had a particular focus on communal learning and community, the aim of this report is to translate this knowledge into something less ephemeral, to share the insights created during this Haggyo with a broader audience, as well as to create an archipelago out of the different islands of knowledge created during the Haggyo.

• The Protean Essence of Disaster

• KAIST Professor Scott Knowles, Ksenia Chmutina (Loughborough University) and Kim Fortun (University of California Irvine) all noted that the societal understanding of disasters has to undergo a paradigm shift. Disasters, as noted by them, are not naturally occurring, rather they are a collectivity of intersecting processes and events: social, capital, environmental, cultural, political, economic, physical, and technological, transpiring over varying lengths of time. To understand disaster, we thus need to lengthen our temporal framework. All of these different forces playing out at the same eventually lead to disasters such as floods or war. Disasters are therefore the effects of our actions, or rather in-actions. All the different forces being of importance cause disaster studies to be such an interdisciplinary discourse.

As an Artistic Research student, I tend to focus on different ways of representing research. Thus, I thought it was great for KAIST and Drifting Curriculum to collaborate with Framer Framed to establish an artistic module in the programme by inviting different artists. Artistic Research is often considered as a discipline that is able to overcome the rigid boundaries of academia, as well as seamlessly incorporate elements from different disciplines. These sorts of characteristics are very important to disaster studies according to Fortun, as traditional academia forces research to be as narrow as possible – to single out and individualise problems and cases, thus losing connections in the process. An example of artistic research could be seen in the work of the Korean art collective UNMAKE Lab, whose work revolves around the ethics of AI (artificial intelligence). UNMAKE Lab aims to think critically of data and AI in a data-driven society, working as both a curatorial and artistic collective, engaging with this goal through different means. Their video work The Sisyphean Variables, is a surrealist 3d rendered artwork, based on the ecological extraction and draught of a certain construction site in Korea, criticising the subservient role of ecological landscapes in contemporary society through a digitally rendered retelling of a classic myth. In their curatorial work, they have worked on The Forking Room, a yearly exhibition on data and AI. Works of past exhibitions included Sjoerd ten Borg’s Streetswipe, a work on the social disaster of gentrification.

Through a tinder-like swiping app, ten Borg’s Streetswipe aims to create a dataset of the gentrified and non-gentrified spaces of Amsterdam. Another work included in The Forking Room was Alexia Achilleos’ Colonial Landscapes, in which the artist used orientalist, colonial photographs of Cyprus, taken by British photographer John Thomson in 1878, to train an AI to produce new photographs based on the dataset it received, resulting in eerily familiar, yet somewhat distinct images of the island of Cyprus. For the Disaster Haggyo programme, UNMAKE Lab organised a ‘Dataset for Retracing’ workshop. where they instructed the participants of the Haggyo to each take twenty images, during their stay on Jeju island, that represented disaster for them. This would then be turned into a collective subversive ‘disaster dataset.’ As the artistic practice UNMAKE Lab revolves around the critique of such datasets, the dataset had the aim to be a meta-critique of itself. Many questions arose from the participants from this assignment; how do we represent disaster? As they did not want to take pictures of actual sites of disaster, but AI would not understand the metaphorical meaning of the ocean as a representation of disaster. Through the assignment itself, Unmake Lab was already able to offer a critical reflection on such datasets and AI. 

Taiwanese artist Chihchung Chang – another artist invited by Framer Framed – deals with similar colonial themes in his works, such as the installation Port of Fata Morgana, of which a fragment was exhibited as part of the Drifting Curriculum exhibition shown in the KAIST. Port of Fata Morgana focuses on the Hongmaogang village, a village whose name translates to Ginger Hair Village, named after the former Dutch colonial rulers of the village. Weaving personal history, colonial history, fact and fiction together, Chihchung explores the different facets of the village changing over time. Such as the declining shipbuilding economy of the village due to globalisation. South Korea shares a similar history with Taiwan in this regard, as Dutch colonial expansion also reached the shores of Jeju Island. Chihchung organised a workshop around this history for the Disaster Haggyo. The Haggyo visited a replica of the De Sperwer, a ship that became shipwrecked near Jeju in 1653. About 35 members of the ship’s crew made it to Jeju Island, where they were captured, and forced to live and work in Korea. A few of these crew members eventually escaped to Japan after living in Korea for 13 years, among them Hendrik Hamel, who would go and describe his experiences in Korea in a series of letters. This case served as a mode to reflect on several acts of colonialism and shared histories. 

South Korean artist Yunjoo Kwak’s video work Only our Ports are Loyal to Us takes of the form of an essay that explores the colonial connection between Surabaya and Amsterdam through archival material. Through a constellation of floor plans of warehouses, maps and paintings of Dutch yachts sailing the high seas, she reflects on this (forced) relationship between the two. Her work was exhibited at KAIST as part of the Disaster Haggyo programme, but she also hosted a filmmaking workshop on Jeju at the Dong-jjok Song-dang Nature Park, a yet-to-open thematic park that revolved around stones. Her workshop revolved around the histories that stones carry with them. At the same park, master stonemason Hwanjin Cho, organised a workshop in which the participants of the Haggyo were instructed to build a Bangsatap – a traditional tower made by stacking stones, an important aspect in the construction of the Bangsatap is the aspect of a community. Due to the weight of the stones, working together is essential to be able to construct a Bangsatap. 

2. Capital & Community

3. So far, I’ve mostly tried to establish the multi-layered polyvalent nature of disasters by highlighting different aspects of the programme, while simultaneously focussing on the threads that connect these aspects to emphasize the multi-faceted nature of disaster discourse. The Haggyo mostly revolved around two case studies of disasters from (recent) Korean history: the 4.16 Sewol Ferry disaster and the 4.3 Jeju uprising. Before going into depth on those, however, I first have to touch upon two crucial concepts – crucial regarding these events, as well as crucial for disaster discourse in general. These concepts are community and capital.

Remes defined disasters as ‘suffering out of place,’ while Chmutina defined them as exposing everyday harm. Going back to the Parasite-like floods in Seoul in August this year, these people were already in a bad place – it is obviously predominantly lower working-class people that live in the Banjihas. Their suffering was already occurring, but their suffering is part of the hegemonic capital system as Remes pointed out. The fact that these people are living in basement apartments is not a disaster in and of itself within capitalism, as this mode of living is integrated within the capitalist system. I would even dare to say that it is essential to the capitalist system that there are people that live like that, as the system thrives on inequality. As Chmutina pointed out, the greater the inequality, the greater the disaster. Through this capitalist hegemonic system, it is inherent that some communities are more disaster-prone than others.

Regarding community, journalist Colleen Hagerty outlined the concept of parachute journalism in her talk. In which big news stations flock to a disaster scene to report on a breaking news item. These items often lack the context of the area and scene, and as soon as the item isn’t hot anymore, these big news companies stop reporting on the item, despite the fact that the follow-up news stories are often very important to those affected by the initial disaster. Research has pointed out that after disasters, people tend to flock to local news stations for information, as they crave these hyper-local communities. However, due to neoliberal policies, funding for local news stations has been cut pretty much worldwide, and thus an important pillar for disaster-struck communities is disappearing. This gradual disappearance of local news stations thus results in a sort of perverse disaster fetishism, as the big news stations are only there for their own benefit; to report on a popular news item and subsequently gain more popularity themselves.

As Knowles pointed out in his plenary lecture in the Disaster Haggyo programme, it is important that researchers work together with communities. Those affected by disasters should not be the subject of research, the events surrounding these people should be the subject of research. These communities affected by disasters have to be involved in the research, as they are the ones that record and archive material important for research. Director of the Center for Anthropocene Studies Buhm Soon Park draws on Spivak and Foucault to talk about the representation of these communities. And that one should not speak for these communities, but that one should rather let them speak, or create the opportunity for them to speak. Associate professor at KAIST, Seung-Sup Kim, expanded on this notion by stating that hegemonic voices are often deemed rational, while subaltern – those that tend to be affected by disasters – voices are deemed overly emotional, whining and incompetent, and thus remain unheard.

Architect Hyun Sik Min, in charge of the 4.16 Sewol life and peace park, repeated the mantra of the 2000 Venice Biennale in his talk: ‘less aesthetics, more ethics.’ For him, community should be the focus of a memorial site; ideologies of architecture should take a step into the background, and the primary focus of architecture should be to create a place where people can interact with one another: architecture and art should be community focussed. This mantra of community focussed art was also echoed by Asia Komarova of the Travelling Farm Museum of Forgotten Skills in her conversation with Colin Sterling on new methods of museology. The Travelling Farm Museum of Forgotten Skills perceives art as a way to create communities and share knowledge and experiences; as a way of commoning. These values were once again echoed by the students of the Disaster Haggyo team during our closing session at the 4.16 center in Jeju. In which they reflected on what they thought were the key concepts of Disaster Haggyo; Ethics of Care, and Haraway’s Thinking.

4.16 & 4.3
There is a lot to cover on the topic of the 4.16 Sewol Ferry Disaster. A disaster in which a ferry heading to Jeju from Incheon sank on the 16th of April 2014. Resulting in 304 people losing their lives, 250 of which were students at the Danwon High School in Ansan. When the ferry started sinking, the crew of the MV Sewol told everyone to stay put in their cabin and put on their life jackets. Rescue operations started very late: about 40 minutes after the ship started sinking. By the time the first rescue vessels arrived, the crew and the captain jumped overboard with about 150 other disobedient passengers, leaving the other passengers behind in their cabins. Even though I would love to cover all of the aspects and stories surrounding this disaster, this would result in a very extensive report. Thus, some narratives have to be necessarily left out. This unfortunately means excluding heartfelt anecdotes and memories from the parents, technical information on the disaster, histories leading up to the 4.16 Sewol disaster, and several impressive memorial sites and monuments. A couple of parents from bereaved families were part of the programme, which definitely gave depth to Haggyo. Often, they could relate academic concepts to their own experiences while teaching all of us more about the Sewol Ferry disaster. One of the most touching moments of the Disaster Haggyo was when we visited the High School that the students went to in Ansan. Or at least, the rebuilt high school, as the spontaneous memorial site that erupted after the disaster was removed by government officials after two years, as they needed to use the space as an actual high school again. Multiple forces were at work here, forces of capital – as the government did not want to spend the budget on building a new school, but also hegemony-subaltern power dynamics, as the government was implicated in this disaster. After trying to fight this decision, the bereaved families eventually lost the case, and thus the 10 Memorial classrooms that served as memorial sites were evicted. In response to this, the parents rebuild classrooms exactly as they were: brick by brick, table by table. This testament to remembrance shows the perseverance of these parents to remember.

An interesting statement that architect Hyun Sik Min made during his talk, is that the same cause was at the root of both 9/11 and Sewol: capital. The reason that the Sewol ferry sank is capital, as the ferry was carrying three times its weight in cargo to generate more profit. Some of the cargo the ferry was carrying were steel beams for a military naval base in Jeju. Different societal forces at work eventually caused the force of capital to result in a disaster. Just like the floods in Gangnam, the same up-down dynamic is in place, as the first class of the ferry was located on the top of the boat, while the second class was located down below. As mentioned earlier, disasters tend to strike and impact certain communities more, and in this case, again, the victims of this disaster came from working-class families. The reason why it took the families many years to impact society after the disaster happened, the reason it took so long to generate societal change, is because of their working-class background. A slow process was eventually made due to the dedication of these parents, but their social class made it hard to influence anything.

One of the most difficult themes that the parents kept bringing up, was the topic of moving on, when do we forget? What does it mean to ‘never forget?’ Several answers came up, but a running thread was to never forget, to keep remembering. As they mentioned that the disaster should be remembered; because of its importance, as well as to make sure it doesn’t happen again. In Cultural Heritage studies, a discourse closely related to disaster studies, it is often implied that our understanding of the present is influenced by the past (and vice versa). Therefore, if we remember the event, the policies in place to make sure it never happens again should remain in place.

On this question of moving on, some of the parents emphasised that moving on does not mean forgetting. Even though the two might seem closely related. They were hesitant at first to move on, as they did not want their memory of their child to grow weaker. However, eventually, they found out that moving on and remembering can coexist; more so, moving on can even be beneficial for the remembering process. They mentioned that trauma can be a source of community – that this disaster gave them a new identity and community as ‘Sewol Ferry activists’ as they fought and protested for to hold the people in power responsible as well as new regulations. This communal feeling of support and solidarity gave them the power to move on and heal. These processes of growth and regrowth helped them heal from their trauma. As wounded healers, they were able to reciprocally help one another heal – without forgetting – by working together as a community. Another source of regrowth for them is the soon-to-be realised 4.16 Life and Safety Park in Ansan, which they were able to materialise through perseverance and dedication. As they said: ‘ordinary parents are now changing the landscape of the town of Ansan.’ It is thus communal power that eventually created a space for these subaltern voices.

The second case study of the Haggyo was the 4.3 Jeju uprising. An uprising with many implicated actors, and intertwined histories. These histories together are often referred to as the 4.3 Jeju uprising, which refers to the date that the disaster began, the event, however, unfolded over several years. This history has a prologue to the events occurring on April 3, 1948, which are the protests of the election in South Korea in 1948, as the residents of Jeju feared that this election would divide Korea into two parts. Protesting these elections, tensions on the island rose, eventually leading to an attack by a guerrilla faction of the Workers Party of South Korea on April 3, 1948, in which they attacked police stations and establishments of the Northwest Youth League, a paramilitary right-wing extremist group. An uprising born out of despair, to protect the autonomy and ideology of the island. Tensions on the island remained high, as the uprisings and protests were cracked down upon by the Korean government, backed by the United States. When the Korean War broke out more than two years later, the South Korean military ordered to round up of every suspected leftist in the country, of which Jeju had a high concentration. This led to a systematic killing of civilians by the government, resulting in more than 30.000 people (more than 10% of the population of Jeju) losing their lives. 

We visited the 4.3 peace park for the Haggyo programme, a park of incredible scale with different memorial sites, ranging from graves to abstract sculptures, commemorating the individuals and families that fell victim to this act of state violence. Before the Haggyo, participants were expected to read Sun-i Samch’on (1978) by Korean writer Ki-young Hyun, a book exploring the family traumas of the Jeju uprising, and how deep the contemporary implications and effects go. Sun-i Samch’on delves into the buried past of the island, something that shouldn’t be understood only metaphorically, but also materially. Underneath the airport of Jeju, which is part of the world’s most frequently flown airline route (Gimpo – Jeju) still lay the remains of some victims of the 4.3 disaster. This, and many, many other histories and artifacts were collected in the 4.3 memory center, located near the park.

In this memory center, and during our guided tour, it was also mentioned that 4.3 should be understood as constitutive of contemporary South Korea. As the 4.3 uprising was the first act of resistance against the totalitarian government which ruled South Korea until the late 1980s. An important event in this history is the switch of power from the Japanese occupiers to the US government. The residents of Jeju were very active in the Korean Independence Movement, a movement fighting against the Japanese Imperial forces during the Second World War. After the liberation from the Japanese, the US took control of the island and reinstalled the very same Japanese officials that terrorised, tortured and killed the people of Jeju during the Japanese occupation. While these days South Korea is a democratic nation, these histories are still relevant due to the very close (military) ties between the US and South Korea. The 4.3 event represents a different side of disaster, while 4.16 was indirect state violence due to capital forces, corruption and incompetence, 4.3 was a very direct act of violence by the state against its own people, just because they were alleged communists. And sadly enough, these sorts of actions were in the end effective at establishing global capitalist hegemony.

One of the monuments in the 4.3 peace park is a rice pot. In the guided tour that we got, our guide explained that due to the importance of food, and communal eating in Korean culture, rice should be seen as a symbol of community.  There are also several sayings that revolve around rice in Korean culture; if you ask someone ‘are you good?’ this could be translated as ‘are you eating rice?’ as well as the saying ‘you don’t have anything, but you are eating rice.’ Here again, the importance of community is once again emphasised. Community is especially relevant in the case of 4.3, as the uprising was such a rapture through the community of the island. Every single district had victims, and thus the entire island was affected.

While our guide was explaining the importance of rice in Korean culture, the sun hit its highest point as the clock struck noon. On an already hot and humid day, the conditions got uncomfortably hot. Continuing our tour, we were actively looking for a place in the shadows to stand in, to hear about the monument located in the core of the park. We were told that the water, which is part of the monument, doesn’t run anymore, and is only turned on for special occasions. It was here that the disaster of climate change was slowly deploying itself, influencing the memorial site of another event, showing that remembering and disaster can occur at the same time, as disasters are events that slowly develop and transpire over time.

Read more about the program & the lecturers here.

Read the first report on the 2022 Disaster Haggyo here.

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Op het vlak van educatie gebeurt er veel bij Framer Framed. Zo ontvangen we geregeld scholen met hun leerlingen bij ons op locatie voor buitenschoolse programma’s op maat, passend bij de thematiek die gepresenteerd wordt in onze tentoonstellingen. Vanaf januari 2023 starten wij ook met structurele binnenschoolse lessen binnen het meerjarige project Zelf gemaakt!, in samenwerking met de OBA en Kolom Praktijkcollege Noord.

Gedurende twee jaar zullen een kunstdocent van Framer Framed en een kunstdocent van de OBA in duo wekelijks binnenschoolse cultuurlessen geven op het Kolom Praktijkcollege in de Molenwijk. De kunstdocenten maken lesprogramma’s op maat die passen bij de interesses van jongeren. Inhoudelijke concepten uit de leefwereld van de leerlingen worden bevraagd om daar vervolgens een eigen creatieve invulling aan te geven. Leerlingen worden aangemoedigd nieuwsgierig te zijn, een onderzoekende houding te ontwikkelen en te ervaren hoe zij zelf tot creatieve oplossingen kunnen komen. Ze worden gestimuleerd kritisch te zijn over ‘het bestaande’ en daar eigen ideeën over te vormen. Onder begeleiding van de vaste kunstdocenten, maken ze eigen werken die worden gepresenteerd aan medeleerlingen, leerkrachten, ouders en de wijk.

Met het project Zelf gemaakt! willen wij eigentijdse cultuureducatie ontwikkelen voor leerlingen van het praktijkonderwijs om het artistiek-creatief vermogen te vergroten zodat zij met zelfvertrouwen en gevoel van eigenaarschap uitdagende situaties aan kunnen gaan. Hoewel de toegankelijkheid van de media tot grote onafhankelijkheid leidt, ervaren veel jonge mensen steeds minder mogelijkheid om invloed uit te oefenen. Met wekelijkse lessen ondersteunen we de leerlingen in hun zoektocht naar identiteit en weerbaarheid. Hedendaagse kunstonderwijs en het leren gebruikmaken van het eigen creatieve vermogen kan daar een belangrijke bijdrage aan leveren.

Dankzij subsidie van het Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie wordt met het project vervolg gegeven aan de samenwerking tussen Framer Framed, de OBA en Kolom Praktijkcollege Noord die gestart is in de context van de pilot cultuurcoach in 2021/2022. Vanuit een gedeelde bevlogenheid en verantwoordelijkheid willen wij juist de kinderen en jongeren in de Molenwijk cultuureducatie blijven aanbieden en kunst en cultuur toegankelijk maken voor wie dat niet vanzelfsprekend is. Voor hen is het belangrijk dat zij zelfvertrouwen ontwikkelen, een volwaardig zelfbeeld vormen, voelen dat ze ertoe doen in de samenleving, en ervaren dat zíj creatieve producten kunnen maken in een artistiek proces. Wij willen alternatieve manieren meegeven om te leren over wie je bent, wat je wilt, hoe je je verhoudt tot je naasten en de wereld, en hoe je je creatief kunt uiten. Namelijk door te doen en te ervaren.

Leer meer over Framer Framed educatie!

 Zelf gemaakt! wordt mede mogelijk gemaakt door Fonds voor Cultuur Participatie, Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap, Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, de Alliantie en Gemeente Amsterdam.

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Since November 2022, Framer Framed and the Jan van Eyck Academie teamed up with the aim of providing an artist coming from abroad an enriched residency experience. Engaging in the programme of Framer Framed, a platform for contemporary art, visual culture, and critical theory & practice based in Amsterdam, the selected Jan van Eyck participant will have the opportunity to actively work with and present at Framer Framed. The emphasis will be on interconnection, local-to-local exchange, sharing experiences and resources between communities in the Netherlands and in the home country of the artist. During the 11-month residency at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, an interdisciplinary and discursive programme in various places and in hybrid settings will be organised.

Photo of artist Yornel Martinez Elias and friends in Havana, Cuba in the context of his project ‘Jardín imaginario’ Working progress (2019)

We are pleased to announce that artist Yornel Martinez Elias (Cuba) will be the first Jan van Eyck participant who will, next to his residency at the Jan van Eyck Academie, join the Framer Framed programme. 

Yornel Martinez Elias (1981, Cuba) works with various media ranging from drawing, painting, installations, objects, calligrams and interventions in public spaces. He aims to generate poetic transformations by blurring boundaries between different mediums, and exploring new ways and forms of display and exhibition. Parallel to his personal projects, he is co-author and founder together with the poet Omar Pérez of the alternative publication project P-350 and is the founder of Ediciones Asterisk, a self-managed publishing label.

We warmly welcome Yornel Martinez Elias for his residency at the Jan van Eyck Academie and look forward to further strengthening talent development, establishing meaningful connections, and promoting a multidisciplinary and intersectoral approach towards creative practices through our collaboration. Future details of the programme will be announced at a later date.

ABOUT 

The Jan van Eyck Academie is a multi-disciplinary Post-Academy. The academy offers residencies to artists, designers — ranging from graphic, fashion, to food and social design — , writers, curators and architects from all over the globe. Every participant is provided with the time, space and expertise needed to develop their artistic practice in depth. The Jan van Eyck Academie is a place for research and experimentation, as well as a place for (public) debate and cross fertilisation. Self-development is tied in with collaboration and exchange.

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A new iteration of the project Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC): The Law on Trial opens on the 18th of November 2022 in Seoul, South Korea. The exhibition will be on show until the 1st of January at Oil Tank Culture Park.

When the law is unjust, we must put the law on trial
This is the central thesis of the exhibition The Law on Trial, which introduces the project Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC) initially commissioned by Framer Framed in 2021. This iteration by academic, writer, lawyer and activist Radha D’Souza and artist Jonas Staal at the Oil Tank Culture Park, Seoul is an immersive installation consisting of towers of oil barrels and images of animals that have been made extinct from the colonial period to the present, D’Souza and Staal present a legal framework in the form of The Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act to prosecute climate crimes committed by states and corporations alike.

The CICC is based on D’Souza’s book What’s Wrong With Rights? (2018), with the aim to prosecute climate crimes committed by states and corporations, not only in the past and present, but also in the future. The first edition of the CICC took place between 25 September 2021 and 13 February 2022 at Framer Framed in Amsterdam, with public hearings in which the Dutch State and transnational corporations registered in the Netherlands, such as Unilever, ING and Airbus, were tried for committing climate crimes. Prosecutors and witnesses provided evidence of their wrongdoing. The public acted as jury and were tasked with passing a verdict based on The Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act: the legal foundation of the CICC, which is central to the exhibition The Law on Trial in Seoul.

The Law on Trial (2022) – the Oil Tank Culture Park, Seoul

You can learn more about the CICC at Framer Framed here. All hearings that took place at Framer Framed have been recorded and can be viewed here.

The first waves of mass extinctions amongst animals and plant life as well as the human communities and cultures that thrived with them, manifested first during the colonial period. Colonialism turned living worlds into property, into commodities, and was backed by the law in doing so. In this light, the climate crisis is a colonial crisis, that has been ongoing for the past 500 years – aided and abetted by dominant legal systems and imaginaries. The images of animals made extinct that are central to the exhibition The Law on Trial, are evidence of that long history of climate criminality that continues to define our present and the possibility of liveable futures, but their presence is also a call to recognise them not as products or commodities, but as non-human ancestors, comrades even, with whom we share a common struggle to defend living worlds for all.

Situating The Law on Trial in the Oil Tank Culture Park, a former oil depot, brings D’Souza and Staal’s work to the site of the crime: fossil capitalism, and the fossil elites that have benefited from it. Building their installation from the remnants of the fossil industry that created the tank, such as defunct oil barrels, proposes to build on the ruins of extractive systems a new proposition: The Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act — a new legal imaginary that centers on intergenerationality, interdependency and regeneration across the human and non-human world; — a vision not of the law, but of justice, in which humans, animals and plants gather as comrades to regenerate the world anew.

Opening
November 18, 2022
Conversation between Radha D’Souza and Listen to the City at 16:30-17:15

Location
Oil Tank Culture Park
T4, 87 Jeungsan-ro, Mapo-gu
Seoul

About

Drifting Curriculum (ARKO International Joint Fund, 2021-2022 Korea-Netherlands International Exchange Program),
in partnership with Framer Framed, Amsterdam, with support from the Arts Council Korea, DutchCulture, Embassy of the Netherlands

Project team
Radha D’Souza and Jonas Staal (artists); Juhyun Cho (curator); Jiyoung Kim (exhibition and program coordinator); Annie Park (project coordinator); Seoyoung Jeon (coordination in the communication), Nadine Gouders (production coordination); Paul Kuipers (architect); Dinara Vasilevskaia and Hayoung Lim (graphic design); HyunJun Kim (installation construction); and more!

Radha D’Souza is a Professor of International Law, Development and Conflict Studies at the University of Westminster (UK). D’Souza works as a writer, critic and commentator. She is a social justice activist and worked with labour movements and democratic rights movements in her home country of India as an organiser and activist lawyer. 

Jonas Staal is a Dutch visual artist whose work explores the relationship between art, propaganda and democracy. His work manifests itself internationally in the form of interventions in public space, exhibitions, lectures and publications. Staal completed his PhD research on contemporary propaganda art at Leiden University, the Netherlands. His most recent book is Propaganda Art in the 21st Century (The MIT Press, 2019).

Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC) is a collaboration between Indian academic, writer, lawyer and activist Radha D’Souza and Dutch artist Jonas Staal commissioned by Framer Framed.

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Eve Oliver, November 2022

The systems and structures which exist in this era of neoliberal capitalism facilitate the exclusion of minorities who do not fit neatly into the box of whiteness, able-bodiedness and masculinity. Within this reality, the intersection between heterosexuality and able-bodiedness solidifies as people who deviate from these categories mutually critique the celebration of normalcy. This repeated intersection has determined the important collaboration of two previously disparate studies, queer theory and disability theory, which has been coined crip theory by Rob McRuer.^[1] To contextualise crip theory, we begin with the foundations of queer theory, which, at its core, believes that heterosexuality, in the past, has masqueraded as the natural order of things, ascribing to it a non-identity whereby anything deviating from it was hyper-visible, jarring and abnormal. In the same way, McRuer cites that crip theory questions the natural order of things, and able-bodiedness, even more than heterosexuality, is still considered compulsory and has been naturalised.  He believes that “compulsory able-bodiedness” which produces (dis)ability, is interwoven with the system of compulsory heterosexuality, which produces queerness. This intersection of naturalisation has reinforced dominant ideologies of gender, race, sexuality and ablebodied-ness, and all are contingent on one another.  To challenge this is to be an activist, and we see art as an effective means of disparaging the dominant paradigms which determine which people are treated justly in the world.

With crip theory expanding and dominating many areas of cultural analysis and art, Framer Framed’s interest in this area has grown simultaneously. Aligning with its core values, we believe that diversity produces authenticity in creative settings. This is why we are aiming to improve access and, in turn, inclusivity to all our events and workforce. On that note, activism must start with representation – representation of diverse identities within our workforce, our collaborators, our public programme, and our projects. Only with a multi-perspectival approach can our rhetoric begin to imitate and include the variety of identities which characterise the world at large, and we can begin to build accessibility into our institutional DNA. We can do this by collaborating with valuable stakeholders, such as members from disability activism groups; trialling multi-sensorial approaches to interpretation; practising representative hiring schemes; taking training on access; and, being open to relearning the mistakes of the past.

With this belief in collectivity comes the impetus for our art space to be hospitable physically and emotionally for all people who visit and collaborate with us. It falls on the shoulders of all members of our community to contribute to access intimacy. We learned about the term “access intimacy” from activist and writer Mia Mingus, who defines it as the missing link to what creates authentic, compassionate access support.^[2] She says it is an explicable feeling of solidarity and emotional support, where a (dis)abled person’s body feels cared for and their access needs are understood. It can take time for such intimacy to be achieved and it is usually a rare connection between two people. Although the concept of access intimacy was written in relation to interpersonal relationships, its premise is something we can apply to our daily working styles. Thinking beyond our lived experience is imperative to empathy, and we see this as a defining characteristic of access intimacy. If we incorporate peripheral thinking into our workplace behaviours and policies, remnants of access intimacy will manifest for visitors and members of our spaces. In this way, the concept is not exclusive to human relationships, but it can also be used to create a feeling of intimacy and care within a physical space. Therefore, we aim to create a space which is open to supporting and listening to diverse needs, and in doing so challenges neoliberal capitalism which sees interdependence as something to avoid. We hope that art spaces, including our own, can respond to this area of thought and join crip theorists in our joint journey towards a more accessible world and future.

Keep a look out for our next instalment of Notes on access in the next few months, as we write about the steps we are taking to improve access, and in turn, diversity, in our community.

^[1] McRuer, Robert. Crip Theory : Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. New York: New York University Press, 2006.

^[2] https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/access-intimacy-the-missing-link/ [Accessed 29th August 2022].

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ABOUT

Two Diaries: Gluklya & Murad (2022) is the story of an unexpected encounter. A migrant artist (Gluklya) meets a migrant writer (Murad) in a Dutch asylum centre, a former prison on the edge of Amsterdam. Together, they come to understand what migration means, what language allows and how art in its different forms can serve as a cry of anger and a path to self-knowledge and peace. Two Diaries: Gluklya & Murad is not only about two individuals lives but also about how art shapes and supports people and carries them through their most difficult times.

The book is an important contribution to migrant art and literature and a valuable and intimate picture of western Europe from the other side of the bureaucratic divide between citizens and subjects.

Gluklya (Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya) is a visual and performance artist living and working in Amsterdam.
Murad Zorava is a Kurdish activist and poet currently living in Europe.

Pages: 240
Price: € 25
ISBN 9783753302867
Publisher: Walther & Franz König
Designer: Bardhi Haliti
Editors: Charles Esche & Ashley Maum
Producers: Framer Framed & Van Abbemuseum

The publication is available for purchase at Framer Framed or online.

Two Diaries, Book cover

The exhibition To those who have no time to play opened on the 13th of October and can be visited until the 22nd of January 2023 at Framer Framed.

Two Diaries: Gluklya & Murad has been made possible through support from Mondriaan Fonds; Prinsbernhard Cultuur Fonds; AFK; Ministerie van OCW; Blue Square Gallery; and Akinci Gallery.

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Amsterdam Oost heeft er de afgelopen maand twee kunstwerken in de openbare ruimte bij gekregen. Kunstenaar Monika Dahlberg maakte in opdracht van Framer Framed twee sculpturen die een permanente plek hebben gekregen bij de ingang van het gebouw. De beelden Matumini (Hoop) en Uhuru (Vrijheid) zijn onderdeel van Dahlbergs langlopende kunstproject Gatekeepers.

Wietse Schmidt
29 september 2022

De Oranje-Vrijstaatkade loopt langzaam vol met nieuwsgierigen en genodigden. De officiële onthulling van de twee beelden wordt gedaan door wethouder Kunst en Cultuur Touria Meliani en portefeuillehouder kunst en cultuur Jan-Bert Vroege van stadsdeel Oost. Ze kijken toe hoe een kinderoptocht met fanfare van het collectief Pretvormer trommelend de kade opkomt. Vroege roemt even daarna de werkwijze van Framer Framed als verbinder in de buurt. Meliani kan dit volmondig beamen. “Framer Framed maakt scherpe tentoonstellingen, maar is tegelijkertijd heel toegankelijk.”

Na de onthulling kijkt Dahlberg trots toe als de fanfare de aandacht met luid getrompetter weer naar zich toetrekt. De kinderen zijn opgetogen en dansen er lustig op los. “Kijk wat een vrolijkheid”, glundert de kunstenaar. “Ik wilde heel graag deze kinderen erbij hebben. Het gaat er mij om de mensen uit de buurt bij mijn kunst te betrekken. Ik meen dat je kunst extra gaat koesteren als je zelf bij de onthulling aanwezig bent geweest. Kinderen zijn de nieuwe generatie en ik denk dat zij later zeker zullen denken: wij waren hier ook bij!”

De kunst van Dahlberg past goed bij de visie van Framer Framed over de functie van kunst in de buurt. “Ik had al wat langer contact met co-directeur Josien Pieterse en we wilden graag een keer samenwerken. We wisten alleen nog niet zo goed in welke vorm. Totdat curator Zippora Elders haar vroeg of Framer Framed aan het project Constant 101 wilde meewerken. Dit samenwerkingsproject tussen diverse musea en culturele instellingen viert het feit dat Constant 101 jaar geleden is geboren. Josien vroeg of ik voor dit project werk wilde maken.”

Dahlberg is zich vervolgens in Constant gaan verdiepen en liet zich inspireren door zijn Manifesto uit 1948. Ze zag hierin veel overeenkomsten met haar eigen kunst. Constant verlegt in het manifest het accent van de individuele kunstenaar naar de collectieve creatie. Hij pleitte voor de vernietiging van maatschappelijke structuren en culturele conventies om de massa te bevrijden van de heersende bovenlaag. De kunst zou uit zijn isolement worden gehaald en zo zou er een democratisering van de kunsten ontstaan.

“Ik bewerk Afrikaanse sculpturen en reflecteer daarmee op de vooroordelen over deze beelden”, legt Dahlberg uit. “De Afrikaanse beelden zijn veranderd door het kolonialisme en de westerse gedachte over hoe de beelden eruit moeten zien. Ze worden nog wel met de hand gemaakt, maar naar het beeld van het westen. Ze worden geschapen naar de gedachten die de mensen ervan hebben. Constant zei ook al: wij kijken naar de Afrikaanse sculpturen alsof het outsider art is. Ik speel met dit gegeven. Met een knipoog, maar tegelijkertijd met een serieuze ondertoon.”

De beelden moeten voor Dahlberg esthetisch mooi zijn, maar brengen zeker ook een boodschap over. “Ik zoek, net als Constant, de verbinding met mensen en voel mezelf een soort gatekeeper. Ik ben geboren in Kenia en op mijn derde naar Nederland gekomen. Ik voel me hier thuis en draag westerse kleding. Toch blijf ik van binnen en buiten Afrikaans. Ik fungeer als poort tussen Kenia en hier, een schakel ook tussen heden en verleden. Ik transformeer de beelden, haal ze uit hun context en geef ze een nieuw leven. Ik geef ze terug aan de maatschappij en recycle hiermee het gedachtegoed.”

De beelden die Dahlberg voor het project Gatekeepers bewerkt, krijgt ze geschonken van mensen. “Ik repareer de beelden en voeg dingen toe. Matumini had een gat in zijn hand en ik heb daar een kwast in gestopt. Het maakt hem sterker, alsof hij een soort zwaard in handen heeft. Ik bewerk en beschilder de sculpturen, waardoor ze herboren worden. Vaak weet ik nog niet precies wat ik met ze wil, maar soms valt een beeld plotseling op zijn plek. Ik draag het sculptuur over aan de ander en dan pas krijgt het zijn nieuwe naam.”

Voor Framer Framed wilde Dahlberg specifiek twee beelden. De man Matumini staat voor hoop en de vrouw Uhuru voor vrijheid. “Een vrouw kan pas in vrede leven als ze echt vrij is”, meent Dahlberg. “Vrij in de breedste zin van het woord en dus ook van het feminisme. Mannen en vrouwen hoeven niet hetzelfde te zijn of te doen, maar ze moeten wel gelijkwaardig zijn. We moeten alles met elkaar samen doen. Dan is de vrouw echt vrij en voor de man heb ik hoop dat deze situatie ook echt ontstaat.”

Na de drukte van de onthulling blijven Uhuru en Matumini samen achter. Ze hebben elkaar gevonden en kijken vredig uit over het kabbelende water. Dahlberg knikt tevreden. “Ik wilde de beelden graag buiten neerzetten. Daar waar de mensen langslopen en de spelende kinderen rondhuppelen. Ooit zullen deze kinderen ouder worden en zich deze beelden blijven herinneren. Hier op deze mooie plek.

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In November 2022, Disaster Haggyo Hybrid Presentation will be hosted by Framer Framed, inviting participants to create dialogues around their shared experiences of mutual learning and the collaborative research process.

About Disaster Haggyo

Joined by artists, researchers and students from diverse backgrounds, the 2022 Disaster Haggyo summer school took place on the KAIST campus, with a multi-day trip to Jeju Island and a day trip to Ansan, South Korea from August 14-21. In November 2022, Disaster Haggyo Hybrid Presentation will take place at Framer Framed in Amsterdam, providing a space for participants to create dialogues around their shared experiences of the mutual learning and collaborative research process.

The artistic workshops of Disaster Haggyo are each based on long-term artistic research to interweave sceneries that traverses geographical boundaries. Disaster Haggyo invites you to join collective thinking and questioning throughout these workshops: What creative techniques can we mobilise to mediate human and non-human perspectives on disasters? How do we unravel and de-construct the narratives of disaster and re-imagine the alternative future scenarios?

Disasters in the Korean Anthropocene

The 2022 Disaster Haggyo started off at the KAIST campus in Daejeon, South Korea. The first few days involved a series of lectures on disaster from various academic perspectives, introducing ‘big questions’ under the umbrella of 1. Disaster Justice, 2. Mutual aid, 3. Anthropocene and 4. Building Memory.  Not only did the lectures provide the preliminary tools and conceptual framework for the participants, but they also produce reciprocal dialogues with local practitioners and members of disaster-impacted communities. For instance, the members of the Sewol Ferry Family Advocates gave lectures to the participants, sharing their knowledge in scientific investigations, tactics of memorialisation as well as their on-going struggles in finding the truth. Prof. Chihyeong Jeon and the students of KAIST shared their year-long journey of doing research on MV Sewol and the challenges they faced as engineering students.

The field research itinerary in Ansan and Jeju was conducted in close collaboration with local practitioners and related organisations. In Ansan, Disaster Haggyo visited multiple sites of memorialisation of the Sewol Ferry disaster, such as  4.16 Memory Classroom, Danwon Highschool Sculpture and 4.16 Memory Exhibition Center, looking into and learning from the modes of care and resilience that overcome the temporality of disaster. In Jeju, Disaster Haggyo focused on the sites of the 4.3 Jeju Uprising, as well as the contemporary environmental struggles on the island that are inextricably intertwined with the state violence; 4.3 Peace Park, Gangjeong Village, Gotjawal Forests, the coastlines and oceans surrounding Jeju, were sites of education that link the sceneries of past and distant planetary future.

Throughout the process, the participants were able to perform their own research using both scientific and artistic methods. They actively engaged in more profound questions concerning the act of ‘researching disaster’. What are the ethical duties of disaster researchers towards the people with whom they work: in the academy, in the studio, in spaces where violence has and is taking place? What is gained and what is lost as we try to work very locally and contextually, while also thinking hard about the planetary process of the Anthropocene?*

Read more about the program & the lecturers here

Artistic Workshops

1. In Disaster Haggyo, art is not a subservient discipline, but rather plays a significant role in drawing participants to interdisciplinary learning and experiments. The participating artists of the 2022 Disaster Haggyo were brought together trans-locally, each embodying different geographical, historical and cultural standpoints through their practices. They contributed with creative endeavors, wherein participants could observe as well as inspire varied ways of research tactics and mediums, encompassing natural objects and archival documentation to speculative narratives and cutting-edge technologies.
3. Prior to the workshops, a mini-exhibition or a ‘learning station’ was installed at the N4 building of KAIST School of Humanities and Social Sciences. It consisted of curated artworks from participating artists. They are: Fabricating Mandarin Duck (Chih-Chung Chang, 2020), The Sisyphean Variables (Unmake lab, 2021), Only the Ports Are Loyal to Us (Yunjoo Kwak, 2020) and Treasure Island (Sojung Jun, 2014). The showcased artworks functioned as ‘previews’ or primary learning materials, providing deeper contexts and insights to the workshops that followed after.
5. Below you can find a more detailed introduction to each artistic workshop that took place during the 2022 Disaster Haggyo.

Poetry Workshop by Bo-Seon Shim

Bo-Seon Shim (South Korea) is a poet and sociologist, who has sociological studies, creative non-fiction, and poetry that have been widely published in Korea. He is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Communication and Arts at Yonsei University where he teaches and researches the sociology of the arts and cultural mediation. For Disaster Haggyo, he hosted a collective poetry writing workshop. The workshop has two focus points. Firstly, the participants approach poetry without a mental threshold, making them perceive poetry as too difficult or sophisticated to read and write. By using and combining words from the books or papers available during the workshop, this collective effort will turn poetry writing into a playful game where participants contribute to finishing a piece of poem. Secondly, the participants are encouraged to write about their personal or collective experiences and memories. Writing poetry is a way of re-experiencing and re-collecting people’s memories and feelings, which can challenge the common urge to provide a fresh, critical interpretation of particular events and relationships among society, nature, and human beings.

Methods:
– Form working groups for poetry writings,
– Select words from books, documents, or any written materials available during the workshop (these sources of words can be -provided by organisers or prepared by participants),
– Group members write poems by combining words and phrases,
– Read the finished poems in front of other groups and share and discuss the poems.

Dataset for Retracing by Forking room (Unmake Lab)

Unmake lab (South Korea) is an artistic collective that transforms the paranoia of algorithms into irony, fables, and a bit of humor by misusing the machine’s perception. They investigate the socio-cultural algorithms by overlapping machine learning and dataset extractivism on the nature, space, and history of developmentalism. Their annual project Forking Room — led by Sooyeon Song, Binna Choi, and Minhyung Kang — is set up as a platform for research and prototyping, where they use ‘forking’ as a mode of executing exhibitions, workshops, and various forms of research activities.

The lecture/workshop ‘Dataset for Retracing: Speculative Datasets & Dataset-ings for disasters’ aims to connect ‘dataset’ and ‘disaster’. Dataset is a pile of data for Artificial Intelligence (AI) learning, in other words, there are various datasets to create AI vision that ‘understands’ things. This workshop takes datasets out of the computer science process and makes them artistic archiving. If we make AI learn the idea of disaster, what kind of dataset-ing (the act of creating a dataset) will be possible? And what might they symbolise? How should we name the speculative dataset that is retraced by the most personal memory? In the workshop, the participants are asked to collect images that contain a sense of ecological and social disaster based on their personal feelings and memories. Throughout this process, they critically re-imagine the past through speculative datasets & dataset-ing. 

The Catastrophic Coastlines  by Chih-Chung Chang

Chih-Chung Chang is a Taiwanese artist, who regards the ocean as a worldview diverse from the current terrestrial civilisation of the Anthropocene. He interprets contemporary issues and phenomena in the forms of interconnected waters, currents, and tides. For Disaster Haggyo, he led collective fieldwork alongside the coastlines of Jeju, following a historical narrative of a 17th Dutch explorer on the island.

At the end of July 1653, Hendrick Hamel, after his stay in Batavia (Jakarta, Indonesia) and Taijoan, Formosa (Tainan, Taiwan), continued his journey on VOC (Dutch East-India company)’s ship De Sperwer to Nagasaki, Japan. However, on the 16th of August, a storm sank the ship close to the coastline of an island named Quelpaert. Hamel and a few seamen survived the shipwreck and were later taken by the islanders to their ruler. The island Quelpaert is known as Jeju today, and after publishing his journal of this unexpected journey in 1668. Hendrick Hamel is also considered the “Dutch Marco Polo” to first introduce Joseon Empire in Korean history to the Western world.

On the southwestern coastline of Jeju, the touristic Hamel Ship Exhibition Center was established in commemoration of this history. A real-size copy of De Sperwer is also rebuilt and exhibited there, while an intriguing fact is that Hendrick Hamel’s name remains little known to Dutch society nowadays. Outlying islands are prone to state a special role, as part of the witness of colonisation, occupation, or any form of disaster, however, the distant yet marginal remains become either significant or neglected between the paradigm shifts. In this art session, the participants start with a visit to the Hamel Ship Exhibition Center. From there, by uncovering several associated historical cases inside or beyond Jeju and nearby islands along the western Pacific from a foreigner (Taiwanese)’s point of view, we focus on the reshaping and reimagining of island subjectivity through shared memories and geopolitical catastrophes.

Becoming Stones by Yunjoo Kwak & Hwanjin Cho

Yunjoo Kwak is a South Korean artist and a lecturer at Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. Her interdisciplinary workshop Becoming Stones aims to explore the delineation between life and non-life based on stones through the filmmaking process. Stones are archives that are not of a closed past, but active agents in the present, as well as offering potential future narratives. How can these stones be used as a narrative device to re-tell broader historical and social movements that revolve around the idea of disaster, and to further the futuristic narrative? The filmmaking process involves gathering archives, documents, images and sounds, testimonies, arguments, and memories. Imaginative engagement with that which has been rendered invisible is also fundamental to the visual materialisation of the idea of disaster. The workshop focuses on relationships between discourse and making, and being and becoming, and material and spirit.

Jeju Island was formed by volcanic activity which began about 1.8 million years ago and continued sporadically until about 4-5000 years ago. Halla Mountain, the only mountain in Jeju, is the highest in South Korea at 1947 meters above sea level, and it stands in the centre of the island as a visible testament to Jeju’s volcanic history. Some 360 volcanic cones called ‘Oreum’ arise across the landscape of Jeju. Together with Halla Mountain, they make up Jeju Island: Jeju has risen from the middle of the ocean, a nation of stone and wind.

Participants are encouraged to collect their findings as materials from the series of lectures and field trips offered by Disaster Haggyo to the filmmaking. They then explore the historical, architectural, and aesthetic aspects of stone particularly in relation to the context of 4.3. uprising and will build a ‘Bangsatap’ collectively which will be instructed by the stonemason, master Hwan Jin Cho (Head of Dolbitna School of Art Incorporated).

About Disaster Haggyo

Disaster Haggyo (재난 학교 災難學校; pronounced jae-nan-hag-gyo in Korean) is a disaster studies school sponsored by the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and Arts Council Korea, aimed at accelerating the implementation of cutting-edge disaster research for maximum benefit to communities. It draws social scientists, engineers, and artists together for collaborative research and facilitates deep learning in the ways that disaster history shapes the present vulnerabilities and strengths of a community. Framer Framed partnered with Drifting Curriculum and KAIST Center for Anthropocene Studies to co-curate the artistic workshops of the 2022 Disaster Haggyo summer school.

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Text by: Nicole Katenkari
September 2022

The program of the Teen Art Club was designed with the thought of recreating totally lost safe space, life as we knew it after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine broke out on the 24th of February 2022. Virtual meetings started in mid-March and lasted until early June.

Warm and trustful relationships had already existed within the group. Participants — all eight are 15-17 years old girls in high school — knew each other and me from Kyiv. The majority had recently graduated from the Youth Council — an educational program which I had been curating at Mystetskyi Arsenal. The rest consisted of their invited friends. I viewed these meetings as a source of restoring a sense of normalcy and rebuilding the routine. It was relevant for both parties personally and professionally.

During the initial merely informal conversation, teenagers shared their stories of escape and refuge, the most missed and valued things in the new circumstances, elsewhere far from home in Kyiv. This honest and unexpected sharing unveiled the urgent need to be in a receptive, supportive environment. Eventually, Teen Art Club arose as an opportunity to go through disturbing times together, shift at least an hour per week from the daily war agenda, however, without ignoring it, to the different topics, using art as a tool for thinking and processing.

The group contributed to the Teen Art Club program with the topics that worried them the most in those first scary weeks of the war. These were emotional reactions and priorities, their changes in wartime, the idea of the future questioning its existence and form, cultural identity transformations, intersection and interplay of war and art. Together with colleagues from Framer Framed, particularly with Isabella Giacomelli, an intern of the education team, we tried to give all of these reflections a place in the Teen Art Club program.

Each session had a similar structure. It started with one group participant introducing her favorite artwork, continued with the conversation around the chosen topic, and after presenting archival project(s) and/or highlighting art pieces from the Ukrainian and Dutch contexts followed an explanation of the next assignment. Tasks mainly consisted of thinking routines helping to develop, and conceptualise ideas. For example, in one of the themes, ‘Amulets and Artifacts’, the group was invited to think about and present a personal object with a special meaning attached or created by the story behind it. Teenagers chose, for example, a necklace as a friend’s gift, a grandma’s scarf, a wooden stick that reminds of summer campfires or picking a pair of socks with a famous painting on it as a ritual. Everything happening during the class was aimed toward support of the ideas and maintenance of the creative flow. One of the tasks which we as educators set for ourselves was to provide space for everyone’s opinion, and make it heard and valued. Later, one of the participants pointed out: “Teachers were part of our group. I didn’t view them as a typical school-type teacher…” which indicates the organic nature of our interaction.

Summarising the whole experience, it is fair and sincere to say that discussing art, thinking, and generating ideas — the process — was prior to the concrete results of the program. The initial decision to talk about art, to use it as a medium for processing and reflecting on the current traumatic moment was right. One of the girls wrote: “For me, personally, it (to see and talk about different artworks) was kinda therapeutic as well as inspiring”.

The same applied to me. Overall, my residency at Framer Framed with the Teen Art Club project was a great sublimation tool and relief. While mentally always being in war, it was priceless to be physically present in professional settings, feeling accepted and treated as part of the Framer Framed team. It helped to gain a sense of belonging. Belonging to the field where openness and work with and for the community, freedom of choice and right to be wrong or fail without a judgemental attitude, and creativity encouragement are universal principles in the cultural-educational institution regardless of geographical location. One of the reasons I ‘resided’ at Framer Framed with such a pleasure was knowing that we share common ground despite distant backgrounds

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In collaboration with research and social partners, the multi-year programme focuses on research into how institutions contribute to inequality in the city. The increase in inequality is not seen in the research as an individual problem or a shortcoming of social groups, but as a consequence of institutional processes of exclusion.

Three studies will be carried out that look at the increase in inequality in the city in different areas, and examine whether there are also conceivable strategies that can counteract this. Josien Pieterse and Noa Bawits from Framer Framed are involved in this research.

Consortium partners Amsterdam all-inclusive are besides Framer Framed: UvA, VU, Verwey Jonker Institute, Amsterdam UMC, Ben Sajet Centre, HvA, Pakhuis de Zwijger.

For more information please visit the website of Knowledge Center on Inequality.

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As the digital components of cultural programs become more prominent, cultural organizations are faced with questions usually associated with the publishing industries, ranging from practical obstacles to fundamental issues. How can an artist statement from the catalogue of an exhibition be published on social media and still relate to the spatial experience of the exhibition? How to communicate that these expressions belong to the same cultural program? How to make them stand out in the over-saturated media landscape? How to create event reports and catalogues that fit the hybrid character of the cultural program they contain? Can these publications be more open-ended, multi-voiced, and engaging than traditional ones? Can they reach new audiences while serving existing audiences better?

These are some of the questions that will be explored in the coming 18 months by the Hybrid Publications group of Going Hybrid, which includes Tommaso Campagna (Institute of Network Cultures), Sepp Eckenhaussen (Institute of Network Cultures), Juliette Lizotte (Hackers & Designers), Ashley Maum (Framer Framed), Anna Maria Michael, Ania Molenda, Maria van der Togt (Institute of Network Cultures), and Ebissé Wakjira-Rouw (Framer Framed). Taking the experience of the cultural institution Framer Framed as a starting point, we will do transdisciplinary, practice-based research into hybrid publishing in the arts.

Fortunately, we don’t start from scratch. The promise of new reading experiences is as old as computers and much work in experimental publishing has been done in the arts and culture. A future blog post will present a state-of-the-art assessment of a broad range of relevant practices. The point of departure of this text is the work already being done by the various research partners, complemented by insights from a literature review and interviews with experts. Starting from the crisis of the publishing industry, with a trip into the history of alternative publishing, and an overview of the work of our partners, this text leads to the formulation of concrete research directions for the coming two years.

Stagnation in the Publishing Industry

While printed books remain as popular as ever, developments in soft- and hardware have expanded the horizon of the average reader. On the side of publishers, these developments have been promising as well as challenging. How to make publishing faster, cheaper, and more accessible publications, while keeping the quality at a high level? Publishing novels in print and as ePubs has become the norm, newspapers are published digitally for tablets as well, and e-book and audiobook subscriptions are on the rise.

But these developments have so far failed to live up to the promise of ‘richer’ multimodal reading experiences. The bleak reality is that people are still reading bad scans of poorly designed prints more often than exciting narratives in experimental formats. What’s the last time you saw a moving image in a print book? Fifteen years ago, a state-of-the-art publication would include a CD-ROM with an audio track to accompany the reading. Today, the same book would include a QR code to a Spotify playlist. The medium has changed, but no serious development has taken place. Multi-media and crossover reading got stuck on the level of frivolous extras.

According to David Huijzer, editor-in-chief of INCT.nl, a professional journal for publishers, this failure to live up to the promises of rich reading experiences is largely to do with the structure of the publishing industry. In an interview for this article, he stated: ‘Would it be possible to share content differently? Yes. Should we? Yes. But publishers are hesitant. The industry doesn’t like avant-gardism.’ In Huijzer’s view, this has to do with a lack of an ‘early majority’ public for multi-media products and crossovers. There is simply not enough interest in these products among (paying) readers. Huijzer suspects that these publications are too complex and require too much multi-tasking. Whatever the exact reason is, traditional publishers never bridged the gap to the online media landscape dominated by digital-born publications like blogs, feeds, and (social) platforms such as Substack, authors.me, Manifold, PubPub, and Galatea. By and large, the publishing industry and online media remain separate worlds. As a result, Huijzer observes that ‘it’s not easy to find people who want to experiment, especially in the commercial domain. You won’t be seeing commercial disruptors any time soon.’

The contrast between the inertia of the publishing industry and the experimental cultural publishing field could hardly be bigger. While traditional publishers sit on too much money to move, cultural publishing is usually low-cost, open-source, and aimed at public functions rather than profit. If, in other words, we want to push for new ways of publishing and reading, we have to develop the possibilities ourselves. Let cultural publishing be the crowbar to create space for new reading and interaction formats.

The Cultural Publishing Niche

This is nothing new. Experimental publishing has taken place in subaltern cultural scenes for a long time. In Post-digital Print: The Mutation of Publishing Since 1894 (2012), Alessandro Ludovico has narrated this history of alternative publishing, all the way from Dada experiments to FLOSS Manuals. It is well-known that conceptual artists often take an interest in discursive and publishing practices. Since the rise of the art magazine in the 1960s, and especially the punk zine in the ’70s and ’80s, DIY publishing practices in the arts have proliferated. Today, they form a niche, if not underground, part of the publishing field which fosters experiments with form, content, method, and economic models. At the Piet Zwart Institute (Rotterdam), there is an entire MA program dedicated to Experimental Publishing.

From Print to Ebooks: A Hybrid Publishing Toolkit for the Arts, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2015.

The work of our research group is situated within the tradition of experimental cultural publishing. The Institute of Network Cultures has been involved in contemporary (cultural) publishing experiments for years. From 2013 to 2014, we developed the Hybrid Publishing Toolkit: a workflow for simultaneously publishing books as print-on-demand, PDF, and ePub. This workflow has since been used for the Theory on Demand book series, resulting in 42 hybrid publications – and counting.

Here and Now? Explorations in Urgent Publishing, Amsterdam: Institute of network Cultures, 2019.

From 2018 to 2019, the INC ran the research program Making Public, in which we looked at designing non-linear stand-alone publications, platform2platform content sharing, and automating periodical production processes. The most interesting experiment in this project was probably the publication of the research report, Here and Now? Reflections on Urgent Publishing. In the run-up to the launch of the print publication, the respective chapters were sent to a dedicated mailing list in specially designed emails. This method combined the ancient print book with the good old mailing list and a fresh, highly interactive user experience design into something that felt surprisingly urgent. Miriam Rasch, then coordinator of the research program, remembered that this publication led to a higher rate of responses and interaction with the readership. It’s usually rare to get personal feedback on books because the threshold to send a letter or email to the author or editor of a print book is quite high. But readers of the Urgent Publishing mailing list could simply reply to the email in their inbox chapters with their personal comments.

An impression of a chapter from Urgent Publishing?, pre-published as an email.

The Covid Pressure Cooker

Digitization of cultural programs was accelerated by Covid. The necessity to engage with hybrid spaces, publics, and classrooms during the pandemic acted as a pressure cooker for the ongoing redefinition of cultural publishing processes and reading experiences in the digital era. In a future blog post, a hand-picked, definitively unexhaustive selection of best practices on hybrid publications will be discussed. Here, the focus is on the work that the members of our research group have been doing in the past two years and the expertise we have on board, specifically looking at Varia, Hackers & Designers, Maria van der Togt, and Ania Molenda.

Recently, Varia has started publishing the hybrid, bilingual newsletter SomeTimes / Af en toe. The contents are created collectively by the members of Varia in OctoMode and published as .pdfs and flyer-like prints. The format of these newsletters is a direct expression of the collective working process Varia uses. According to Simon Browne, contingent librarian and member of Varia, it cost some time to set up the template, but it’s pretty simple in its use. The .pdf newsletter is a seamless extension of the Varia website, spreading news on events and projects to the collective’s (international) network of cultural workers, geeks, and organizers. The print version, which feels like a crossover of a flyer and a local newspaper, allows for a bigger presence in the Rotterdam neighborhood. This reflects a tendency within Varia during the lockdowns, to not go online, but to focus on the hyperlocal and provide a community space. Urgent, hybrid publication in the arts doesn’t always equal digitization, but rather an adaptive workflow and method that allows for the right hybrid format according to needs.

SomeTimes as a digital newsletter.

SomeTimes as a print newsletter.

Taking the directness of collaborative editing-to-publication conversion a step further, Hackers & Designers are building ChattyPub, a publication design tool in the making. The application leverages the chat interface of Zulip to apply styles and formats to the content of a publication. Concretely, this means that every text sent in a chat is automatically added to the front-end publication. The primary output of ChattyPub is a web publication, but automated print versions of the files can be generated, turning the chats into hybrid publications. ChattPub was even used to create the manuscript of the self-published book Network Imaginaries.

Network Imaginaries, self-published by Hackers & Designers, edition of 250, Amsterdam, 2021.

The use of ChattyPub requires chatters-authors to use basic coding, so it is not intuitively useable for anyone. However, with a little teaching, it’s a very low-threshold way of playfully publishing together with surprising outcomes such as this one, this one, and this one. With ChattyPub workshops, Hackers & Designers teach participants to use the tools and, ideally, create a publishing community in the process.

An impression of the ChattyPub interface.

To question and circumvent paywalls that enclose knowledge that should be public, Maria van der Togt has created the artwork Hard Copy Soft Copy—Impermeable Domains (2021). The work consists of a virtual platform with an open-source collection of digital publications, run on a raspberry pi, and a spatial printing and binding set-up. Members of the public use the on-site computer to select any of the documents and print and bind it on the spot. In rescuing material from the clutches of corporatization, the work upholds the true definition of ‘public’ through the simple gesture of providing resources without any expectation of return.

Installation view of Hard Copy Soft Copy – Impermeable Domains (2021) by Maria van der Togt.

The ultimate goal of any of these experiments with format and access is to create a deeper, interactive, surprising, or otherwise more valuable reading experience for a broader audience. However, in the oversaturated media landscape of the internet, readers are expected to have an attention span of about three tweets. This tension, and possible solutions, are explored by Ania Molenda and collaborator Andrea Prins in the project ‘Beyond the Essay. New Ways of Critical Reflection‘. To re-evaluate once emancipatory format of the essay, they research new forms of interactive publishing that stimulate critical reflection and engagement from readers. In a series of interviews with publishers, they searched for affordable and user-friendly solutions, and new ways of dealing with digital content. The results of ‘Beyond the Essay’ will be published soon and shared on this blog.

Possible Research Directions

From September 2022 until December 2023, the Hybrid Publications group will convene for regular design sprints, building upon the research and experiments discussed above. We will do research through practice together, and figure out new ways of publishing and reading on the go. Since the design sprint method is per definition a learning process, the outcome is not set. However, we are dedicated to embracing a transdisciplinary approach and creating something together that is useful to all of us. From where I stand now, I can see four possible research directions:

• Real-time transcripts (and other forms of instant publishing). The many online and hybrid cultural programs that are programmed are often not well-documented and disappear into the void of the internet. We need formats and workflows to create fast, half-standardized formats of event reports, like a report zine or flyer-as-book. Building on previous work with tools like Etherpad and Trint, such a format and workflow could be developed within our group.

• Non-linear catalogs. This would not be the first time we developed a workflow. During our previous research project Making Public, we developed a workflow for making non-linear stand-alone publications using Scalar and Twine and created a manual for anyone who’s interested. But while authors might incidentally be interested in non-linear publications, the structural use-value is not so clear. Catalogs might be a very logical type of publication to make non-linear.

• Interactive web publications. There is a widely shared desire to engage with publics in a dialogic, open, multi-voiced way. Interactive web publications with options ranging from open editing to commenting, such as hypothes.is, are the most obvious way to realize this desire through publishing, but it’s a challenging research direction as well. We’re not working with hard-core coders and web developers. Experimental web development has proven in the past to be too unstable for long-term use. Moreover, there is the issue of editorial upkeep, such as troll control and keeping the content and functionalities alive.

• On-demand printing stations. This is a more realistic option to create engagement and personalization between publications and publics. Since we are working in the context of cultural spaces, with three group members with a background in architecture, and one with experience in making a printing station, it would be a promising option to develop an on-demand catalog printing station. On-demand printing would also allow for a customized product: one can order a print of only the parts they will actually read, saving time, space, and natural resources.

• Audio-text hybrids. The technical possibilities of hybrid publications with digital and print text have become quite advanced over the past years. But audio is a new dimension in the realm of hybrid publications. Could a hybrid workflow such as the Theory on Demand-workflow include not only print, web-based, ePub, and .pdf, but also an audiobook?

The post The Crowbar of Cultural Publishing: Introducing the Hybrid Publications Research Group appeared first on Framer Framed.

Saras (Jakarta, 1990) obtained her BFA from the Faculty of Art and Design’s Institut Teknologi Bandung in 2013. In 2015, she was a resident at Sàn Art, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. In the same year, she was a finalist of the national Indonesian Art Award, followed by the Bandung Contemporary Art Award 2017. Her performances have been commissioned for Jakarta Biennale 2017 and Biennale Jogja 2019. She is a resident at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, the Netherlands from 2020-2022.

Saras project as a resident of Molenwijk has yet to take shape. In her practice she uses storytelling, performance, and photography to engage with people to nurture empathetic relationships. She examines the nature of human aggression and reparation, attempting to find balance by actively anticipating and sensing real-life encounters.

Her works are the result of continuous reflections upon her sense of selfhood and taking a position in diverse conditions. During her residency in Molenwijk Saras will research her position in the area itself, and her role as a local resident. While inviting the interpersonal values of art, she thoroughly observes the archive of the everyday by unfolding the intersections of personal experience and collective narratives. Her observations elaborate on webs of human relationships, historical events, and transformative natural processes. Growing from the sense of care, her art attempts to subversively pollinate resilience amid today’s increasing intolerance and discrimination. Oscillating between what appears public and what remains private, she uses the artistic endeavours she believes are conductive to human wellness to create a sincere common ground within the realm of the psyche.

Saras can be found at Werkplaats Molenwijk or wandering and engaging with the residents in Molenwijk itself. As a first step in the engagement with the Molenwijkers she will facilitate an exchange between flowers and stories on Monday afternoons outside the Werkplaats where she will be handing out self-arranged bouquets to residents. On Tuesdays from 2 pm she will be present at Werkplaats Molenwijk as a host and people are welcome to step in!

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ABOUT

vol.1: Art for (and within) a Citizen Scene connects people working within South-East-Asia contexts to share their creative practices. Through speculative, open-ended conversations, the contributors explore questions such as: If we shift our attention away from artistic practices based on object production and individual success, what do other kinds of practices bring about? How to understand those practices in their materialisation and relation to their surroundings? What does collaboration mean today, and what positions do artists take in these collaborations? The book sheds light on practices in communities where collaboration is common in daily life, where art is seen not only as a self-contained profession, but also as a way of living.

vol.2: Be Water, My Friend: Non-Oppositional Criticalities of Socially Engaged Art in China looks at different forms of socially engaged artistic and cultural practices in China. These practices address a range of social issues in the country’s cities, including the unequal treatment of migrant workers and denigration of urban villages. Through anthropological fieldwork and critical analysis, the book explores how socially engaged art offers creative and critical approaches to these issues in the context of the contemporary Chinese regime. Becoming Water stresses how art practices in China have developed forms of criticality that avoid explicitly opposing political authorities.

Info

Pages: 355
Price: € 25,-
ISBN 9789493148871
Publishers: Onomatopee & Framer Framed
Editors: Emily Shin-Jie Lee, Iris Ferrer, Julia Wilhelm, reinaart vanhoe
Producers: Framer Framed & Willem de Kooning Academy
Designer: Dinara  Vasilevskaia & Julia Wilhelm

vol 1. Art for (and within) a Citizen Scene: A Look at Art Primarily Active in the Context of Daily Practices is a collaboration of Framer Framed and the Willem de Kooning Academy.

Available for purchase at Framer Framed.

The post Bookshop Selection: 'Art for (and within) a Citizen Scene' & 'Be Water, My Friend' appeared first on Framer Framed.

“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.

On-Trade-Off was formed after the recent discovery of a large lithium deposit in Manono, a mining site located in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The mine is not only a place of historical extractivism, but plays a key role in the promise of green energy. As Manono is currently transformed into a site of speculation and future exploitation, On-Trade-Off simultaneously unfolds as an artistic collective offering counter-narratives through alternative forms of collaboration and artistic creation. The artist collective puts the question of transnational exchange, (free) tools, (fair) practices, and shared knowledge at the core of its artistic process. The exhibition presented at Z33 in summer 2022, and in Framer Framed in spring 2023, features new works that were developed during residencies and research on site in Belgium, the Netherlands, and DR Congo.

While the South/North borders are highly controlled, the shipping of metals and ores is assured. How can we think beyond the dividing force of exploitative technologies today and, as artists, create new spaces for other imaginaries, stories, and connections across continents?

Jean Katambayi Mukendi, The Concentrator (detail), 2022. Installation view, Z33, Hasselt, Belgium, 2022. Photo: Kristof Vrancken.

Artists: Alexis Destoop, Marjolijn Dijkman, Pélagie Gbaguidi, Femke Herregraven, Alain Nsenga, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Dorine Mokha, Elia Rediger, Musasa, Georges Senga, Pamela Tulizo, Maarten Vanden Eynde

On-Trade-Off is an artist-run project initiated by Picha (Lubumbashi) & Enough Room for Space (Brussels).

The exhibition is a coproduction of Framer Framed (Amsterdam) and Z33 (Hasselt).

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