Her visual practice explores the intersection of social politics and emotional embodiment, examining how personal experience shapes collective narratives through the integration of feminist and queer care practices. Her creative process involves constructing speculative environments where communal bonding contributes to a sustained healing journey, acknowledging the connection and interdependence between communities and their non-human fellows.
Her curatorial practice shares the view through this holistic lens, in which she organises gatherings, including workshops, reading groups and material exchanges that revolve on different contemporary urgencies, in the framework of her ongoing project ‘The Kinship Cookbook’. These events are designed to initiate a sense of collective care and provide a platform for envisioning alternative futures.
Currently a part of the postgraduate program Curatorial Studies at KASK & Conservatorium in Ghent, Belgium.
CV
Her visual practice explores the intersection of social politics and emotional embodiment, examining how personal experience shapes collective narratives through the integration of feminist and queer care practices. Her creative process involves constructing speculative environments where communal bonding contributes to a sustained healing journey, acknowledging the connection and interdependence between communities and their non-human fellows.
Her curatorial practice shares the view through this holistic lens, in which she organises gatherings, including workshops, reading groups and material exchanges that revolve on different contemporary urgencies, in the framework of her ongoing project ‘The Kinship Cookbook’. These events are designed to initiate a sense of collective care and provide a platform for envisioning alternative futures.
Currently a part of the postgraduate program Curatorial Studies at KASK & Conservatorium in Ghent, Belgium.
CV
Home is Where the Heart is (a collective recipe)
An object slowly floating lands in the palm of my hands, merging with the how that has been given to me in a continuous cycle of valuable exchange. As we cook, we remember the kinship we form through thinking together, otherwise – constructing a world in which communities are not seen as labels. Let this polyphony of scents invite you to experience the imaginative possibilities of a simple exchange of recipes.
‘Home is Where the Heart’ is has connected 10 individuals into a collective being which attended the first gathering of my ongoing project ‘The Kinship Cookbook’, called Home Sweet Home. Through reading and writing together, following a performance from one of the participants, creating an ephemeral in-situ installation with personal offerings and a collective dinner, we set off to rethink the domestic as a transformative space of diverse values. Through these collective moments, the participants wrote recipes which later on I activate through performance, sculptural interventions and installation – accentuating the necessity of embracing our queer kinships and exploring diverse embodiments of human and non-human nature.
Ingredients by
Lorenço
Kyra Nijskens
Abel Hartooni
Sjoerd Beijers
Beljita Gurung
Lizzy Jongedijk
Martyna Pekala
Seppe-Hazel Laeremans
Jessica Marlieke van Egmond
Costume
Aidan Abnet
Animation
Sjoerd Beijers
Camera & Edit
Isaac Ponseele
Benjamin Ponseele
Music
Benjamin Schoones
Typography
Seppe-Hazel Laeremans
The Kinship Cookbook (ongoing)
What if we could use language in a way that would escape the predicament of being a functional instrument? What if our stories could invite the lichen, butterflies, bacteria, and fungi to teach us how to grief, love and grow? How does our forming of kin influence our collective responsibility?
‘The Kinship Cookbook’ is a proposition to gather, speculate, and share knowledge around the forming of inclusive infrastructures using recipes as a methodology. The process of assembly, based on gatherings revolving around different topics is essential in the collective manifest which the cookbook accumulates through time. Set to challenge traditional societal norms, it provides an alternative rooted in world building and speculation, and ultimately builds a new ground for collective reflection.
Using the emergent kinships as a prototype for the visualisation of the content of the recipes, the installation invites the audience to enter a possible world in which care and kindness is embedded in the formulation of these elements, and therefore forms a living, growing work.
The project has been realized with the help of
Lorenço
Aidan Abnet
Kyra Nijskens
Abel Hartooni
Sjoerd Beijers
Beljita Gurung
Isaac Ponseele
Lizzy Jongedijk
Martyna Pekala
Benjamin Ponseele
Benjamin Schoones
Seppe-Hazel Laeremans
Jessica Marlieke van Egmond
Master project at KASK & Conservatorium, Ghent
Photography credits go to Johan Poezevara
Gathering #2: To Weave a Story
What stories have shaped our world since childhood? Fair maidens, jesters and knights aim to portray the plentiful landscape through which the male Hero conquers his quest. Conventional stories revolve around this male protagonist, causing other characters, non-human life and the environment to only enter the story by proving their usefulness to him. The real world mirrors these conventions, excluding diverse stories, the marginalized and the unproductive from being heard.
In light of fostering different perspectives, ‘To Weave a Story’ sets out to dismantle the standard form of storytelling by including the environment and its margins. A selection of artworks forms the basis from which we imagine props, fictional characters, natural environments and backdrops. These deconstructed elements of the story become building blocks for a small workshop on storytelling. By weaving together these elements in various ways, diverse stories will emerge, through which other forms of life, and other ways of living may take the spotlight.
On the 30th of March, the exhibition will open to the public. The displayed works invite the viewers to form personal interpretations and narratives. The stories resulting from the workshop become the foundation for hourly, oral storytelling sessions. Throughout this gathering, we hope to not only diversify that which is represented but also seek diversification in how stories are told. This is an effort to find ways of storytelling that don’t comply with the conventional negation of unseen and nonsensical truths. Instead, the program aims to speculatively fabulate on the role of storytelling as a ritual, in which non-anthropocentric, queer and anti-productionist stories may unfold.
Co-produced and curated by
Sjoerd Beijers & myself
Artists
Aidan Abnet
Justine Grillet
Guillaume Jannes
Jochem Mestriner
Samuel White Evans
& myself
Writers
Isa Vink
Jule Köepke
Jesse Kempkes
Babette Lagrange
Photography credits go to Johan Poezevara
MAP#158 presents
loose ends: meeting, meandering, wandering
(Text by Martina Latucca)
In ‘loose ends: meeting, meandering, wandering’, artists Abel Hartooni and Natalija Gucheva delve into questions about the aspects of artistic creation and its connection to life’s constant flux. Here, the glass corridor becomes a conversation of media such as paintings, ceramics and video, that unfolds fluid narratives.
Accompanying these visual artworks is a conjoint video work set in an imaginary landscape. In a non-linear narrative, the protagonists recall (inter)personal memories in order to initiate a dialogue. These memories intertwine with sensory experiences, evoking a sense of nostalgia and prompting the audience to reflect on life's transient nature.
‘Loose ends: meeting, meandering, wandering’ invites the audience to navigate the tensions between process and outcome, personal and collective memory, and other hybrids. Embracing the twists and turns of artistic exploration, Abel and Natalija challenge conventional notions of identity formation and meaning transformation, unraveling the complexity of existence and celebrating the fluidity of life's interconnectedness.
Duo exhibition with
Abel Hartooni
Currated by
Martina Latucca
Photography credits go to Isaac Ponseele
The video animation can be viewed here
room to bloom
Soft corners slow down time within the world's rapid speed. Living in passing, tensioned by knotting the curtain cords, rubbing moving fibers on an overfolding surface. Collagen and found eggshells press into a vessel that carries somatic liquid morphed into that which keeps us from sponge-free riders.
This world takes place both literally and conceptually through a co-created poem. Two entities explore the complexity of one's system, capable of producing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts. Through self-made instruments, field recordings, and performing fragmented poetry, we explore this emerging tension and open possibilities for new material kinships.
Collaborative performance by
Benjamin Schoones & myself
Photography credits go to Lot Scholten
