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Interview
Exploring the underground forest

Interview
Exploring the underground forest

a conversation with Miriam Sentler and Kristof Reulens

 

Dutch artist Miriam Sentler is one of the residents at Jester in 2022. In conversation with Kristof Reulens, the coordinator for arts and heritage at the City of Genk, and Jester’s curator Alicja Melzacka, she is sharing her research and looking back at her three-week long stay at the Emile van Dorenmuseum.

 

Alicja Melzacka:
Miriam, as an artist and researcher, you’ve been dealing with fossil fuel landscapes for a while. How did your previous experience translate into the context of Genk? What astonished you?

 

Miriam Sentler:
When I came to Genk I had certain expectations regarding mining sites. For several years, I have been researching the lignite industry in North-Rhine Westphali, where the local forest is disappearing, ecosystems are being excavated, birds and people are being driven out of the landscape. As it turned out, Genk is an entirely different context. I was confronted with the fact that there is so much nature around in the first place. It has to do with the different ways in which lignite and black coal are extracted – the first one requires excavation of large pieces of landscape, so-called ‘strip mining’, while the latter is found deep underground. So, I was coming from a barren landscape in Germany to a rich, ‘new’ landscape in Genk.

 

During my stay here, I soon discovered a very different kind of relationship with the landscape. I became interested in the fact that a lot of what’s now considered ‘nature’ has emerged because of the industry. In Genk, we are historically talking about a heath landscape, where there weren’t many trees to begin with – most of them were planted for industrial purposes. The so-called ‘mine arboretum’ is one example of such industrialisation of nature, but also the forest management by the wood industry, or the planting of trees to prevent the sand drifts, which was practised already in the mediaeval ages. In fact, humans have always shaped nature around here.

 

AM
In this new context, what triggered your interest the most? Have you found a new line of inquiry while working in Genk?

 

MS
I was most interested in the material agency of nature in relation to the industry – how, on the one hand, nature was exploited by the mining industry and, on the other hand, how plants and animals were assigned specific agency by the workers. It was something that occurred to me when I was looking into different linguistic expressions, for example: ‘de kanarie in de koolmijn’ (the canary in the coal mine) and ‘grenen spreekt voordat het breekt’ (pine speaks before it breaks). They convey an interesting sense of listening to that nature, and at the same time, industrialising and deploying it in a specific way, also in order to save lives. That’s what was perhaps the most striking to me, the agency that this exploitative industry itself assigned to nature. Then, the second part was, of course, the history of landscape painting in Genk, which I got to know during my stay at the Emile Van Dorenmuseum.

 

AM
You had an opportunity to live in the museum’s historical building, which was built by landscape painter Emile van Doren, one of the founders of the artists’ colony in Genk at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. What did you find the most interesting about this part of Genk’s history?

 

MS
One thing was certainly the idea of going back in time; the attitude of a painter going into the landscape and not drawing the emerging industry but looking away, towards the heath. It made me think of this sense of deep time one might experience in the middle of the ocean, where nothing really changes. I was fascinated in particular by the painting of a carbonised forest by Jan Habex, which is taking this notion of going back in time even further.

Steenkolenoerwoud in de oertijd, Jan Habex. 1945, collection of Emile van Dorenmuseum

 

Kristof Reulens
I also find this painting fascinating. It was commissioned by the mine of Waterschei. Why did the coal mine industry find it necessary to commission a monumental painting showing the landscape before human interference? It might be seen as a kind of scientific illustration of the geological period from which the resource originated, but still, it is quite a paradoxical gesture.

MS
Another thing which I found fascinating about Genk, and which also relates to the history of a specific painting, was the healing power of this landscape. The birch trees in Genk were utilised in different ways: firstly, by the wood and coal industries, secondly, by the landscape painters, and thirdly, for medicinal purposes. Priest and physicist Sebastian Kneipp claimed that the birch forest would heal tuberculosis, and in… a sanatorium was built in a nearby Bokrijk. This enormous agency of the trees is something I found really stimulating.

This medicinal application of nature is portrayed in that painting of François Halkett from 1885, entitled Dans la sapinière. The painting explores the notion of disappearance – someone enters the forest, stays there for a while, and then disappears completely. Only the clothes are left behind.

 

KR
This painting is shrouded in mystery. We only know a story as put forward in an article in De Groene Amsterdamer, dated 1885, one year after the painting had been completed. The painting represents a woman suffering from tuberculosis, a lung disease strongly linked to the industrial revolution. She visited Genk because it was believed that the wind blowing across the heather grounds and in the pine forests was cleansing. This scene is depicted in the first panel, where you can see the sick woman accompanied by her sister. In the third panel, you can see the pine forest which is a little bit taller, indicating the passage of time. Amongst the trees, there is a black veil with flowers. The story in De Groene Amsterdammer tells us that the woman did not survive the treatment. It has not been confirmed, but my view is that it’s a personal history of the painter, François Halkett.

 

François Halkett, In het Dennenbos – Dans la Sapinière, 1884, sketch in the collection of the Emile van Dorenmuseum

 

MS
In this story of trying to recuperate, to revive one’s body, I can see a kind of parallel with the state of the landscape itself. Compared to Germany’s disappearing forest, there is a ‘resurrecting’ forest in Genk, one that is still developing and still growing. This idea of resurrection is also represented by the so-called ‘canary resurrector’, which I came across during my research. It was a device used in the mining industry to revive birds which started to show signs of carbon monoxide poisoning.

 

These are different kinds of parallels, which I found in Genk, and which I want to work on further, primarily through sound. I think that sound is a suitable medium to map all this knowledge because sound specifically was utilised by the industry. Think of the crackling of wood, functioning as a warning against a mineshaft collapsing, and the singing of a canary, or rather its absence, when the carbon monoxide level would become dangerously high. This is precisely the idea of sentinel species, which can sense things humans cannot. I would like to look into this further with composer Drake Stoughton, to think about it in terms of sound and music history, where ‘resurrection’ is, of course, a common trope.

 

AM
Miriam, you worked with Drake before, on your sound piece ‘The Chase’, which you presented in Genk last year, during a lecture performance.

 

MS
‘The Chase’ emerged from my research into the lignite industry in Germany, and it was inspired by my family history. My great-grandfather was a miner coming from this area, and my grandfather always lamented the fact that his birthplace was excavated by the industry and turned into a lake. Starting from the lake, I researched the landscape and eventually ended up at Hambacher Forest, which is currently being excavated, amidst the protests of treetop activists.

 

In the mediaeval ages, Hambacher Forest used to be called ‘Burgewald’, which means the commons’ forest. There were certain rules of how to interact with this forest. The citizens were allowed to gather wood and berries, but they were not allowed to cut any trees or harm the forest. When the industrialists arrived there, about 200 years ago, they first started by rebranding the forest. Since then, it was no longer the commons’ forest but Hambacher Forest, related to the Hambacher mine. And so, the extraction could start. What remains of the forest today is only 10% of its original size.

 

‘The Chase’ was an attempt to archive the bird species of the disappearing forest because many people who were resettled from that area told us that what they missed the most were bird songs. We recorded the songs and transcribed them into a score. The resulting audio piece shows the impossibility of truly recording nature. With each line, you first hear the bird singing, followed by the musician trying to mimic the sound on the flute. But he can never actually ‘capture’ the bird, as if it was too smart for him.

 

AM
Could you tell us something more about the relationship between that project and your present research in Genk? You have been making on-site recordings, and you are going to work with Drake again – what approach do you assume this time?

 

MS
The new project is of course different, as it departs from a different context – while in Hambacher Forest things were disappearing, in Genk, they are emerging. That’s why, with Drake, we started talking about this resurrection in relation to music tropes. How were the religious chants written, where were they performed, and what was their social role? This is something still very apparent if you look at the effort put into constructing mine chapels, which in the end, also conveyed the power of the industry. Drake was also directly intrigued by the canary resurrector as a container for something, maybe even sound. We found it very particular that while the crackling of the pines served as a warning sign, in the case of the canary, it was the absence of sound that indicated the danger. To think about the resurrection is to think about death and life, about the absence of sound and the presence of sound.

 

treelogs in the mines, diorama

KR
Now that I hear this story about the disappearance of the forest, I see some quite interesting parallels with Genk. The idea of a loss or a gain is different, and yet the same – I’ll try to explain why. You said that Hambacher Forest used to belong to the community. Also the heather grounds in Genk were called ‘gemene gronden’ (common lands). Everybody had the right to the land and could let their sheep graze on it. When in the 19th century, the government introduced the law of the savage lands, promoting the cultivation of pine forests – one of the few crops that could survive on the sandy soil – the locals protested and peasants went on strike because they were losing their communal grounds. It is a pretty similar development to the one you described in Hambacher Forest, with the industry taking over a common resource. So what you see now as a resurrection would not be perceived this way by the 19th-century farmers. They saw the coming of the pine forest as the death of their way of living. Who has the right to the landscape? How do these ideals change with time? There is always a communal idea behind, I think, being ‘the people’ vs ‘the industry, but it is always in movement. It’s a cycle, where you will always have the resurrection and the disappearance over and over again.

 

AM
Raymond Williams uses the metaphor of an elevator to illustrate this relativism of the notion of ‘nature’. He was referring specifically to the evolution of pastoral writing, but this metaphor might as well be adapted to other contexts. He said that no matter how far back we go in our analysis of the notion of nature (and its representations in literature, art, etc.), there has always been lamenting about the loss of a more ‘real’, more ‘natural’ way of living. He compares this to a moving elevator, which keeps going further backwards, constantly looking for a more utopian, arcadian vision of nature. This image of an elevator resonated strongly with me because it is rather unusual to spatialise the temporal dimension along the vertical axis. And this image of an elevator going underground, deep into geological time, resonates also with the context of the mine.

 

KR
A good example of this relativism is, for instance, the lake district of Genk – De Maten. Recently, many trees have been cut down there, which provoked a large protest. But that decision was actually taken by Natuurpunt, the keepers of this landscape, to preserve that landscape in its desired state. To protect this landscape, you have to keep it quite barren because the trees with their roots have an impact on the slope and the cascades and can disrupt the ecological system that developed in De Maten over the centuries. What makes it even more complex is the fact that there is nothing ‘natural’ about the system of lakes and cascades that this area is known for – it was man-made in the mediaeval ages to farm fish. But, of course, when the landscape painters arrived in Genk, they saw this large lake district and thought that it was ready to be painted. The reflection of light in the water was a big topic, especially in the 19th century. Historically, these aesthetic considerations also played a role in nature preservation. I know that when it was first spoken about founding a nature reserve in Genk, in the years before the First World War, there were several arguments put on the table – biodiversity was one, but the aesthetic view of the landscape was another one.

 

So again, we have clashing visions on what the ‘natural’ state is, and what is worth preserving. On top of that, we have different economic agendas, of how to use the land to one’s benefit, whether it’s for farming, wood or coal industry, agriculture, tourism… I’m pretty sure that Emile Van Doren or Armand Maclot would be behind the Natuurpunt when they were opening the landscape up again and cutting down the trees. But maybe from an ecological point of view, leaving the trees to grow and create a new biodiverse ecosystem might be an argument of today, so which argument do you choose?

 

MS
So, maybe there is no original landscape in Genk?

 

KR
Maybe that’s the landscape that Jan Habex painted? I don’t know.

 

 

KR
I want to still return to the idea of the sound underground and share an anecdote about it. When the coal mines started to be active in this region, after the First World War, wood was no longer used to reinforce the mineshafts, it was substituted by steel support. I think that the mine arboretum, which was cultivated as a kind of testing ground for material research, quickly became obsolete. Of course, wood was still used for other than structural purposes in the mines. I also think that wood would have lost its signalling function because, in the 20th century, conveyor belts were introduced underground, and there was this constant noise which was absent from the 19th-century mines. The same goes for the canaries, which eventually were substituted by special mine lamps.

However, what I always found interesting were the stories about another kind of sound, told by the miners from this region. They said that in the mineshafts, you could hear the loud chirping of the crickets, which were transported there with the wood. This was the only natural sound they could hear…

 

MS
That’s fascinating. It is as if different times and stages of the industry had different natural sounds accompanying them. I think that there is a potential in bringing these various temporalities and sounds together in a hybrid soundscape: the geological time, the historical time, the idealised time; the trees, the birds, and the crickets. It’s quite evocative to imagine how they populate this forest, deep underground…

 

 

This project has been realised in collaboration with Emile van Dorenmuseum, with the kind support of the city of Genk, the Flemish Community, O&O Subsidy/ CBK Rotterdam, and the members of Jester.

 

Related Projects

The Chase
14.08.2021

Marie Zolamian
Droomland
10.09–11.12.2022

Marie Zolamian
Droomland
10.09–11.12.2022

Save the date for the finnisage: Sunday 11.12.22

 

Marie Zolamian – ‘Symbiocene’, 2022
© foto: Michiel De Cleene

 

 

This autumn, we proudly present Marie Zolamian’s (°1975, LB) new monumental work during Droomland*, her solo exhibition at Jester. Her work finds itself at the distinction between colourful, familiar scenes, art historical references, and a déjà vu-like dreamy world where mysterious silhouettes and creatures appear. Like a fictitious ethnologist she keeps an observational images diary, for which she draws inspiration from daydreaming, testimonies, local history or cultural customs linked to the place from which she works.

 

In preparation for her solo presentation at Jester, the artist briefly stayed at the Emile Van Dorenmuseum, where she soaked up the stories that enfolded the Genk tradition of landscape painting. Here, ‘Bezoekt droomland Genk’ (translated as ‘Visit dreamland Genk’), a slogan from an old tourist advertisement, caught her attention. Buried in the city’s recent mining and industrial past, one would almost forget that at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century Genk was known as a ‘station d’artistes’, where the vast nature and rustic life appealed to the imagination and attracted visitors, especially artists, from home and abroad. To this day, this post-industrial region boasts enormous biodiversity in and around its various nature reserves. For Zolamian, nature is imaginary. Her pictorial semblance celebrates diversity and crossing, which for her are a pretext for painting.

 

For Droomland, the artist takes over Jester’s exhibition space. While in the studio smaller canvases are a familiar starting point, Zolamian will work in situ on a monumental creation in the weeks before the opening. Layer after layer, a landscape will be shaped. Playing with camouflage, approach and resistance, this large-scale work offer – despite its scale – an intimate glimpse into the mysterious universe expressed in Zolamian’s oeuvre.

 

*Droomland means dreamland

 

 

Admonestation, 2022.
Oil on canvas on panel, 41 x 31 cm.
Image by courtesy of Marie Zolamian

 

 

PRACTICAL INFORMATION:

On Saturday, the 10th of September, the opening takes place between 3 and 7 p.m. You can find our presentation space on the 1st floor of the C-mine energy building. Droomland is on view, every day except on Mondays, from 10 a.m. till 5 p.m. The show runs until the 11th of December.

Alexis Gautier
Riding High in the Reading Saddle
21.05–07.08.2022

Alexis Gautier
Riding High in the Reading Saddle
21.05–07.08.2022

Guided tour: Sunday,

07.08,  4 p.m.

Alexis Gautier’s work explores the relationships at play in cultural transactions, collaborations and the creation of narratives. Often made with other individuals, his work creates a space for exchanges and appropriation, weaving encounters, discoveries and misunderstandings. Gautier documents his research and interventions through textiles, sculptures, videos, narrations and drawings. FLACC/CIAP invites the artist to continue his research during his residency in Genk, which will culminate in a solo exhibition in May 2022.

 

 

Guided tour: Sunday, 07.08, 4 p.m.

 

During the finissage of Riding High in the Reading Saddle, join us for the guided tour of the exhibition.Jester’s artistic director Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg will be your guide through the work of Alexis Gautier and the unique indoor and outdoor spaces at the C-mine site. The meeting point is the visitor’s desk at C-mine.

 

 

 

Alexis Gautier (FR) is currently a resident at WIELS (Brussels) and an affiliated researcher in the arts at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. He graduated from the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main (DE) and from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Antwerp (BE). He had solo exhibitions at Museum M Leuven (2021), ISLAND (Brussels, 2020), Basis (Frankfurt Am Main, 2019), Blue Mountain School (London, 2018) and BOZAR (Brussels, 2017). He was awarded the Günther-Peill Stiftung (Düren, DE) and is supported by the Fondation des Artistes (Paris, FR) and by the Flemish Community.

 

 

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Conflict Zones
a series of online talks

Conflict Zones
a series of online talks

Conflict Zones is a series of online conversations around conflicts of different kinds, with various degrees of visibility and scope. Conflict Zones takes place every fortnight on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

 

Click on this link to follow the conversation on Zoom. No registration required.

 

In the series, we exchange thoughts and personal stories with artists and cultural workers who are facing a precarious situation as a result of different kinds of conflict: military and political but also legal, ethical, or other; at a workplace, at home, or in exile. The series gives platform and visibility to the practices that might be underexposed or even under attack at the given moment. During intimate talks, we are trying to unveil different layers of conflict and foreground how they disrupt artistic practices and daily lives alike. We want to listen. Truly listen.

 

We do not claim to be objective nor comprehensive. The making of the series is inspired by the improv acting methodology that lies at the core of Jester. We always start from a speaker we have a connection with, as an organisation and as people, and from a subject with a sense of urgency. From there, we see how the programme will unfold. 

 

Due to the current war in Ukraine, the topic of conflict became even more imminent in the general programme ideas for Jester. Departing from conversations with Ukrainian curator Alexandra Tryanova, our intern, and some of the Ukrainian artists with whom we have worked in the past, formed the catalyst for this initiative. Based on that, we decided to address this urgency first within our series. This is followed by all kinds of ‘conflicts’ that are linked to the organisation; materials that conflict with each other, neighbours who have to get used to a new art building in their backyard, or a court case about ownership. 

 

Conflict Zones 06 – moderated by Alexandra Tryanova & Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg

 

 

Oleksandr Sirous is a sound and media artist. Recently Oleksandr has turned more and more to the culture of video games and various game mechanics and new rules of interaction. With the aim of finding new approaches at the intersection of the already established approaches in media art and video games.

 

Sirous studied painting and graphics in Kharkiv. In 2018, he was the curator of the new media art course at @hudpromloft and the Kharkiv Academy of Visual Arts. In 2019, he taught the 3D programming course at the Kyiv Academy of Media Arts and curated/resided at @carbonartcentre in Kyiv and also a member at @photinusstudio . He was nominated this year for the @pinchukartcentre Prize.

(text by MORPHO residency program)

 

Conflict Zones 05 – moderated by Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg

Alexandra Tryanova is an Odesa-born, Antwerp-based independent curator. She works with topics of recreation, Eastern European conceptual art, gender, and institutional critique. In a frame of the 5th Odessa Biennial of Contemporary Art (2017), she has established a non-production site residency Kunsthalle Lustdorf that continues its work as an independent artistic and curatorial association for open practices and technologies in a suburb of Odessa. Between 2018 and 2019, she worked at the Museum of Odessa Modern Art as a curator, where she curated a list of exhibitions, among which (un)named by Nikita Kadan and In memoriam exhibition of Stas Volyazlovsky. As a junior curator of the PinchukArtCentre, Alexandra has co-curated the exhibition Ain’t nobody’s business (2019) and curated the exhibition of the 20 artists shortlisted for the PinchukArtCentre Prize (2020). Then In 2021, she continued her studies in Belgium at Curatorial studies at KASK (Ghent) and now collaborates with Jester (Genk) in the frame of the series Conflict Zones.

 

Conflict Zones 04 – moderated by Alexandra Tryanova

Ute Kilter is a performer, actress, TV maker, and art critic based in Odessa, Ukraine. In 1992, with her collaborator Viktor Malyarenko she started the TV program “Situation Ute, ” an essayistic contemporary art travel digest. “Situation Ute” was broadcasted on Odesa TV channel for 27 years, proposing an overview both of European art events in Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, and in Ukraine to a local audience. Ute Kilter starred in many films by internationally known Ukrainian film director Kira Muratova, including Chekhov’s Motifs, The Tuner and Eternal Return.

 

Conflict Zones 03 -moderated by Alexandra Tryanova

Sophia Bulgakova (born 1997, Odesa, Ukraine) is an ArtScientist, interdisciplinary artist and activist currently based in The Hague, the Netherlands. Sophia is working on the intersection between art, technology, and society, focusing on the relationship between light, perception, and imagination. Through various sensorial inputs in her installations and performances, she engages viewers, impacting their ways of perceiving reality and exploring new possibilities beyond it. In her most recent work, she investigates Ukrainian paganism and its impact on contemporary society and national identity.
Sophia studied sculpture in Kyiv and then got a foundation diploma in Photography and Time-Based Media at the University of the Arts London in the UK. After that, she graduated from the ArtScience Interfaculty at the Royal Academy of the Art and Royal Conservatory in The Hague, the Netherlands. Her works were exhibited at CTM Festival (DE), Sonic Acts Festival (NL), Baltan Laboratories (NL), Mediamatic (NL), and Ningbo City Exhibition Hall (CN), among other places.
This event is held in English.

 

 

Conflict Zones 02 – moderated by Alexandra Tryanova

Our second guest was Nadia Parfan, a Ukrainian film director, producer and curator. Her student film “Reve ta Stohne on Tour” received a special mention at DocudaysUA and her last film, “Heat Singers”, was premiered at Visions du Reel cinema festival and was selected to several other international film festivals. Nadia is the co-founder of the Festival of Film and Urbanism 86, which took place in Slavutych from 2014 to 2018.

 

She is also the author of the idea and creative producer of the documentary project MyStreetFilmsUkraine, in which Ukrainian directors have created and released 49 short films. In 2018, Nadia together with producer Ilya Gladstein has founded the production company Phalanstery Films. In January 2020 Nadia launched a streaming platform Takflix.com which provides legal access to Ukrainian films. 

 

 

Conflict Zones 01 – moderated by Alexandra Tryanova

Our first guest was culturologist Olha Honchar (UA), a project and communications, anti-crisis manager. She is the director of the Memorial Museum of Totalitarian Regimes ‘Territory of Terror’ in Lviv en researches the features of PR, cultural and museum management in Ukraine. Besides, she is responsible for the communication of the projects ‘Cultural diplomacy between the regions of Ukraine’ in the frontline and liberated cities of Donetsk and Luhansk regions: ‘The museum is open for renovation’,  the expedition ‘HERE AND THERE’ and others.

 

At the Luhansk Regional Museum in Starobilsk, Honchar is Co-curator of the experimental exposition of the Anti-Terrorist Operation. She is the initiator of the ‘Museum Crisis Center’ and the ‘Ambulance Museum project’, which emerged the first days of the Russian war against Ukraine.

 

How to support the Museum Crisis Center?

 

For payments in euro:

BENEFICIARY: ngo insha osvita
Id. Code: 40289892
IBAN: UA933355480000026008053635051
Legal address: Lva Zhemchuzhnikova st. 5, appt. 6, 79053, Lviv, Ukraine
BANK OF BENEFICIARY: PRIVATBANK, 1D HRUSHEVSKOHO STR., KYIV, 01001, UKRAINE
SWIFT: PBANUA2X
CORRESPONDENT BANK: J.P.MORGAN AG, FRANKFURT AM MAIN, GERMANY
Details of payment: charity donation for “Museum Crisis Center”

 

The Museum Crisis Center is a grassroots initiative of Olha Honchar, a culturologist and director of the Lviv Territory of Terror Museum, which is implemented in partnership with Insha Osvita and the New Museum NGO. The Museum Crisis Center has already been supported by the European Commission (within the Strength Here project), the Kyiv Biennale (as part of its own urgent initiative to support the art community), the PinchukArtCentre, the German MitOst e.V., and a number of private patrons.

The Museum Crisis Center aims to provide financial, organizational and human support to small regional museums and their teams in times of crisis. While the state saves the funds of large national museums in the first place, local museum institutions, which are a vascular network of culture, are often overlooked. The Museum Crisis Center sees value in every local museum institution and in the people who preserve that knowledge and collection.

The Museum Crisis Center is an initiative that will be relevant in the postwar period as well. Not only to restore the network of local museums, return collections, restore exhibits and inventory, but also as a tool of mutual assistance in various crisis situations. The Museum Crisis Center is an association that will launch a number of projects, the first of which is Ambulance museum initiative.

 

For partnerships and support, or other forms of payment, write to olha.honchar@gmail.com, be_strong@insha-osvita.org

 

 

Lichen Curatorial Prize
Three Tropes for Entropy
05.02–01.05.2022

Lichen Curatorial Prize
Three Tropes for Entropy
05.02–01.05.2022

Until the 1st of May, you can discover the works of the 2nd trope in the C-mine compressors hall.

 

 

With works by mountaincutters (FR), Angyvir Padilla (VZ) and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané (ES), Three Tropes for Entropy delves into three distinctive artistic practices, presenting their singular approaches towards notions of flux, energy, and transformation.

 

Laila Melchior and Koi Persyn — laureates of the second edition of the Lichen Curatorial Prize — present a transformative exhibition connecting three artistic practices and methodologies to the unique site of the former Winterslag coal mine. Having hosted an industrial complex of coal exploitation for approximately a century, this former mine site embodies the capacity to generate and process energy not only through its history but also in its recent transformation into a creative hub. 

 

Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Phasmides
16mm film transferred to HD video, color, mute,
22’41”, 2012, Courtesy Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo and Esther Schipper, Berlin

 

‘Trope’ and ‘entropy’ share the same ancient Greek root in the word τροπή, evoking the ideas of turn and transmutation. Tropes are literary motifs that use figurative forms of language to increase the tangibility of meaning, stimulating associative perceptions. Entropy is a term that has gained momentum in current times. A scientific concept that stems from thermodynamics, it indicates a transmission process within a closed circuit. Drawing from this specific usage to a more general one, it has been widely used to exemplify the irreversibility of time, of processes that have a clear start but no defined end and that can become quite invisible, as much as they are omnipresent.

 

mountaincutter, proto situation, various media, 2021

 

In parallel with and inspired by such a mixture of possible approaches to the phenomenon of transformation, the exhibition itself undergoes a change over its course. Three Tropes for Entropy opens with clusters of works highlighting each participating practice and gradually evolves towards an intermingled diffusion of particles. These transformations will be marked by three activated moments or chapters – identified by the curatorial duo as exhibition’s ‘tropes’:

 

risquer sa mutation :

programme d’une pensée sans domaine

05.02 – 03.04.2022

 

Ella es su espejo incendiado, su espera en hogueras frías.

05.03 – 01.05.2022

 

Eu era gases puro, ar, espaço vazio, tempo.

01.05.2022 – …

 

These gradual changes allow for interactions between the works themselves and the space, modulating intensities to render visible the mutability that circulates inside the engines of practices.

 

21 AÑOS DE MALA SUERTE (21 YEARS OF BAD LUCK), Angyvir Padilla, video still, 2014

 

 

Film Programme

 

Three films presented during the opening weekend of Three Tropes for Entropy can now be watched below. The screening was part of risquer sa mutation : programme d’une pensée sans domaine, the exhibition’s first trope.

 

    1. Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Phasmides, 2012; 22’41”, 16 mm transferred to HD, colour, mute, courtesy of Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo and Esther Schipper, Berlin
    2. Angyvir Padilla, 21 años de mala suerte (21 years of bad luck), 2014; 04’04, colour, sound, courtesy of the artist
    3. mountaincutters, Supplique pour le beau temps, 16 mm transferred to HD, colour, mute, 2’08”, 2021, production by fondation d’entreprise Hermès

 

 

 

 

 

The artists

 

mountaincutters (FR, °1990) is a hybrid identity, living and working in Brussels. Their duo-practice consists mainly of site-specific sculptures that reconfigure the space where they are exhibited. Through poetic texts and analogue photographs, the duo often finds historical and/or material leads that form the basis of their sculptural installations. These constellations of glass, ceramic, copper and metal objects are in constant flux, forming a closed circuit between the different entities. The in-situ works balance on the threshold of inactive and dynamic, present and invisible, rough and refined. Like an echo of this confused identity, the installation adds an aesthetic uncertainty, favouring transitory situations and unfinished forms for seemingly fortuitous compositions. mountaincutters unifies phenomena that are considered incompatible into one coherent volume, therefore pushing the boundaries of the sculptural into conflict.

 

Angyvir Padilla (VZ, °1987) lives and works in Brussels. In her practice, she invites the viewer to look closer at the places we inhabit by examining how we embody memory. Padilla proposes that the traces of our past seep into a persistent present. Her immersive installations distil the concept of ‘home’ as an intimate, secluded place and relate this notion to people and nature. Padilla’s practice explores the discrepancies and intervals between identity, material and space. Her work turns around the sense of otherness one encounters once presence enters into a dialogue. Angyvir Padilla often works presenting objects and processing materials in relation to the spatial environment in order to connect emotionally with the viewer.

 

Daniel Steegmann Mangrané (ES, °1977) lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. His research is composed of subtle yet crude experiments that question the relationship between language and the world. Although primarily conceptual, his installations engage with the spectator’s imagination and exhibit a strong concern with the existence of everything we see, but especially on everything that we do not see. Mangrané’s work often traces the boundary where nature meets artifice. Lines, circles and rhombuses are drawn, cut and projected onto leaves; the delicate symmetry of branches is split in two. These precise interventions hold a powerful force of attraction: a moment of uncertainty between what is contrived and what is natural. In each of Steegmann Mangrané’s intricate compositions, we get to experience that, far from being distinct, the organic and the geometric, the vital and the abstract, define each other.

 

 

The curators

 

Laila Melchior is an independent curator and researcher investigating the fields of contemporary art and audiovisual aesthetics. She holds a master’s degree in Communication and Culture from UFRJ (BR) and a postgraduate degree in Curatorial Studies from The Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK). Laila Melchior works on projects related to arts, film and theory, looking to incorporate perspectives from the Global South into her projects. As a curator, she collaborates with art institutions. Some of her recent projects are the exhibitions Trojan Horse Behind GlassTime, Times. Half a Time; and The Ghost Library. She is one of the founders and part of the curatorial board of Aventuras do Pensamento, a series of encounters between a children-composed audience and some of the greatest contemporary Brazilian thinkers, scientists and artists that since 2016 discusses pressing issues in the political, innovative and creative horizon of the country. Laila Melchior has also designed the Young Curators Programme, a project which she coordinates to promote a greater engagement of emerging curators in the frame of Belgian participation in the Venice Biennale. Formerly a lecturer at the undergraduate course in Cinema and Digital Media at IESB (Brasilia – BR), she has also published and presented academic works.

 

Koi Persyn is a Brussels-based independent curator and visual artist. He obtained a master’s in Fine Arts at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) after which he completed a postgraduate in Curatorial Studies, also at KASK. During his studies, Koi Persyn founded and co-curated STOCK, a three-year-running residency programme in Het Paviljoen, Ghent. His artistic and curatorial trajectory encompasses notions of authorship and collectivity, employing experimentation with exhibition formats in unconventional locations. His curatorial projects focus on process-based, experimental, and interdisciplinary practices through open-air, collaborative, site-specific exhibitions and residency programmes. Koi Persyn participated in the exchange programme with BIDAI college of arts in Kanazawa (JP) and worked in the framework of the Young Curators Program as a mediator for the Belgian Pavilion at the 58th edition of the Venice Biennale. Koi Persyn co-curated Publiek Park, an open-air group exhibition in the Citadelpark of Ghent, as part of his activities in the frame of the Young Friends of S.M.A.K. Currently, Persyn develops the annual programme of Komplot in Brussels as a guest curator.

 

 

Lichen is a prize for emerging curators, established by CIAP platform for contemporary art and the department of Curatorial Studies at KASK School of Arts to foster and support curatorial experimentation in Belgium. With the support of the Flemish Community, the City of Genk, and the CIAP members.

 

 

Related Projects

Petrichor
13.09–08.11.2020

Three Tropes for Entropy
Film Programme
05.02–01.05.2022

Three Tropes for Entropy
Film Programme
05.02–01.05.2022

 

Laila Melchior and Koi Persyn — laureates of the second edition of the Lichen Curatorial Prize — present a transformative exhibition connecting the artistic practices and methodologies of mountaincutters (FR), Angyvir Padilla (VZ) and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané (ES) to the unique site of the former Winterslag coal mine. Having hosted an industrial complex of coal exploitation for approximately a century, this former mine site embodies the capacity to generate and process energy not only through its history but also in its recent transformation into a creative hub. 

 

 

Three films presented during the opening weekend of Three Tropes for Entropy can now be watched below. The screening was part of risquer sa mutation : programme d’une pensée sans domaine, the exhibition’s first trope.

 

    1. Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Phasmides, 2012; 22’41”, 16 mm transferred to HD, colour, mute, courtesy of Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo and Esther Schipper, Berlin
    2. Angyvir Padilla, 21 años de mala suerte (21 years of bad luck), 2014; 04’04, colour, sound, courtesy of the artist
    3. mountaincutters, Supplique pour le beau temps, 16 mm transferred to HD, colour, mute, 2’08”, 2021, production by fondation d’entreprise Hermès

 

 

 

 

 

Lichen is a prize for emerging curators, established by CIAP platform for contemporary art and the department of Curatorial Studies at KASK School of Arts to foster and support curatorial experimentation in Belgium. With the support of the Flemish Community, the City of Genk, and the CIAP members.

 

 

Open Call
Workshop application writing

Open Call
Workshop application writing

 

Do you want to apply for a subsidy? Are you on the verge of applying for a residency? Then this workshop offers a suitable theoretical and practical preparation for writing your application. Katrien Reist (State of the Arts) will lead a workshop that consists of two work sessions. Please make sure you can attend both of them.

 

 

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

  • Dates: Saturday 19 February at 10.30 a.m. – 4.30 p.m. and Saturday 12 March at 10.30 a.m. – 4.30 p.m.
  • Location: Z33, Bonnefantenstraat 1, 3500 Hasselt
  • Registration: Register, the latest on Thursday 10 February, via this link: https://www.z33.be/workshopreeks/
  • Price: Free

 

 

 

VONK, Z33 and CIAP/FLACC join forces and start the year with a series of workshops around the practice of the visual artist. These workshops will help you take your first steps and offer you handy tools to put into practice.

The workshops are intended for professional, semi-professional and/or starting contemporary artists with a connection to Limburg and who have followed professional art training. We kick off with the dossier writing workshop. The workshops are held in Dutch, are free of charge and include lunch. The number of places is limited.

Keep an eye on our website for more information about the following workshops in the near future:

  • Saturday 11 June | Workshop on strategic thinking and business management
  • Saturday 24 September | Practical workshop: How to photograph my work with a smartphone?
  • Saturday 19 November | Portfolio Days

 

 

 

Marianne Berenhaut
Mine de rien
23.10.2021–16.01.2022

Marianne Berenhaut
Mine de rien
23.10.2021–16.01.2022

La recontre, 2013

 

Marianne Berenhaut’s body of work, spanning over five decades and still expanding, eludes any attempt at a summary. It cannot ever be explained or fully grasped; it needs to be seen, experienced and felt to the bone. The exhibition at CIAP and C-mine presents a subjective choice from this generous oeuvre. Sculptures, installations, and collages made of objects ​​found in the artist’s immediate surroundings are accompanied by a selection of archival materials, including previously unseen footage and newly commissioned documentation. Placed side by side, the works created years apart come into dialogue and reveal their lasting relevance. The expression ‘mine de rien’, borrowed for the title of this exhibition, describes someone acting casually, ‘as if nothing was at hand’, much like the works of Marianne. Hidden behind the facade of daily objects are memories and stories we all can relate to, but also experiences that remain deeply individual and, on some level, inaccessible. 

 

The very present, symbolically charged architecture of the former mine of Winterslag lends itself as a perfect setting to highlight specific facets of Marianne’s practice. Now a creative site, it used to be the heart of the extractive industry and a gravitational core of the cité, attracting newcomers to Genk. What better context to reflect on the subjects of care, labour, trauma, and healing, which surface, in a more or less direct way, throughout this body of work.

 

 

PRACTICAL

The tickets to this exhibition can be now purchased via C-mine’s website.
FOLLOW THIS LINK to reserve your ticket.

 

 

GUIDED TOURS

CIAP organizes three tours guided by the curatorial team. The curators reveal some anecdotes about the works and share their own experiences with Marianne Berenhaut’s oeuvre. Participating in a guided tour is included in your expo ticket. Register via the link below, but do not forget to also purchase a ticket for the exhibition on the same date. The number of places is limited.

 

 

This exhibition is a collaboration between CIAP and C-mine. With the kind support of the Flemish Community, the city of Genk, and CIAP members.

 

Bio

Marianne Berenhaut (1934, BE) lives and works between Brussels and London. She studied fine arts at the Académie du Midi and Atelier de Moeschal (1960-1964). Her works were presented in various solo exhibitions, at La Maison des Femmes (Brussels), Musée Juif de Belgique (Brussels), MAC’s (Grand Hornu), Isy Brachot Gallery (Brussels), Nadja Vilenne Gallery (Liège), and Island (Brussels). She has been part of several group exhibitions, amongst others at Maison Grégoire (Brussels), Gladstone Gallery (Brussels), Bureau des réalités (Brussels), and Carl Freedman Gallery (Margate, UK). She is represented by Dvir Gallery (Brussels/ Tel Aviv).

Laila Melchior & Koi Persyn
winners of the 2021 Lichen prize

Laila Melchior & Koi Persyn
winners of the 2021 Lichen prize

 

Laila Melchior & Koi Persyn

 

Curatorial Studies at KASK & Conservatorium and CIAP are delighted to announce CS alumni Laila Melchior and Koi Persyn as the winners of the 2021 Lichen Prize for Curators. The jury appreciated the duo’s curatorial concerns with questions of place and landscape, interests that align with those of CIAP, and which will be the ground for a fertile collaboration and exchange. The exhibition will take place in 2022.

 

 

 

About the curators

 

Laila Melchior is an independent curator and researcher investigating the fields of contemporary art and audiovisual aesthetics. She holds a master’s degree in Communication and Culture from UFRJ (BR) and a postgraduate degree in Curatorial Studies from The Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK). Laila Melchior works on projects related to arts, film and theory, looking to incorporate perspectives from the Global South into her projects. As a curator, she collaborates with art institutions. Some of her recent projects are the exhibitions Trojan Horse Behind GlassTime, Times. Half a Time; and The Ghost Library. She is one of the founders and part of the curatorial board of Aventuras do Pensamento, a series of encounters between a children-composed audience and some of the greatest contemporary Brazilian thinkers, scientists and artists that since 2016 discusses pressing issues in the political, innovative and creative horizon of the country. Laila Melchior has also designed the Young Curators Programme, a project which she coordinates to promote a greater engagement of emerging curators in the frame of Belgian participation in the Venice Biennale. Formerly a lecturer at the undergraduate course in Cinema and Digital Media at IESB (Brasilia – BR), she has also published and presented academic works.

 

Koi Persyn is a Brussels-based independent curator and visual artist. He obtained a master’s in Fine Arts at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) after which he completed a postgraduate in Curatorial Studies, also at KASK. During his studies, Koi Persyn founded and co-curated STOCK, a three-year-running residency programme in Het Paviljoen, Ghent. His artistic and curatorial trajectory encompasses notions of authorship and collectivity, employing experimentation with exhibition formats in unconventional locations. His curatorial projects focus on process-based, experimental, and interdisciplinary practices through open-air, collaborative, site-specific exhibitions and residency programmes. Koi Persyn participated in the exchange programme with BIDAI college of arts in Kanazawa (JP) and worked in the framework of the Young Curators Program as a mediator for the Belgian Pavilion at the 58th edition of the Venice Biennale. Koi Persyn is currently co-curating Publiek Park, an open-air group exhibition in the Citadelpark of Ghent, as part of his activities in the frame of the Young Friends of S.M.A.K.

 

 

 

About Lichen prize

 

As a testing ground for visual thinking in diverse forms, CIAP and Curatorial Studies — KASK & Conservatorium have initiated and endowed the Lichen Prize to foster and support curatorial innovation in Belgium. The call is open to all alumnae and alumni of the Curatorial Studies programme — as well as of its earlier forms: TEBEAC and ‘Beheer, conservatie en restauratie van museale collecties hedendaagse kunst’ — regardless of age, current professional status or geographic location. In fall 2020, CIAP and Curatorial Studies proudly presented Petrichor, a group exhibition curated by the laureate of the 2019 edition, Lucie Ménard.

 

Exhibition view: Petrichor, an exhibition curated by the winner of Lichen 2019, Lucie Ménard.

Related Projects

Petrichor
13.09–08.11.2020