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 & curated by
Myself and Sjoerd Beijers

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

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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

Gathering #1: Home Sweet Home

What are some rituals that make us feel at home? What is inherently a home? And what does it consist of? Is it material or immaterial, a space or a body? What kind of ingredients constitute a home? Memories, people, emotions? Is it a shelter, or a sanctuary? Is it something we run from or confide in when things are difficult?

Within Western cultures, homes and houses are closely linked together. With the enclosure of the common land, communal structures have been replaced by private homes. This binary between the public and the private also encloses our relationship with others, to nature and knowledge.

In this workshop—with room for eight participants—we will explore different notions of what a home could be and what a home means to them. Ultimately seeking alternative kinships towards the essence of what a home is. By playing with the common signifiers of what constitutes a home, we aim to collectively imagine alternate views on what a home is, or could potentially be.

Through performance work and (edible) sculptures, the organizing and invited artists will help us rethink the communal aspect of the home. Paired to this, there will be a reading, in which we collectively reflect upon the material and seek new knowledge and conceptions to emerge. Through a combination of objects brought by the participants and materials we prepared, we will ultimately use these new ideas to build our home collectively.


This collectively built home will later open to the public in the form of an exhibition, further breaking this binary between public and private. Temporarily the cultural norms are subverted within the space and the home becomes an open place, a meeting ground and a place for collective reflection.


Co-produced & curated by
Myself and Sjoerd Beijers

Performance by 
Adriana Joëlle

Contributions by
Lorenço
Kyra Nijskens
Abel Hartooni
Beljita Gurung
Lizzy Jongedijk
Seppe-Hazel Laeremans
Jessica Marlieke van Egmond

Photography credits go to Isaac Ponseele

To own your own joy

(Text by Sjoerd Beijers)

...”A mysterious white figure stares into a mirror. Sharp white fangs, clinging around a poem. A tail—reminiscent of that of a horse—wagging slowly, as they delicately step throughout the space.

In the performance To Own Your Joy, Natalija Gucheva recites a self-written poem, accompanied by the sound of Benjamin Schoones. In an altered—deeply harmonised—voice their words sharply fill the room:

“As the oyster opens
Soft liquid oozes and drips on your legs
Coding different systems of pleasure”

In their writing, Natalija found inspiration in Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti. The Victorian poem explores themes of temptation and sisterhood. The relationship between its two main characters is interpreted as same-sex desire and becomes fertile soil for their own expression to spring from. They expand upon this, voicing their personal truth on gender and sexuality, and the freedom entailed within. Being confronted with the pressure to conform to heteronormative societal norms is a daily practice for queer individuals, to which the artist finds an escape, even if it is temporary. Weaving together garments—by Alexis Gerlach and Aidan Abnet—Natalija searches for identity. A tail, claws, horns. Animalistic elements in their costume can be perceived as a symbol of the constant mutation and code-switching that queer individuals go through. Yet at the same time, they might resemble the monstrosity that society perceives them as. However, as powerfully demonstrated in the performance, these can also be claimed and used as a means to voice anger. To fight back:

“To claw out of our monstrous bodies
Burn the cocoon and lick the ashes
Spit in the face of terror
As a final lullaby”

In a similar notion to the original poem by Rossetti, the norms of the venue become subverted. Natalija’s personal truth on gender and sexuality momentarily intruded the space, as a loud scream unleashes:

“I OWN MY OWN JOY”

Performed by
Myself

Music Production
Benjamin Schoones

Costume Design
Alexis Gerlach & Aidan Abnet

Photography credits go to Johan Poezevara

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The full poem can be found here