un(common) grounds

14 – 29.05.2022

(un)common grounds is a collaboration between iMAL, Werktank and Overtoon, featuring past and present residents, curated by Josue Aliendre Carvani, Natalia Barczyńska and Valentina Bianchi. Inspired by the common trajectories between all three platforms which focus on research, experimentation, and processes; the exhibition takes as its framework the different states of creation and their subsequent transformations, emerging in three parallel and overlapping paths.

The first, ‘TESTING GROUND’, represents an opportunity for experimentation. The artists, Laurie-Anne Jaubert and Stijn Wybouw are free to modify their existing works and present them in multiple moments and in different modalities throughout the duration of the exhibition. Collaboration and reciprocal responses are inevitable and could also involve the rest of the grounds; sounds disperse and vibrations resonate in the exhibition, erasing confines. Such an everchanging environment allows the visitors to experience the artworks in diverse ways, according to the potential appearance and temporary attitude of the artists as well as their own preferences.

The second, ‘GROUND OF PRESENCE’ incorporates works that revolve around the alteration of perception in the spectators, by manipulating their senses for example through the phenomenon of synaesthesia. By referring to the contexts of the space, works by Amber Meulenijzer, Line Boogaerts, and Vica Pacheco evoke feelings ranging from confusion to nostalgia through sounds and images which they recall. They employ the idea of visual memory and associations related to certain objects, and ephemeral environmental sensations, where the transparency of words overlaps.

Time-based installations by Pierre Coric, and Anna Godzina, perform themselves through the interweaving complexity of movements, rhythms of endless time circulation, when their duration and process are forcing the audience to observe (or not) and be present. To look or to look back.

The final path, ‘VIRTUAL GROUND’, is an extension of space that allows artists to present work that is not exclusively tethered to a physical presence and that does not adhere to a concrete state of ‘ending’. The visual identity created by Hussein Shikha encompasses constant reiteration; playing with the contemporary urge for constant online communication; he is free to modify and repurpose the work depending on any given mood or circumstance. Therefore allowing the aesthetic presence and the digital view of the exhibition to remain in flux. The curatorial endeavor also falls under the purview of creative processes, curator/writer Marijn Bril was invited to comment on all aspects of exhibition making. By allowing a third party to be privy to the flow of information, research, and communication from the preliminary stages of conceptualizing an exhibition right up to the opening, curatorship can be held in the same regard as the chosen artworks.

PUBLIC PROGRAMME

14.05.2022

Opening with performances:

“Tot de kaars uit is” (“Until the candle goes out”) by Stijn Wybouw, 17:00 – 19:00

“La Lumitérale” by Laurie-Anne Jaubert, 19:00 – 20:00

19.05.2022

Guided tour by curators, 17:00

“It’s All in the Footnotes: Notes on Curatorial Thoughts” – talk with Marijn Bril, 18:00