Conversation hosted by Tropical Tap Water and friends with Rijksakademie alumni and documenta fifteen/lumbung members Ade Darmawan, Gertrude Flentge, Reinaart Vanhoe, and Yazan Khalili.

Reflecting on different questions around institutional and grassroot networks, the group will reflect on RAIN and lumbung. RAIN is the network of (visual) artists' initiatives from countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, set up by former residents of the Rijksakademie (2000-2004). Lumbung is the collective practice and network of collectives and artists in documenta fifteen. 

Tropical Tap Water and friends is a band consisting of Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba, Diana Cantarey, Julian Abraham 'Togar', Simnikiwe Buhlungu and Olà Hassanain.

Ade Darmawan is an artist and curator based in Jakarta. He is a member of ruangrupa who are currently the artistic director of documenta fifteen.

Gertrude Flentge is a curator and cultural practitioner based in Amsterdam. She is a member of the artistic team of documenta fifteen and the lumbung.

Reinaart Vanhoe is an artist based in Rotterdam. He is a participating artist in documenta fifteen and a member of the lumbung.

Yazan Khalili is an artist and academic based in Amsterdam and Ramallah. He is a member of the Question of Funding which is one of the members of lumbung interlokal in documenta fifteen.

Conversation with Ade Darmawan, Frederikke Hansen, Gertrude Flentge and Lara Khaldi

The curators will speak about the practice of lumbung, the majelis and what it has come to mean to share a common pot within documenta fifteen.

Ade Darmawan is an artist and curator based in Jakarta. He is a member of ruangrupa who are currently the artistic director of documenta fifteen.

Frederikke Hansen is a curator and writer based between Møn and Kassel. She is a member of the artistic team of documenta fifteen and the lumbung.

Gertrude Flentge is a curator and cultural practitioner based in Amsterdam. She is a member of the artistic team of documenta fifteen and the lumbung.

Lara Khaldi is a curator and writer based in Amsterdam and Jerusalem. She is a member of the artistic team of documenta fifteen and the lumbung.

The topic of this roundtable/open conversation will be about the threshold between art and research explored from a feminist epistemological standpoint of contemporary practitioners and about the work of care for both the art and research communities in their practice(s). 

With: Prof. Iris van der Tuin, Dr. Ilse van Rijn, Dr. Marija Cetinić, Ola Hassanain and Ohad Ben Shimon

Iris van der Tuin is Professor of Theory of Cultural Inquiry in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, where she is also Dean for Interdisciplinary Education. Iris is interested in humanities scholarship that traverses the ‘two cultures’ and reaches beyond the boundaries of academia. Her recent book is Critical Concepts for the Creative Humanities (2022), a glossary co-authored with Nanna Verhoeff. In 2021–22 Iris is also Novo Nordisk Foundation guest professor in the Laboratory for Art Research, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen and at Aarhus University.

Ilse van Rijn is a researcher and art historian. She holds a PhD from the University of Amsterdam (UvA), in collaboration with the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (GRA) and the Jan van Eyck Academy (JvE), in which she developed a so-called poetics of the artists’ text (The Artists’ Text as Work of Art, 2017).

Marija Cetinić is Assistant Professor of Literary and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam and a research affiliate at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. Signs of Autumn: The Aesthetics of Saturation, her current project, focuses on the concept of saturation, and on developing its implications for the relation of contemporary art and aesthetics to political economy.

Ola Hassanain trained her focus on the subtle politics of space – namely, how built spaces react to and reinforce violence from state entities, which in turn, creates a built environment that reflects, responds to, regulates the lives of those who inhabit it. Her most recent work explores an idea of “space as discourse,” an expanded notion of space that encompasses political and environmental questions. Her work tries to develop a spatial vocabulary that follows how ruptures presented by 'political events', make it possible to aspire to new kinds of ecologies.

Ohad Ben Shimon is an artist, researcher and educator. He is currently guest reseacher at the Rijksakademie, PhD candidate at the Research Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON) at Utrecht University and Researcher of Change Management at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. His current PhD research focuses on the role of embodiment in knowledge-based organisations.

Conversation with Jessica de Abreu and Mitchell Esajas (Black Archives), Eszter Szakács (Off Biennial), and Reinaart Vanhoe.

The lumbung members will reflect on the collective process so far, the different majelises and working groups they have been part of. They will also be speaking about their ecosystems and collaborations for their documenta fifteen projects

Jessica de Abreu is an anthropologist, curator, and activist. She is co-founder of the Black Archives, a lumbung artist in documenta fifteen and member of the lumbung.

Mitchell Esajas is an activist, anthropologist and curator based in Amsterdam. He is the co-founder of the Black Archives, a lumbung artist in documenta fifteen and member of the lumbung.

Eszter Szakács is a curator and academic based between Amsterdam and budapest. She is a member of the curatorial team of Off Biennial, a lumbung interlokal member participating in documenta fifteen.

Reinaart Vanhoe is an artist based in Rotterdam. He is a participating artist in documenta fifteen and a member of the lumbung.

As part of Antonio Jose Guzman ongoing project Electric Dub Station. A presentation and a debate tracing the different historic 'roots and routes' of Indigo across the globe, exploring how these migrations are meaningful in our material cultures today and how they are represented in the decolonial work of Antonio Jose Guzman.

With: Christel Vesters, Lipika Bansal, Iva Jankovic and Antonio Jose Guzman

Antonio Jose Guzman is a Dutch-Panamanian artist who aims to create audiovisual storytelling through multidisciplinary textile installations, experimental rituals and performances, as well as other projects related to genetics, decolonisation, postcolonial history and the African diaspora.

Christel Vesters is a curator, writer and teacher based in Amsterdam. Touch/Trace is a research project curated by Vesters and brings together artists, textile designers, textile makers, writers and thinkers.

Lipika Bansal is founder of Textiel Factorij. She is an artistic researcher and social designer. With her work she investigates art and craft cultures of India and the Netherlands, it’s heritage, origin and local significance.

Iva Jankovic is a Dutch-Yugoslavian artist and designer who transforms ideas into performance pieces, installations and unique garments. Merging her background in traditional fine arts with crafts, her sustainable brand serves as a platform for artistic research into the use of patterns and symbols across the world.

Drawing on this question as a prompt, René Boer, Ola Hassanain and Winnie Herbstein explore ways of thinking through the built environment. In addressing sovereignty, architecture and ownership, we wish to reconfigure (or mend) the space of our social relations.

This event is an opportunity to bring together research, to see where the possibilities for change may lie.

René Boer (1986, he/him) works as a queer critic, curator and organiser in and beyond the fields of architecture, art, design and heritage. He is based between Amsterdam and Cairo, co-founder of LOOM and a driving force behind the Failed Architecture platform.

Ola Hassanain trained her focus on the subtle politics of space – namely, how built spaces react to and reinforce violence from state entities, which in turn, creates a built environment that reflects, responds to, regulates the lives of those who inhabit it. Her most recent work explores an idea of “space as discourse,” an expanded notion of space that encompasses political and environmental questions. Her work tries to develop a spatial vocabulary that follows how ruptures presented by 'political events', make it possible to aspire to new kinds of ecologies.

Winnie Herbstein is an artist, documenting historical and contemporary forms of community-based organising. In particular, she is interested in how these narratives intersect with architecture and the formation of space. She trained in construction and is a founding member of Slaghammers, a feminist welding group based in Glasgow.

Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba is a Mexican political cartoonist and anti-capitalist entrepreneur currently doing a residency at the Rijksakademie.

Round table with Veronique Aicha, Arna Mačkić and Robert Glas. Taking the film 1986, Or A Sphinx's Interior by resident Robert Glas as a point of departure, both the accountability of architects and possible alternatives to current penological practices are discussed.

Veronique Aicha works for Restorative Justice Netherlands, with the aim to create small scale detention houses in cooperation with the European movement RESCALED. RESCALED challenges the concept of ‘prison’ and proposes the concept of ‘detention houses’ instead. She has a background in social psychology and philosophy and has been working in the sector of criminal justice reform for more than ten years focusing on circular justice. She previously worked in Albania, Kosovo and North-Macedonia for human rights organisation Netherlands Helsinki Committee and was chair of the Dutch branch of European Prison Education Association.

Arna Mačkić is an architect and founder of Studio L A (together with Lorien Beijaert), and writer of the book Mortal Cities & Forgotten Monuments. For L A, the practice of architecture is a device through which to investigate societal issues, phenomena and narratives, and to place them in renewed perspectives. Studio L A has won several awards, including the Dutch Design Award 2014, Best Dutch Book Design 2014, the Maaskant Prize for young Architects 2017 and the Groninger Architecture Prize 2021.

Robert Glas’ artistic practice is an ongoing investigation into the formal structures of the state, predominantly its laws, regulations and the technologies used to enforce them. This process results in short films, photography and installations exhibited at the Van Abbe Museum, Kunsthal and Foam. In 2019 he received the Charlotte Köhler Prijs and the Artist-in-Residence Fellowship of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS-KNAW). Glas lives and works in Rotterdam and Amsterdam.

Sungeun Lee is an artist from Seoul, Korea. Interested in understanding consciousness and making friends. Currently doing a residency at Rijksakademie.

In this performance, Saras will read to and with the audience several stories from the book she wrote while doing performance activating the art installation in the studio. The book 'Route of Flowers' is a collection of parables inspired by the neighbourhood of Amsterdam Oost from the perspective of the author while she navigates her way to find a sense of belonging. The awareness of the histories of the neighbourhood, personal relationships, and transformative nature is continuously reflected in the parables.

Reading Rehearsals is an experimental method to activate the amator archive through shared presence and collective reading. Everyone is invited to pick a text or a fragment of a text from the Reader or from the archive itself and suggest it for reading. The reading can be loud or silent; one person can read the entire text or people can read in turns; people can be seated in a circle or move around the archive while reading. Reading is not only about words and sounds, it can also be about movement and gestures. It’s a rehearsal, we try different forms of reading, we experiment, we practice imagination.

In a series of short vignettes that explore the meeting place between introspection and performance the body acts as the main means of knowledge production in its encounters with cultural institutions today.

She listens and from there she speaks. An extralinguistic language. The language of the internal voice in a perennial attunement. She breathes through her temporary body. Her brain is her skin; the largest organ. The sub-tone of her consciousness. Symbiotic Symphony is a branch within an ongoing research into deep tissue entanglements and sonic ecology.

AMPLIFY YOUR BREATH, AND BECOME THE BREATHING ORGAN OF THE ROOM.

Performed by: Elisabeth Mesnier, Gala Farucci / Paca Faraus, Roza Pogosian, Rūta Junevičiūtė, Valeryia Le

The performance consists of a collage of texts like news, goodbye letters, family conversations, memories, as well as statistics and research findings on POC (and) LGBTQ individuals’ social environment and psychological developments. Within the performance, stories of different families are being intertwined. Intergenerational and personal dynamics, tension between parent figures and their designated offspring, as well as notions of love, hate, desire and regret are negotiated within the duration of the action. The choreography and costumes used in the performance are furthermore inspired by images of figures, known from folklore, oral tradition, film and art history. The focus here lies on narrations and images depicting characters that fought in various public and intimate settings of social resistance. The protagonist of the performance are Slavic and Philippine folk demons who were used to embody the feelings of being other, not fitting to a community.

In this performance, Saras will read to and with the audience several stories from the book she wrote while doing performance activating the art installation in the studio. The book 'Route of Flowers' is a collection of parables inspired by the neighbourhood of Amsterdam Oost from the perspective of the author while she navigates her way to find a sense of belonging. The awareness of the histories of the neighbourhood, personal relationships, and transformative nature is continuously reflected in the parables.

She listens and from there she speaks. An extralinguistic language. The language of the internal voice in a perennial attunement. She breathes through her temporary body. Her brain is her skin; the largest organ. The sub-tone of her consciousness. Symbiotic Symphony is a branch within an ongoing research into deep tissue entanglements and sonic ecology.

AMPLIFY YOUR BREATH, AND BECOME THE BREATHING ORGAN OF THE ROOM.

Performed by: Elisabeth Mesnier, Gala Farucci / Paca Faraus, Roza Pogosian, Rūta Junevičiūtė, Valeryia Le

Reading Rehearsals is an experimental method to activate the amator archive through shared presence and collective reading. Everyone is invited to pick a text or a fragment of a text from the Reader or from the archive itself and suggest it for reading. The reading can be loud or silent; one person can read the entire text or people can read in turns; people can be seated in a circle or move around the archive while reading. Reading is not only about words and sounds, it can also be about movement and gestures. It’s a rehearsal, we try different forms of reading, we experiment, we practice imagination.

Audiovisual performance, work in progress

A subjective reading of the mechanisms of self-reliance and their subdivision into either tactics of civil disobedience and dissidence or survival mechanisms and forms of passive endurance. Although both are undermining from within, the first category is seeking change, the second -intentionally or not - preserving the status quo.

A Psychedelic Afro Futuristic Electro-Dub Act, in collaboration with Iva Jankovic

In a series of short vignettes that explore the meeting place between introspection and performance the body acts as the main means of knowledge production in its encounters with cultural institutions today.

She listens and from there she speaks. An extralinguistic language. The language of the internal voice in a perennial attunement. She breathes through her temporary body. Her brain is her skin; the largest organ. The sub-tone of her consciousness. Symbiotic Symphony is a branch within an ongoing research into deep tissue entanglements and sonic ecology.

AMPLIFY YOUR BREATH, AND BECOME THE BREATHING ORGAN OF THE ROOM.

Performed by: Elisabeth Mesnier, Gala Farucci / Paca Faraus, Roza Pogosian, Rūta Junevičiūtė, Valeryia Le

In this performance, Saras will read to and with the audience several stories from the book she wrote while doing performance activating the art installation in the studio. The book 'Route of Flowers' is a collection of parables inspired by the neighbourhood of Amsterdam Oost from the perspective of the author while she navigates her way to find a sense of belonging. The awareness of the histories of the neighbourhood, personal relationships, and transformative nature is continuously reflected in the parables.

Reading Rehearsals is an experimental method to activate the amator archive through shared presence and collective reading. Everyone is invited to pick a text or a fragment of a text from the Reader or from the archive itself and suggest it for reading. The reading can be loud or silent; one person can read the entire text or people can read in turns; people can be seated in a circle or move around the archive while reading. Reading is not only about words and sounds, it can also be about movement and gestures. It’s a rehearsal, we try different forms of reading, we experiment, we practice imagination.

Audiovisual performance, 15 mins, work in progress

A subjective reading of the mechanisms of self-reliance and their subdivision into either tactics of civil disobedience and dissidence or survival mechanisms and forms of passive endurance. Although both are undermining from within, the first category is seeking change, the second -intentionally or not - preserving the status quo.

In a series of short vignettes that explore the meeting place between introspection and performance the body acts as the main means of knowledge production in its encounters with cultural institutions today.

From the end of April to the end of May 2022, honey bees have been invited to the Rijksakademie for a conver-something which happens to overlap with the Rijks Open 2022. Within this month-long period, they will not only do what they usually do (forage for nectar and pollen, take care of one another, engage in hive politics etc) but this conver-something will allow for passers by to dance with the bees, whereby worker bees do the 'waggle dance' upon entering the hive from foraging, as a way to communicate the source of pollen, nectar and water sources to the rest of the bees in the hive.

The bees will live in accommodation on the lawns at the entrance of the Rijksakademie. They can be viewed from the window in Studio A53, where an adjacent sound and film project continues this conver-something on how we come to know.

She listens and from there she speaks. An extralinguistic language. The language of the internal voice in a perennial attunement. She breathes through her temporary body. Her brain is her skin; the largest organ. The sub-tone of her consciousness. Symbiotic Symphony is a branch within an ongoing research into deep tissue entanglements and sonic ecology.

AMPLIFY YOUR BREATH, AND BECOME THE BREATHING ORGAN OF THE ROOM.

Performed by: Elisabeth Mesnier, Gala Farucci / Paca Faraus, Roza Pogosian, Rūta Junevičiūtė, Valeryia Le

In this performance, Saras will read to and with the audience several stories from the book she wrote while doing performance activating the art installation in the studio. The book 'Route of Flowers' is a collection of parables inspired by the neighbourhood of Amsterdam Oost from the perspective of the author while she navigates her way to find a sense of belonging. The awareness of the histories of the neighbourhood, personal relationships, and transformative nature is continuously reflected in the parables.

Reading Rehearsals is an experimental method to activate the amator archive through shared presence and collective reading. Everyone is invited to pick a text or a fragment of a text from the Reader or from the archive itself and suggest it for reading. The reading can be loud or silent; one person can read the entire text or people can read in turns; people can be seated in a circle or move around the archive while reading. Reading is not only about words and sounds, it can also be about movement and gestures. It’s a rehearsal, we try different forms of reading, we experiment, we practice imagination.

Audiovisual performance, 15 mins, work in progress

A subjective reading of the mechanisms of self-reliance and their subdivision into either tactics of civil disobedience and dissidence or survival mechanisms and forms of passive endurance. Although both are undermining from within, the first category is seeking change, the second -intentionally or not - preserving the status quo.

In a series of short vignettes that explore the meeting place between introspection and performance the body acts as the main means of knowledge production in its encounters with cultural institutions today.

She listens and from there she speaks. An extralinguistic language. The language of the internal voice in a perennial attunement. She breathes through her temporary body. Her brain is her skin; the largest organ. The sub-tone of her consciousness. Symbiotic Symphony is a branch within an ongoing research into deep tissue entanglements and sonic ecology.

AMPLIFY YOUR BREATH, AND BECOME THE BREATHING ORGAN OF THE ROOM.

Performed by: Elisabeth Mesnier, Gala Farucci / Paca Faraus, Roza Pogosian, Rūta Junevičiūtė, Valeryia Le

In this performance, Saras will read to and with the audience several stories from the book she wrote while doing performance activating the art installation in the studio. The book 'Route of Flowers' is a collection of parables inspired by the neighbourhood of Amsterdam Oost from the perspective of the author while she navigates her way to find a sense of belonging. The awareness of the histories of the neighbourhood, personal relationships, and transformative nature is continuously reflected in the parables.

Reading Rehearsals is an experimental method to activate the amator archive through shared presence and collective reading. Everyone is invited to pick a text or a fragment of a text from the Reader or from the archive itself and suggest it for reading. The reading can be loud or silent; one person can read the entire text or people can read in turns; people can be seated in a circle or move around the archive while reading. Reading is not only about words and sounds, it can also be about movement and gestures. It’s a rehearsal, we try different forms of reading, we experiment, we practice imagination.

Audiovisual performance, 15 mins, work in progress

A subjective reading of the mechanisms of self-reliance and their subdivision into either tactics of civil disobedience and dissidence or survival mechanisms and forms of passive endurance. Although both are undermining from within, the first category is seeking change, the second -intentionally or not - preserving the status quo.

She listens and from there she speaks. An extralinguistic language. The language of the internal voice in a perennial attunement. She breathes through her temporary body. Her brain is her skin; the largest organ. The sub-tone of her consciousness. Symbiotic Symphony is a branch within an ongoing research into deep tissue entanglements and sonic ecology.

AMPLIFY YOUR BREATH, AND BECOME THE BREATHING ORGAN OF THE ROOM.

Performed by: Elisabeth Mesnier, Gala Farucci / Paca Faraus, Roza Pogosian, Rūta Junevičiūtė, Valeryia Le

A collective de-reading on relationships: contractual, transactional, romantic, economic, soft and hard.

With: Anh Trần, Annelies Kamen, Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba, Hend Samir, Jota Mombaça, Julian ‘Togar’ Abraham, Olà Hassanain, Polina Medvedeva, Rajyashri Goody, Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Tessa Mars, Arnisa Caterina Zeqo

In this performance, Saras will read to and with the audience several stories from the book she wrote while doing performance activating the art installation in the studio. The book 'Route of Flowers' is a collection of parables inspired by the neighbourhood of Amsterdam Oost from the perspective of the author while she navigates her way to find a sense of belonging. The awareness of the histories of the neighbourhood, personal relationships, and transformative nature is continuously reflected in the parables.

Reading Rehearsals is an experimental method to activate the amator archive through shared presence and collective reading. Everyone is invited to pick a text or a fragment of a text from the Reader or from the archive itself and suggest it for reading. The reading can be loud or silent; one person can read the entire text or people can read in turns; people can be seated in a circle or move around the archive while reading. Reading is not only about words and sounds, it can also be about movement and gestures. It’s a rehearsal, we try different forms of reading, we experiment, we practice imagination.

Audiovisual performance, 15 mins, work in progress

A subjective reading of the mechanisms of self-reliance and their subdivision into either tactics of civil disobedience and dissidence or survival mechanisms and forms of passive endurance. Although both are undermining from within, the first category is seeking change, the second -intentionally or not - preserving the status quo.

In a series of short vignettes that explore the meeting place between introspection and performance the body acts as the main means of knowledge production in its encounters with cultural institutions today.

She listens and from there she speaks. An extralinguistic language. The language of the internal voice in a perennial attunement. She breathes through her temporary body. Her brain is her skin; the largest organ. The sub-tone of her consciousness. Symbiotic Symphony is a branch within an ongoing research into deep tissue entanglements and sonic ecology.

AMPLIFY YOUR BREATH, AND BECOME THE BREATHING ORGAN OF THE ROOM.

Performed by: Elisabeth Mesnier, Gala Farucci / Paca Faraus, Roza Pogosian, Rūta Junevičiūtė, Valeryia Le

In this performance, Saras will read to and with the audience several stories from the book she wrote while doing performance activating the art installation in the studio. The book 'Route of Flowers' is a collection of parables inspired by the neighbourhood of Amsterdam Oost from the perspective of the author while she navigates her way to find a sense of belonging. The awareness of the histories of the neighbourhood, personal relationships, and transformative nature is continuously reflected in the parables.

Reading Rehearsals is an experimental method to activate the amator archive through shared presence and collective reading. Everyone is invited to pick a text or a fragment of a text from the Reader or from the archive itself and suggest it for reading. The reading can be loud or silent; one person can read the entire text or people can read in turns; people can be seated in a circle or move around the archive while reading. Reading is not only about words and sounds, it can also be about movement and gestures. It’s a rehearsal, we try different forms of reading, we experiment, we practice imagination.

Audiovisual performance, 15 mins, work in progress

A subjective reading of the mechanisms of self-reliance and their subdivision into either tactics of civil disobedience and dissidence or survival mechanisms and forms of passive endurance. Although both are undermining from within, the first category is seeking change, the second -intentionally or not - preserving the status quo.

In a series of short vignettes that explore the meeting place between introspection and performance the body acts as the main means of knowledge production in its encounters with cultural institutions today.

She listens and from there she speaks. An extralinguistic language. The language of the internal voice in a perennial attunement. She breathes through her temporary body. Her brain is her skin; the largest organ. The sub-tone of her consciousness. Symbiotic Symphony is a branch within an ongoing research into deep tissue entanglements and sonic ecology.

AMPLIFY YOUR BREATH, AND BECOME THE BREATHING ORGAN OF THE ROOM.

Performed by: Elisabeth Mesnier, Gala Farucci / Paca Faraus, Roza Pogosian, Rūta Junevičiūtė, Valeryia Le

In this performance, Saras will read to and with the audience several stories from the book she wrote while doing performance activating the art installation in the studio. The book 'Route of Flowers' is a collection of parables inspired by the neighbourhood of Amsterdam Oost from the perspective of the author while she navigates her way to find a sense of belonging. The awareness of the histories of the neighbourhood, personal relationships, and transformative nature is continuously reflected in the parables.

Reading Rehearsals is an experimental method to activate the amator archive through shared presence and collective reading. Everyone is invited to pick a text or a fragment of a text from the Reader or from the archive itself and suggest it for reading. The reading can be loud or silent; one person can read the entire text or people can read in turns; people can be seated in a circle or move around the archive while reading. Reading is not only about words and sounds, it can also be about movement and gestures. It’s a rehearsal, we try different forms of reading, we experiment, we practice imagination.

Audiovisual performance, 15 mins, work in progress

A subjective reading of the mechanisms of self-reliance and their subdivision into either tactics of civil disobedience and dissidence or survival mechanisms and forms of passive endurance. Although both are undermining from within, the first category is seeking change, the second -intentionally or not - preserving the status quo.