On Thursday 28th of August, artist collective Shif—t* closed off the summer at De Kunstenbibliotheek with A Picnic °2. For the occasion Seppe-Hazel Laeremans, Marthe Huyse & Arno Huygens pieced together a quilt, honouring those who inspire them. The afternoon unfolded into an evening with stories, shared plates (including the Shif—t* cake by Manon Klein !!) and wonderful table guests. ⁠
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A Picnic °2 is a continuation of a project started in De Verffabriek during the summer of 2023. This edition had us picking up our needles to make cloth pedestals. All panels are tributes to people, artworks and ideas. By stitching these together we offer a blanket that is book, stage and table combined. ⁠

Echo by Laurie Jespers is the imprint of a language without words, whispered across time and place. Marks and traces, gathered here and there, seem to call and answer one another. A glitch in the camera bends reality, splitting landscapes midair. Light carves dancing ghosts onto surfaces, but just for a moment. A fossil from a thousand lives ago watches over those yet to come. A fleeting eclipse, a melting stone, the bright tracing of a sleeping city seen from above and its distortion within its own glass skin. A scratch, a stain, a broken sun. Echo is a celebration of these fragments, silent witnesses to change. A portal to elsewhere— where time folds into itself.

The interior of the publication is holds by Laurie Jespers’ photos. The exterior type is engraved and oxidised zinc.

Made possible by art-book wizards Copyshop— and photo-upgrader Jack Van Gíap, design by Arno Huygens

Available through Copyshop—

Dust is part of a collaboration between Urtė Groblytė & Judith Dhondt, one of their two performances at the Graduation 2024 festival of P.A.R.T.S. Together they have created a soil out of which their performative works bloom. Dust wants to dive deeper into ideas of symbiosis from a non-harmonic point of view, approaching the self as an erotic body intimately containing multiple beings.

The projection was brought to life in a scenography by Sibran Sampers with lighting by Wannes Vanspauwen. Pictures by Olympe Tits.

As a breather during the bustling summer in Ghent, De Verffabriek opened its doors for A Picnic. A repose for all of the senses, the installation featured a shared reading installation by Seppe-Hazel Laere(mans) and films by Cinema Spreekhond. The opening night ended on a refreshing (pun intended) loop-performance by Echofarmer and with food by Sezen Atmaca.

An intervention by De Verffabriek (Lyra Oey, Emma Onghena, Arno Huygens) in Kunsthal Gent, invited by Lochness. De old chapel-turned-skatepark of the Kunsthal building filled up with merchandise, jingles, slogans and windmills. During the opening night, performances took place by Tune-In Radio, Felipe Carrión en Pusjka (George Chinnery).

A workshop on the tail  end of summer 2022, in collaboration with Badïa Larouci. Through the lens of Francis Alÿs' practice and exhibition in the Belgian Pavilion, it attempted to have a group of architecture students from Belgium, Italy and Germany take an in-depth look at Venice. With the goal of experiencing both the city and the Biënnale in a way that brings new perspectives to their respective practices. Through a selection of keywords from Alÿs' lexicon, the students focused their attention on the built environment and how people move in it.

Read the full reflection on belgianpavilion.be
 

A website archiving the Bodies of Work programme at Kunsthal Extra City, designed and made in collaboration with Myrna D'Ambrosio. The website documents the six chapters of the exhibition series that took place over the summer of 2022, with photography by vandenbussche-vandenbossche. 

Bodies of Work was the graduate exhibition of the curatorial studies programme 2022. 

Bookdesign for photographer Tim Theo Deceuninck. Letter to Mary S. compounds Deceuninck's practical research into 19th century Scottish scientist Mary Sommerville's techniques of developing photographs through the light-sensitive qualities of plants. The self-published artbook features a handmade, poppy-sensitised cover, which emulates this process.

A book in five parts for PA\WS (Performative Arts \ Work Space).

This self-published edition functions doubly as an artist book for photographer Vincent Leroi, and a conversation piece. Scans of Leroi's vast archive, intercut with a narrative exercise in memory-making. A dialogue between two characters, recounts that pictures will never represent the moment like it presented itself to me. 

If one book implies one reader, what would a book for two look like? Both within and outside of reading groups, this research was an attempt at making highly specific book-objects for highly specific reading situations. Each of those experiences informed a year long chain of new reading dialogues. 

Thanks to the readers: Joram de Cocker, Lore Janssens, Myrthe Vanrompaey, Lena Mariën, Léonie Montjarret, Laura Martens, Elia Claessen, Arne Nuyts, Sezen Atmaca, Mehdi Ahidar, Ambika Sena, Zoé Pecqueux & Judith Eckhardt

Website developed by Haron Barashed, design by Arno Huygens