As September greets us, so do new residencies. We’re kicking it off with a month long resident guest: contemporary artist Ted Oonk who will be focusing on CONTOUR – a collaborative project with Su Jung.
The starting point of the project CONTOUR was the opposite viewpoint both artists had on the concept of ‘the island’. What makes an island, how is it shaped in our minds and how do we reflect on the physical form?
With “Familiestraat”, artist and theatre maker Thomas Verstraeten joins forces with 200 local residents to create a six-hour performance that explores “the truly extraordinary, but also perfectly normal.”
Since 2020 he has been gathering moments from day to day life which he proceeded to examine by establishing links between the happenings in his street in reflection to what is happening all around us in the world – thereby juxtaposing world history with the history of his street, and vice versa.
On August 23rd, we’re joined by a new resident: dancer and choreographer Betty Tchomanga who will be working on “Wildfire”.
This work was inspired by the analogy described by Malcom Ferdinand in his essay « Une écologie décoloniale », exploring how a slave ship symbolizes a political metaphor and tells the story of the world and the Earth.
This analogy with a ship resonates with Betty Tchomanga’s research on the Mami Wata myth. Her representation is an amalgam between mermaids on the bow of the colonist boats and the spirits of the African waters. A ship brings the possibility of an encounter and a flow of beliefs, thoughts and imaginary worlds.
wpZimmer welcomes artist, writer and performance-maker Ira Brand in residency this week! Ira is known for her live, inter-disciplinary performances: solo stage shows, one-to-one pieces, duets, and participatory work. Her process is one of using personal starting points to speak to wider social, political, and formal concerns.
While in residency, she’ll be working on “Commitment Phone” – a project in development that explores (and wants to celebrate) ambiguity and doubt. It is a response to a perceived social and cultural demand for the clear, the certain, and the consistent – ways that we are taught it is worthwhile and understandable for a person to be. And to the increasing necessity to take strong, definite, personal and political positions, along binary lines.
Read more about Commitment Phobe here!
We’re kicking off the month of August with a new residency here at wpZimmer.
These upcoming two weeks we are joined by Coupé Décalé. “Coupé Décalé is a laboratory, an experimental curation project. Coupé Décalé is a meeting between three people coming respectively from dance, cinema and anthropology in the first place.”
During their residency, the collective works on “Multiplier Les Mondes”: a work that proposes a documentary investigation where the accounts of neuroscientists, anthropologists, initiates and artists are crossed… making the places of speech cohabit without concern of exhaustiveness, not for the sake of defining it better but to let the disorder float. Coupé Décalé invites you to an immersive experience where sensory and intellectual knowledge merge, between listening, dreaming and contemplation.
Starting on July 19th, wpZimmer welcomes trajectory artist and theatre maker Salomé Mooij in residency.
During her stay, Salomé works on “Gathering Ground”, a work that she made in collaboration with Marie Groothof, Marieke Breyne, Lotte Stek, Sebastiaan van Kints, Julien McHardy and Germen Roding.
In Gathering Ground you are invited to a hands-on thought experiment, a physical drawing in a public space, a giant map on the scale of our own body. Salomé will be performing the work during this year’s Love at First Sight Festival.
For the entire month of July, wpZimmer welcomes three artists that were selected through the PRESS PLAY Open Call which was curated by BAYA Collective.
BAYA is a creative collective that feels born out of a necessity for a new tide within its surroundings and a desire to develop and mold an authentic realm that connects creative individuals through collaborative processes.
Artists Beljita Gurung, Markha Yushaeva and Rita Habib were in residency in preparation for their first art exhibition that would be taking place in August at OUT OF SIGHT. Keep an eye out on our social media channels for more glimpses behind the scenes!
Dansand is a festival that takes place in Ostend from July 2nd until July 4th. For the festival, artist and performer Dan Mussett created a new episode of The Dating Project: “Where do we go from here?”. Taking inspiration from the beach as a frontier space where the many narratives of leaving and arriving collide, this episode brings participants together in a light-hearted way to re-enact the many ways in which this space has been perceived, imagined, and defined. Read more about the episode here! Want to book a ticket? Head to the website of Dansand.
This Summer, The Guardian of Nature (Maria Lucia Cruz Correia) and The Sick Detective (Gosie Vervloessem) open up their Forensic Plant Lab once again to an audience. Since May 2020, they have been investigating crimes that involve more-than-humans – and during the open office they guide visitors through the mind map of an investigation, which has been broken up like a crazy wall. To visit the Open Office on Thursday, June 24th at wpZimmer, RSVP through this link!
The open office is made possible with the support of The Activiteitenpremie from Flemish Authorities.