PROJECT

Blue Skies Forever

In 2016 Beyoncé releases her video Hold Up, which seems to show similarities with the video work Ever is Over All by Pipilotti Rist from 1997. Fascinated by the different representations of women in both videos, buren started working with two figures from Ever is Over All: Dorothy, based on Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and Officer, a female police officer.

In a dreamy, associative performance buren seeks how to imagine, portray, disembody and connect these figures. With a sense of abstraction and humour they dress up like them while transforming again and again.

In 2012 Oshin Albrecht and Melissa Mabesoone founded the collective ‘buren’. Their artistic practice consists of performances, videos, installations, prints, objects and films and deals with subjects as the feminine, the common, living, sexuality, pop music and neoliberal phantasies.

buren

https://www.burencollective.com/

At the end of 2012 Oshin Albrecht (°1986) and Melissa Mabesoone (°1988) founded the collective 'buren'. Their work consists of performances, videos, texts, photos and installations. They navigate through themes as femininity, community, domesticity, sexuality, labour, popmusic and neoliberal fantasies. These subjects are approached with a sense of irony and humor as well as a future-oriented imagination. Central is the de/re-construction of image and language. They play with different meanings of words, gestures and things, creating objects to be handled as props or presented as art- objects.

'Blue Skies Forever' is a performance that plays with the frontal gaze of the conventional theatre set up, female representations and media references. Together with Peter Aers the duo developed a salon 'To Care as Caress' at Vrijstaat O. With Frank&Robbert/Robbert&Frank they created the exhibition 'The Pursuit of the Gentlemen’s Gentlemen' at Croxhapox. April 2017 their book 'Confusion of Tongues' was published by Posture Editions in collaboration Koen Brams. At the end of 2017 they became HISK laureates.

Credits

Concept and performance: buren (Melissa Mabesoon & Oshin Albrecht)◊Third eye: Charlotte Vanden Eynde◊Voice coach: Jakob Ampe◊Music and sound: Benjamin Dousselaere & Ferre Marnef◊Decor: buren & Dominiek Colpaert◊Lightning: Frouke Van Gheluwe◊with the support of : de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, STUK, Vooruit, Gouvernement, De Brakke Grond, wpZimmer & CC Scharpoord