February

17 February: M HKA opens 2022 exhibitions

26 February: meeting #1

with

Caroline Dumalin ︎︎︎
Katayoun Arian ︎︎︎
Toon Fibbe ︎︎︎
and other invited guests

meeting #1

26 February 2022,  14.00 -18.00

M HKA 6th floor


14:00 - 16:30 Introduction to the project and conversation with Caroline Dumalin, Falke Pisano, Günbike Erdemir, Joanna Zielińska, Katayoun Arian, Toon Fibbe and other invited guests.

16:30  - 18:00 Intervention by Toon Fibbe and informal part in the M HKAFE

In the field of art, similar to other areas of work, the Covid-19 pandemic has emphasized the tensions that exist between the way work is organized and valued within neoliberal capitalism, and individual and collective needs, capacities and desires. As art institutions closed and reopened several times and projects were postponed, canceled or adapted, many cultural practitioners experienced an increase in workload, precarity or both. Where should we begin? is a response to many exchanges during this period, between people working in different capacities in the art field, and wants to further investigate what has come to light during this disruption of ‘the usual’ about the ways in which we practice and produce today.

After a period of conversations being largely restricted to social bubbles and digital platforms, we cautiously celebrate the possibility of continuing talking, in-person and in different group constellations, with a series of meetings on the 6th floor of M HKA. 

In this first meeting invited guests will share experiences and reflections on what is working, and what is not working for them, and how they respond to this within their practice. The audience is warmly invited to participate in the conversation as well.

Rotterdam based artist Toon Fibbe will conclude the conversation with a performative intervention, after which we will move to the M HKAFE to wind down the afternoon informally.




Too big too fail, too small to notice

Toon Fibbe: When I received the invitation to, not only take part in the open conversation, but also to do a closing performance - it hit me,  more than before - that during the pandemic I had not performed at all. I had already decided not to before; the tension, the anxiety, the widely varying ways in which performance is facilitated in the art world and the amount of energy it costs had started to feel taxing. But as I received the invitation I suddenly realized that I had missed it - to make something that is shared with other people in a room. I missed the immediacy of it, the heightened energy and to make something that exists here and now, between you and me and in this space only.

Curious, because the performance I’ll do deals with a similar immediacy, but one that exists purely in the service of capital. Set on the Chicago trading floor in the 90s, the work describes how in this frantic environment, two gazes would meet, hand gestures would be exchanged and subsequently a deal struck. Like in the art world, visibility made all the difference here, resulting in strange gestures,  colorful jackets and even platform heels - the taller you were, the more visible. This quest for visibility caused the heels to become so high that traders became more and more unstable, their treads precarious and accidents began to happen. For me there was always already a parallel between the visibility of these traders and the art world, yet somehow it came to feel more pertinent to me over the past two years

Documentation video