ON AND OFF THE CLOCK

(c) Silvia Cappellari

On and Off the Clock is an exhibition project which functions as a set, in which performative actions take place. These actions are diverse; some are discreet and apathetic, while others are affirmed by gestures and words which invoke, under these multiple designations, our cultural rituals.

︎ TEXT

On and Off the Clock is an exhibition project which functions as a set, in which performative actions take place. These actions are diverse; some are discreet and apathetic, while others are affirmed by gestures and words which invoke, under these multiple designations, our cultural rituals.

Inga Gerner Nielsen deploys some of the activities of " THiS INSTiTUTE ", a nomadic institute that she herself recently founded, while Liselore Vandeput dedicates part of the space to one of the first manifestations of a new project, " The Artist Travel Agency ". The first goes in search of situations conducive to her work, the other questions the conditions of leisure. The two artists thus cross their common interests as they question the borders of their practice: a myth, a taboo, a social claim, where does it start, at which moment of the day does it end and according to which criteria, does it ever stop? What is the impact of the contractual framework on the creation, what is the impact of its absence, how to trace the modalities of conversion, which value takes the utility ? Is it a necessity, what to sacrifice, and why, in the name of the creation, … ? Questions that they formulate on a background of malicious misunderstandings, of fertile duplicity. Together and individually, they let themselves be, carried by the desires and the paradoxes that constrain them and thus take advantage of the intimate and political conditions that determine the economy of artistic practices. Having in common the ancestral symbolic institutions of proximity, both scrutinize the meshes and the escapes of an immateriality that are those of art and of life.

" THiS INSTiTUTE ", by Inga Gerner Nielsen, is thus less a place than a space-time of reinforcement of the attentions which she initiates and closes according to conditions judged appropriate, in a concern of collective maintenance tinged with cheerful activism. The stake of this practice is thus characterized by a relational approach which is established with the audiences of its performances, and through systems of addresses conceived specifically for the various social contexts, to induce sensitive modalities of the thought. Her starting scenarios take various forms, such as sessions inspired by methods of picture analysis from iconology, or trekking sessions in the vast Scandinavian expanses. Inga's work is in fact infused with the tools of self-analysis regarding the powers and formations of symbolic imaginaries, which lead her to question the heritage of her Protestant culture, both in its manifest dimensions from urban perspectives, to its most latent expressions in the depths of her aesthetic sensibilities. Through her research, she has come to probe the apparitions of singularly feminine figures and postures to note the permanent hand-to-hand reconciliations, notably the decisive influence that motherhood has had on her practice as an artist, while fearing the essentialist leanings of a complementarity of these roles.

Between the dedication as a social worker and the socio-political commitments of the artist, Liselore Vandeput perceives the risks of a dispersion of the self. This is why she has imagined, not without irony, " The Artist Travel Agency ", a project that allows her to speculate on the causes of a non-place and to consider the problematic absurdity of the productivity of free time and the precarious situation of the art workers in cultural capitalism. For the first public activation of this research destined to grow in the coming months, the fictitious and nevertheless functional travel agency is exposed by a series of elements articulated around this double workstation ; an information desk and a reservation desk, which will be sometimes taken in charge either by the artist or by two performers. A series of attributes will reinforce the mimetic aspirations of the service company.

Proposed as a scenario format that is as open as it is sensitive to the influence of context, On and Off the Clock is also an archive in progress that feeds on the dialogues between the artists and their installations over the course of the exhibition.

Text by Pauline Hatzigeorgiou

︎ BIOS

INGA GERNER NIELSEN

After she graduated with a BA in Sociology and an MA in Arts in Modern Culture from CPH university, Inga Gerner Nielsen joined a group of performers in Scandinavia to work with immersive performance installations. Since 2007 she co-founded collectives and focused on developing their work as an activist strategy to give structure to sensuous modes of social interaction in different spheres of society. Today she collaborates with a nursing school in Denmark to introduce performance installations as a way to look into the mise-en-scène of care work. A relation, which the project mirrors with the interaction between performer and audience in one-to-one performance art installations. Inga’s art explores how new modes of subjectivity or imaginaries come into existence or are transformed through interactions and refigured institutional settings. At a.pass, in Brussels, Inga’s artistic research came to be conjured through “ THiS INSTiTUTE ”; a structure by which to constitute the sensual mode of her thinking.

LISELORE VANDEPUT

Liselore Vandeput, (based in Brussels) graduated from the MA program in LUCA school of arts in 2021 after finishing a BA in social work. Her artistic practice and work as a social worker have ever since collided together and challenged each other in different forms and projects, creating spaces for questioning, reflecting and connecting different community issues and their relationship to larger stories. These spaces take different forms. For her graduation project Liselore rebuild a classroom based on a memory of 2005 to be able to depict the different power dynamics of a memory. With À Ma Chère Arrière Arrière Petite Fille (2022) she invited 11 women of the social housing neighbourhood Peterbos to tell the stories of her mothers and grandmothers within a digital space she had created to do her own research on her female family history. She is also part of MOTA 000 an artist collective that creates nomadic conversations on artist questions to connect artists from different disciplines on common topics within their artistic practices.

︎ Open on Sat. 14:00 - 18:00

With the kind supports of Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles and Région Bruxelles-Capitale/Image de Bruxelles

Alix Dussart
Baptiste Conte
Luke Calzonetti
Emilie Franco
Laura Hecker
éditions la CAB/Charles Pigneul, Alan Jeuland & Brieuc Weulersse
Julie Larrouy
Jacques Le Bourgeois
Sophie Martin
Yvan Megal
Rokko Miyoshi
Justin Sanchez
Marion Séhier

Thily Vossier

Mohammed Alani
Biim

Laurie Charles

Gert De Clercq

Indigo Deijmann
Sarah Deraedt
Roshan Di Puppo

Shayan Jalali
Kitty Kamp
Nasrine Kheltent
Yona Laci
Louizali
Manon Louis
Raphaël Matieu
Matthieu Michaut

Nikko Noirhomme
Rik Peeters
Christophe Penners
Annelein Pompe

SolidÉditions
Stijn Stevens
Prose Studio
Chantal van Rijt

Alix Dussart Baptiste Conte Luke Calzonetti Emilie Franco Laura Hecker éditions la CAB/Charles Pigneul, Alan Jeuland & Brieuc WeulersseJulie LarrouyJacques Le Bourgeois Sophie Martin Yvan MegalRokko Miyoshi Justin Sanchez Marion Séhier

Thily Vossier

Mohammed AlaniBiim

Laurie Charles

Gert De Clercq

Indigo Deijmann Sarah Deraedt Roshan Di Puppo

Shayan Jalali Kitty Kamp Nasrine Kheltent Yona Laci Louizali Manon Louis Raphaël MatieuMatthieu Michaut