SIGNAL 2017
- festival
The art of gathering
SIGNAL, the meeting place in Brussels to discuss living art in the city, is back at the end of September to explore what brings us together and what makes us move. Us: family, pack, gang, group, clan, community, class or society, we are not the same as soon as we are many.
In order to think and heal the wounds of the City – the recent ones resulting of terrorism, leaving us in a security convalescence, the ones resulting of the social wrench, trying to divide us, the ones of the pollution peaks which spares no districts – the challenge must be taken up commonly, the common being itself one of the biggest challenge.
What do we share in common?
How do we act simultaneously?
How do we gather, together?
URBAN ACADEMY
Wednesday 27.09 - 10:00 > 17:30
Thursday 28.09 - 10:00 > 17:30
Friday 29.09 - 10:00 > 17:30
Saturday 30.09 - 10:30 > 12:30
Three days to discuss and research, extended to Saturday morning to make prospective conslusions. This year, the format will be more collective in the morning, led by the activist and journalist Peggy Pierrot. Afternoon workshops will be moments to meet urban artistic practices from elsewhere - this year from Germany, Canada, Finland, Greece, India, Italy and Moldova.
Our guests
The Yes Men
Wednesday 27.09 - 20:00
Out of our usual format, in collaboration with Fabrique de théâtre, we will host the American activists Yes Men who will also be leading a workshop of which the result will be presented during the Urban Interventions of SIGNAL, in front of La Bourse, on Saturday afternoon.
IN SITU Space
Since 2016, some of the activities proposed in SIGNAL present practices of certain members of the In SITU platform, network of which Cifas is part of. Last year we invited PLACCC from Budapest, this year, we have the pleasure to invite Vladimir Us, leading Oberliht at Chisinau (Moldova), and Linda Di Pietro, director of Terni Festival (Italy).
Vassia A. Vanezi (CY/GR), Eero Yli-Vakkuri (FI), Brigitte Mounier (FR), Mammalian Diving Reflex (CA), Linda Di Pietro (IT), Lotte Lindner and Till Steinbrenner (DE), Vladimir Us (MD), Martina Angelotti (IT), Leandre D’Souza (IN)...
PROGRAMME
Wednesday 27 September
Composing the Common
Those left-behind by universalism, by redrawing other maps, highlight this long-time blind spot: the common is effectively a space for thought and action still in need of construction. How do we go about creating the common today? What might it look like, given the constraints to which urban bodies are subjected? And, what can the performing arts in public space do to contribute to its creation? In which circumstances, and under what conditions?
10:00 > 13:00
Round table with Vassia A. Vanezi (CY/GR), Leandre D’Souza / ArtOxygen, Mumbai (IN), Peggy Pierrot (BE), Eero Yli-Vakkuri (FI)
14:00 > 17:00
Choice of 3 workshops
Workshop led by Vassia A. Vanezi (CY/GR)
Workshop led by Leandre D’Souza / ArtOxygen, Mumbai (IN)
Workshop led by Eero Yli-Vakkuri & Pietari Kylmälä (FI)
17:00 > 17:30
Summary of the day
17:30 > 19:30
Urban Intervention
Where do you want to go from here? / Eero Yli-Vakkuri & Pietari Kylmälä
10:00 > 18:00
Urban Intervention
Impressions Palace number 2 / Chiara Colombi
20:00
Lecture by the Yes Men
Open price (suggested amount 5 euros)
Booking by mail: cifas@cifas.be
Thursday 28 September
The Greatest Common Divisor ?
Symbolically, our collective universal identity lies in tatters. And yet alive, risen from its nationalist ashes, with barriers and barbed wire. Behind these walls, to which “we” do we belong? How can we jointly espouse hi/stories, struggles, and sometimes-contradictory trajectories? Irrespective of our origins, social or cultural trajectories, how can we legitimately take control of the common? How can the arts and culture be tools for the common good, and not divide those who can access them from others?
10:00 > 13:00
Round table with Linda Di Pietro / Festival di Terni (IT), Peggy Pierrot (BE), Lotte Lindner and Till Steinbrenner (DE), Eva Verity / Mammalian Diving Reflex (CA)
14:00 > 17:00
Choice of 3 workshops
Workshop led by Linda Di Pietro / Festival di Terni (IT)
Workshop led by Lotte Lindner and Till Steinbrenner (DE)
Workshop led by Eva Verity / Mammalian Diving Reflex (CA)
17:00 > 17:30
Summary of the day
10:00 > 18:00
Urban Intervention
Impressions Palace number 2 / Chiara Colombi
Friday 29 September
Reclaim the Common !
Whenever human bodies assemble in public space so as to lay claim to it, the expression of the common to which we aspire asserts itself. From the streets at night to access to healthcare, from zones in need of protection to solar festivals, from civil disobedience to the “reaping” of GMOs, from our right to a roof over our heads to struggles for survival on our borders ... What role do artists serve in these movements for the reappropriation of the common? What can the performing arts achieve, especially those that invest urban space, in response to the break-up of territories and the escalating privatization of public spaces? To better lay claim to the common, should we contribute to breakthrough actions, or take possession of the structures in place?
6:30 > 9:15
Party: Wake up Brussels!
10:00 > 13:00
Round table with Martina Angelotti / Careof (IT), Brigitte Mounier / Le Manifeste (FR), Peggy Pierrot (BE), Vladimir Us / Oberliht (MD)
14:00 > 17:00
Choice of 3 workshops
Workshop led by Martina Angelotti / Careof (IT)
Workshop led by Brigitte Mounier / Le Manifeste (FR)
Workshop led by Vladimir Us / Oberliht (MD)
17:00 > 17:30
Summary of the day
10:00 > 18:00
Urban Intervention
Impressions Palace nuùber 2 / Chiara Colombi
17:00 > 20:00
Urban Intervention
Home Sweet Home / Subject to Change
19:00 > 20:00
Artist Talk
Home Sweet Home / Subject to Change
Saturday 30 September
10:30 > 12:30
Conclusions
10:00 > 22:00
Urban Interventions
Sunday 1 October
11:00 > 20:00
Urban Interventions
WORKSHOPS
WEDNESDAY 27.09
1/ Workshop led by Vassia A. Vanezi
La Bellone / Studio
Synthesis
Synthesis is a process for creating together a collective/ common artwork and also sharing memories from one’s own childhood house. The first part of these recorded narratives began at Nicosia General Hospital in Cyprus, the second part continued as a project within the project of RickLowe’s Victoria Square at Documenta 14 in Athens, and the third part takes place at SIGNAL Urban Academy in Brussels.It is about coming together, it is about talking and making together, about sharing words and stories together, revealing fears and hopes. It is about gathering. It is about togetherness. It is about human condition.
2/ Workshop led by Leandre D’Souza
Beursschouwburg
Aesthetics v/s Ethics in contemporary art practice: The Ultimate Challenge
ArtOxygen (ArtO2) is an independent contemporary art organization based out of Mumbai, India, since 2009. They curate, plan and produce art projects which challenge and question the idea of the “public”, in all its meanings and uses. Art02 look at art as a work. Art cannot be static. It must be living, breathing and shaping itself to the spaces that it inhabits and the people that it engages with. One of the most pressing questions Art02 seek to address, crucial to ArtO2’s hypothesis, is: could such a curatorial & artistic approach be the way forward for contemporary art practice? Where a work’s life is determined and stimulated by a complex system of externalities (the site, people occupying it) and where its form remains in a state of ‘openness’? How can we validate such a practice? How can we argue that this is when and where the value of a work truly happens?
Leandre D’Souza is ArtO2’s Director & Curator who will begin the session introducing a few concepts related to its practice-based art projects. This will open into a quiz, where participants are placed into 2 groups in a challenge of questions related to the relationship between aesthetics and ethics in public art practice. At the end of each question, contestants will be invited to a match that will determine the winning team. Following the challenge, a consolidated map will be prepared as a preliminary documentation of ideas, insights and new trajectories to be explored and expanded.
3/ Workshop led by Eero Yli-Vakkuri & Pietari Kylmälä
La Bellone / Courtyard
Trans-Horse
Trans-Horse workshops for Signal aim to discover contemporary alliances with animals. The majority of European cities have been build with the help of horses. The more developed we imagine ourselves to be, the more challenging the presence of animals has become. Instead of seeing horses as remnants of the past we should reach out to them as specialists in sustainable design. The workshops are hosted in collaboration with the Belgian Mounted Police. The police will give a detailed description of their work and share some of the tools they use. Their presentation is supported with light physical exercises, an overview of our history with horses and an analysis on challenges horses impose on concepts of modernity, efficiency and development.
THURSDAY 28.09
1/ Workshop led by Till Steinbrenner & Lotte Lindner
La Bellone / Courtyard
To Act Site-Specific
We always act site-specific as sites produce specific behaviours or ways of acting. But could specific ways of acting also change sites or even create them? To what extent does this apply to shared public space?
In our own work we first intensively analyse given public spaces as well as art-institutions like museums and galleries. History, stories, architecture, the social movements of people and their rituals, their expectations and rules… all this interweaves to what we perceive as a site. And we ask: does it have to be that way? Would this be conceivable differently? Can we induce people, subtly or offensively, to act in different ways or to perceive differently? What happens if a thing flees our sight by means of its excessive brightness? What happens if the pews of a church turn to Mecca? What happens if a flattering voice courts me at a barren place in urban planning? Is everything that is guarded by a bouncer exciting?
Ranging the city, we want to discover and analyse places and rituals as well as build ones. How does a place influence us and how can we influence a place? And then we want to devise and try out excessive concepts and realistic interventions.
2/ Workshop led by Eva Verity
La Bellone / Studio
No awkwardness, no allies
In this workshop, Eva Verity will share some of the company’s social practice work, and how the company utilizes awkwardness and temporary discomfort as a tool for generating connection and trust-building with collaborators who don’t know one-another. Attendees will participate in interactive exercises and games that put ‘social acupuncture’ into action, and demonstrate that a little awkwardness can go a long way toward stimulating intimacy and engagement.
3/ Workshop led by Linda Di Pietro
Beursschouwburg
Come Close - Practices of commonalities and co-creation
In 2016, the Ternifestival invited 4 artists to a residency within the project called ‘Foresta’. For this residency, Leonardo Delogu, Michele di Stefano, Friso Wiersum, Veridiana Zurita were asked to observe from an inspiring point of view a city (Terni) in transition and a festival questioning itself in regards to their territory. Aimed at rethinking the role of a festival in a city, and the role of artists in the making of a festival, their proposal to the festival direction was to co-create a program. Cultural institutions and festivals face complex changes and are rethinking constantly their relationships with artists and audiences.
Come close is an invitation, a prayer, and an advice.
The idea of shared decision-making was to give voice and be responsive to the needs and interests of local community members, to provide a place for community engagement and dialogue with artists, to help artists develop skills that support their own individual and community goals.
The workshop, after a presentation of the specific context of the Terni Festival and its realisations, will go through discussions and interactive dispositives highlighting questions of trust and power – which appear in a situation of co-creation between artists and organizers. Is co-creation really possible?
FRIDAY 29.09
1/Workshop led by Martina Angelotti
Beursschouwburg
ON and around the square
Through an iconographic excursus, this workshop/lecture recounts the role of the square in Bologna, understood as a political and social space crossed by several generations of antagonistic and student movements, and documented in some counter-information medias that have been in place since the mid-1970s. The narration begins in the second half of the 1970s to explore the uses and connotations of the square until recent times, when, in 2007, in Bologna, ON project was activated, setting up its theoretical and art bases in Piazza Verdi. In this chronological genealogy, the focus outlines, through some productions and interventions, how the concept of public space has evolved over the years, not just generating new imaginations and ways of relationship between places and people but also promoting content that takes shape in other spaces and places in the social context.
2/ Workshop led by Brigitte Mounier
La Bellone / Studio
All, together, in the public space
Public space is in essence our common cultural democratic fund.
What happens in the public space today, what it tells us about our past, the multiple ways we can act in it, to transform it for the future, make public space the first free and living encyclopedic library we have at hand.
Taking this as a starting point, Brigitte Mounier will approach the question of gathering in the city by relating it to the history of live entertainment: theatre shares common roots with the exercise of democracy and the occupation of public space; then she will invite participants to share and revisit some tools of participatory democracy and its artistic expression in public space.
3/ Workshop led by Vladimir Us
La Bellone / Courtyard
Shared spaces (space for myself and for meeting the others)
If you had the chance to redesign the urban environment in which you live, how would it look like? How would your private space look like and what kind of public (shared) spaces for interacting with the others would you propose? Lets have a drawing session and imagine a neighbourhood of the future.
Most of us we have grown and developed in carefully planned (mainly urban) environment, without a real possibility to influence the way it is being designed, either with little possibility to change it. In the moments of crisis or during radical change, when the controlling system has failures, people would use this opportunity to take advantage for their own needs, often forgetting about the collective needs.
The workshop aims to provide space for an analysis of the standards in urban planning and architecture formed due to different traditions that appeared under various political and economic regimes, and in various contexts. This has also influenced the type of relations (the intensity and the openness, etc.) that people have developed inside their families, with friends and within the neighbourhoods.Beyond the differences that this activity will encourage us to identify, we shall pay attention to things we might have in common - the need to meet and interact with others being one of those needs.
SPEAKERS
Peggy Pierrot (BE)
Peggy Pierrot is involved in projects linking information, media, activism, radio art, and technology. She worked as a journalist and as a technical webmaster in media and non-profit projects. She lectures on writing, technology, African-American culture, science-fiction. She is working with A.Pass and Erg (École de Recherche Graphique) in Brussels and is rethinking les Ateliers des horizons (ex-école du Magasin, Grenoble, France) together with Le Magasin team. Her current project is named Maskenfreiheit.
Vassia A. Vanezi (CY/GR)
Vassia A. Vanezi is a Greek-Cypriot visual artist based in Athens. Her education includes interdisciplinary studies such as Fine Arts, Political Theory and Music. She is committed to a socially-engaged practice, which led her to run for 12 years the art studio in STROFI, a therapeutic community for young people addicted to drugs. Through her ongoing research she draws material from the study of Greek-Cypriot traditional folk art. In 2017 she developed the project Weaving together in the context of Documenta 14 in Athens, which was focused on the ways of creating knowledge through gathering, sharing memories as well as by developing an artwork in common.
Leandre D'Souza (IN)
Leandre D'Souza holds a Master in Arts Criticism from City University (London). She runs ArtOxygen (ArtO2) in Mumbai since 2009, aimed at curating and producing art projects in public, open spaces. Since 2010, she organizes [en]counters, a festival dealing with issues affecting the everyday life of Mumbai. She was invited to curate the participation of Indian and international artists at the biennial Haein Art Project in South Korea in 2013, and also curates independently, the Sensorium 2015/16 Art Festival for Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts, among others. In 2014, she received an award for Culture and Change bestowed by the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development.
Eero Yli-Vakkuri (FI)
Eero Yli-Vakkuri is a design orientated performance artist, who works primarily in public spaces. In the past he made annoying street interventions which made people uncomfortable.
Pietari Kylmälä (FI)
Pietari Kylmälä is a cultural journalist and a (non-)artist, who works as a writer and in the public radio. Together they form the core of the Trans-Horse working group which has explored the potential of horses as creative collaborators from 2014 onwards. They use performance art as a tool to affect the wellbeing of the environment and to experiment on how collaboration with animals affect our worldviews.
Linda Di Pietro (IT)
Linda Di Pietro, is convinced that culture and art are the main tools for change. She has invested the last 8 years in the reconversion and management of CAOS arts centre, a 6,000 square meters multidisciplinary cultural centre born on the ashes of the former SIRI chemical plant. 12 years ago she conceived and nowadays is the artistic director of the Terni International Performing Arts Festival. She is visiting fellow at the SAIC in Chicago, advisor of IETM international performing arts network, President of ProgettoRena, and has developed in the past four years her most revolutionary action: “Pietro”.
Lotte Lindner & Till Steinbrenner (DE)
Lotte Lindner & Till Steinbrenner live and work in Hannover, Germany. They have studied performance with Marina Abramović at the School of Art Braunschweig, and work together since 2002. Lotte and Till often work in situ, where they refer to expectations attached to the place they perform in as well as to its functions or its particular utilisation. In their work they create situations where observers get to become participants who activate the work with their presence. Their work has been awarded many times in Germany. They have been teaching as guest-professors at the Academy of Arts Munich.
Eva Verity (CA)
Eva Verity is Director of Creative Production & Artistic Associate at Mammalian Diving Reflex, a performance company and research-art atelier that creates site and social-specific work with local communities. Eva has directed and produced Mammalian’s collaborative performances with children, youth and seniors in cities all over the world. The company’s primary methodology, 'social acupuncture,’ is designed to dismantle barriers between individuals of all ages, cultural, economic and social backgrounds, triggering generosity in the social sphere. www.mammalian.ca
Martina Angelotti (IT)
Curator, art writer, and lecturer at Università Cattolica, Martina Angelotti works on projects and exhibitions related to the disciplines of public and participatory art, moving images and performance. She is the artistic director of Careof, a non-profit organization for contemporary art based in Milan, and the founder and curator of ON, a public art project within which she currently develops a special edition on the connection between city, logistics and labour in the context of the expansion of the port in Genoa. She holds seminars and workshops, writes for Domus Magazine, and co-curated the Italian version of Grand Domestic Revolution in collaboration with Casco (Utrecht).
Brigitte Mounier (FR)
After more than 4000 performances on stage and in the air, from Théâtre National de l’Odéon to Cirque Jean Richard through iconic places of decentralisation, Brigitte Mounier has finally settled in the dunes of Côte d’Opale. She has created the Compagnie des Mers du Nord and set the History of Humans into a theatre play. In 2004 she invents an international meeting of living arts, “Le Manifeste”, during her residency in the city of Grande-Synthe, where actors, thinkers, jugglers of utopia, arts and humanity meet every summer since 14 years.
Vladimir US (MD)
Vladimir US is an artist and curator based in Chisinau, Moldova, founding member of Oberliht Young Artists Association. He studied art, curating, cultural management and cultural policy in Chisinau, Grenoble and Belgrade. Through his recent works and projects he examines the processes of transformation of the public space in post-Soviet cities along with the need for conceptualizing an alternative network of public spaces in Chisinau.
ARTISTIC ACTIONS
After the reflection and the action proposed during the three first days of SIGNAL comes the moment of creation: artists invest different locations of the City with artistic interventions specially created for or adapted to the spaces where they occur.
The program in public space will take place between the centre of Brussels (Central Station, Bourse, Dansaert, Vismet...), Molenbeek and Anderlecht.
PROGRAMME
Wednesday 27.09.2017
10.00 > 19.00 Herman/Sampelayo/Thuot - Transcription- La Bellone
10.00 > 17.30 Urban Academy - Composing the Common- La Bellone
10.00 > 18.00 Chiara Colombi - Impressions Palace number 2- La Bellone
17.30 > 19.30 Eero Yli Vakkuri - Where do you want to go from here?
20.00 Yes Men - The Yes Men came out of an egg - La Bellone
Thursday 28.09.2017
10.00 > 19.00 Herman/Sampelayo/Thuot - Transcription - La Bellone
10.00 > 17.30 Urban Academy - The Greatest Common Divisor ? - La Bellone
10.00 > 18.00 Chiara Colombi - Impressions Palace number 2 - La Bellone
Friday 29.09.2017
06.30 > 09.30 Brussels WAKE UP - Rise & connect - La Bellone
10.00 > 19.00 Herman/Sampelayo/Thuot - Transcription - La Bellone
10.00 > 17.30 Urban Academy - Reclaim the Common ! - La Bellone
10.00 > 18.00 Chiara Colombi - Impressions Palace number 2 - La Bellone
17.00 > 20.00 Subject to Change - Home Sweet Home -Galerie Horta
Saturday 30.09.2017
10.00 > 19.00 Herman/Sampelayo/Thuot - Transcription - La Bellone
10.00 > 18.00 Chiara Colombi - Impressions Palace number 2 - La Bellone
10.30 > 12.30 Urban Academy - Conclusions - La Bellone
12.00 > 20.00 Subject to Change - Home Sweet Home - Galerie Horta
12.00 > 16.00 John Court - Common Ground number 1 - Athénée Serge Creuz
12.00 > 15.00 Eero Yli Vakkuri - Where do you want to go from here?
13.00 > 14.00 Rispoli/Lindner/Steinbrenner - Your Word in my Mouth
Daringman
14.00 > 17.00 Yes Men - Facing La Bourse - La Bourse
16.00 > 18.00 Eero Yli Vakkuri - Police-horse care and control
Parc Bonnevie
17.00 > 18.00 Rispoli/Lindner/Steinbrenner - Your Word in my Mouth
Brass'Art (Molenbeek)
18.00 > 22.00 Robin Pourbaix - Ēt qwè, Carnaval doûci ? / the oranges' carrier Parade in town, departure La Bellone
20.30 > 21.30 Loop-s / Luce Goutelle - Open Outcry - Parc Royal
Sunday 01.10.2017
10.00 > 19.00 Herman/Sampelayo/Thuot - Transcription - La Bellone
11.00 > 15.00 John Court - Common Ground number 2 _ - Parvis St-Jean Baptiste
12.00 > 18.00 Subject to Change - _Home Sweet Home - Galerie Horta
12.00 > 18.00 Chiara Colombi - Impressions Palace number 2 - La Bellone
12.00 > 13.00 Rispoli/Lindner/Steinbrenner - Your Word in my Mouth
Brass'Art (Molenbeek)
13.00 > 14.00 Amalia Pica - Asamble - Walk, departure La Bellone
14.15 > 15.15 Rispoli/Lindner/Steinbrenner - Your Word in my Mouth
Hotel The 5th Avenue, Place de l'Yser 5, 1000 Bruxelles
15.00 > 17.00 Eero Yli Vakkuri - Horse Pride
Departure Place Duchesse de Brabant
17.00 > 18.00 Subject to Change - Home Sweet Home (Street party)
Galerie Horta
18.00 > 20.00 Chiara Colombi - Impressions Palace number 2 - finissage
La Bellone
Subject to Change, Home Sweet Home
Durational and participative installation
Friday 29.09 - 17.00 > 20.00
Saturday 30.09 - 12.00 > 20.00
Sunday 01.10 - 12.00 > 18.00 (street party at 17.00)
Home Sweet Home is a cardboard community of neat streets and magnolia houses, just waiting to be turned into homes.
You are invited to collect a flat-packed house and turn it into your own cardboard home, in order to build this new community. By doing so, you will have the opportunity to meet your new neighbours, to explore the city, and get to know the world around you. A number of services will help you to settle – a notice board, a postal service and even a local radio station.
As residents, you can come and go as you please. On the final night we will organise a street party for neighbours to raise a glass and celebrate the formation of this unique community.
Come and play with Home Sweet Home communities and make your property owning dreams a glorious cardboard reality!
Subject to change(UK) is an interactive Live art company led by Abigail Conway. Subject to change’s experience-led installations create temporary, dynamic and socially-engaged communities. The installations invite audiences to collectively celebrate their individual contributions.
Subject to change is concerned about the shifting and changing of the durational performance event. The audience is enabled and encouraged to partake in its transformation through their encounter with it. The work takes the audience on a journey that is centred around a particular activity. This activity asks them to leave a trace of themselves in order for the artwork to live.
Anna Rispoli, Lotte Lindner et Till Steinbrenner, Your word in my mouth
Participative reading
Saturday 30.09, 13.00 - Au Daringman, rue de Flandre 37
Saturday 30.09, 17.00 - Brass'Art Digitaal Café, place communale de Molenbeek
Sunday 01.10, 12.00 - Brass'Art Digitaal Café, place communale de Molenbeek
Sunday 01.10, 14.00 - Hotel The 5th Avenue, Place de l'Yser 5, 1000 Bruxelles
Eight people have been invited to confront their views on the topic of love from ethical, moral, religious and sexual points of views: a polyamorous woman raised in a kibbutz, a Protestant pastor, a sex club manager, a Muslim Syrian, a German extreme right-wing Buddhist, a sexual assistant for the disabled, a neuropsychiatrist and a woman... Confronted with a radical diversity, they were all encouraged to speak out, to express the unsaid.
In very intimate or very public places, the transcription of this original conversation is proposed to the public who will lend its own mouth to these words from others in a collective reconstruction.
What does it mean to be the vessel of someone else's words, of its beliefs and values?
How to continue the dialogue after this experience?
Anna Rispoli (BE)
Anna Rispoli focuses her work on unexpected usages of shared territories through participatory practice. She questions conceptual possibilities and esthetical options between public spaces and private territories. Together with ZimmerFrei, the Bologna-based collective she co-founded, she creates visual and audio installations that investigate real and imaginary environments where the mental and the physical blend in a personal narrative of human experience.
Lotte Lindner & Till Steinbrenner (DE)
Lotte Lindner & Till Steinbrenner live and work in Hannover, Germany. They develop in situ performances where they try to reduce the distance between the work and the observer.
In collaboration with Nuit Blanche With the support of Far° (Nyon) With the support by the IN SITU platform, in the frame of the Platform project, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union
Eero Yli-Vakkuri & Pietari Kylmälä, Trans-horse
More and more, animals have been put away from urban development planning. Apparently, animals are not supposed to be part of the future of our cities. However, Eero Yli-Vakkuri challenges this tendency by creating art with horses. He will propose three projects for SIGNAL, three opportunities to question the place of the horse in Brussels:
Horse Pride
Parade for citizens, police officers and horses
Sunday 15.00 > 17.00
Departure Place Duchesse de Brabant
Horses and riders from all walks of life and all types are invited to meet on Place de la Duchesse de Brabant, historic place where horse markets took place until very recently. Led by the mounted police, a parade will start and stream as a Pride to the sound of electronic music along the neighbourhoods of Anderlecht, Molenbeek and around the Canal area.
Where Do You Want to Go from Here?
Horse Talk Taxi
Wednesday 27.09 - 17.30 > 19.30
Saturday 30.09 - 12.00 > 15.00
Locate the taxi in town on www.wheredoyouwanttogofromhere.com
Joe the horse and its cart travel through the city. Passers-by can jump on and off. In the cart, special guests share their point of views anout the city, its urban developments, sustainability and the role of animals in the city.
To catch the Horse-Taxi in the city, a geolocation will be available on the website www.wheredoyouwanttogofromhere.com.
Police-horse care and control
Police horse, riot gear presentation and gymnastics – Workshop
Saturday 30.09 - 16.00
Parc Bonnevie
Two officers from the mounted police force present the riot protection gear worn by horses during crowd control situations. Through the talk appear personal stories drawing a portrait of their relationship to the animal. After the talk a crossfit workout session will take place, guided by the officer. After the workouts, we meet the horse, calmly grazing.
This workshop will be presented twice: once in the frame of the “Workshops” part of the Urban Academy at La Bellone, and a second time in a park for a larger audience on Saturday.
Eero Yli-Vakkuri (FI)
Eero Yli-Vakkuri (b.1981) is a design orientated performance artist, who works primarily in public spaces. In the past he made annoying street interventions which made people uncomfortable.
Pietari Kylmälä (FI)
Pietari Kylmälä (b. 1983) is a cultural journalist and a (non-)artist, who works as a writer and in the public radio. Together they form the core of the Trans-Horse working group which has explored the potential of horses as creative collaborators from 2014 onwards. They use performance art as a tool to affect the wellbeing of the environment and to experiment on how collaboration with animals affect our worldviews.
With support from the Finnish Institute and the Art Promotion Centre Finland.
John Court, Common ground
Durational performance
#1 _Samedi 30.09 - 12.00 > 16.00
Athénée Serge Creuz
#2 _Dimanche 01.10 - 11.00 > 15.00
Parvis Saint Jean Baptiste
John Court creates simple and often long, repetitive and percussive performances interweaving drawing, writing and sculpture.
These repetitive actions refer to a society based on duplication and mechanical repetition, to his native labour social environment, and to the difficulties he encountered in his youth as a dyslexic child in an educative system in which mechanical reproduction is the only tool given to learn to write and read.
During SIGNAL, John Court will work with students from the Athénée Serge Creuz in Molenbeek. He will discuss, draw, conceive and construct an object with young newcomer students, and a carpentry class.
The performance will take place in the courtyard of the school in front of the metro station Comte de Flandre. The next day, John Court will present another performance on Parvis Saint-Jean-Baptiste.
#### John Court (FI)
John Court is a visual artist based in Finland. His work, presented worldwide, includes performance, sculpture and video, in relation with drawing, time and the subjective experience of dyslexy, as well as an exploration of the body limits.
With support from the Finnish Institute, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, with the help of Athénée Royal Serge Creuz.
Amalia Pica, Asamble
Participative performance created by Amalia Pica (AR)
Sunday 01.10
12.00 > 13.00 - Workshop to learn the choreography (La Bellone)
13.00 > 14.00 - Parade in town
In a line, people carry different chairs and try to place themselves in a circle, as if they were to start an assembly without ever getting to succeed. Each time the last person in the line starts to sit on the chair which has just be placed on the ground in order to close the loop, the first person which had launched the creation of the circle stands up to start a new circle some meters further.
Growing up under a series of military dictatorships in Argentina, Amalia Pica later witnessed the restoration of democracy and the joys and difficulties that come with post-totalitarian attempts at collective grassroots organizing. "Asamble" (2015), like much of the artist’s work, examines how form determines the ways in which we come together. The piece explores the circle as an ancient form of gathering; its title is a truncation of the Spanish word for “assemble.” The result is a hypnotic meditation on the circle and its status as a universal emblem of assembly.
Amalia Pica (AR)
Amalia Pica is born in 1978 in Nequén (Argentina). She currently lives and works in London. The question of communication, enunciation and the performative nature of language – verbal or not – is one of her main centres of interest and she works on exploring its systems and functioning. Through sculpture, photography, installation, performance, or video, her work tries to define common communicational codes crossing the boarders of language.
With the support of Guggenheim Museum, New York.
Robin Pourbaix, Ēt qwè, Carnaval doûci ? / the orange carrier
Participative parade
Saturday 30.09 - 18.00 (departure from La Bellone) > 22.00 (ending at La Bourse)
For SIGNAL, Robin Pourbaix creates a popular parade composed by forty clones of Robin Pourbaix and walking as the “Gilles de Binche”. They are accompanied by an orchestra playing traditional music of Carnaval de Binche. Behind the procession, Robin Pourbaix distributes oranges to the passers-by who are invited to join the parade.
Robin Pourbaix (BE)
Robin Pourbaix's work oscillates between various techniques: installation, performance, video, photography, painting and drawing. The essential element of his artistic approach is the context displacement. Through simple ways, he interrogates, amongst others, the social codes. The installations he creates are reflective, poetic and semantic spaces. Humour and derision are part of his process. With sweet irony, he invites us to other possible readings of our reality.
Yes Men, Facing la Bourse
Saturday 30.09 - 14.00 > 17.00
La Bourse
The Yes Men came out of an egg and come from Zorcon… Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno found a way to describe themselves in a few absurd words. For 20 years, these two Americans have pushed the art of provoking and derision to the heights of anti-liberal activism. They fight their enemies (big industrial groups, finance giants or political leaders) with ultra-mediatised impostures. This is how they attacked George W. Bush, the Quai d’Orsay and the World Trade Organization. Nobody is powerful enough to stay untouched by the Yes Men.
In September, the Yes Men will be in Belgium for an exceptional residency at the Fabrique de Théâtre in Frameries with several artists. All of them will immerge themselves in a short and intense movement of creation, in the frame of a workshop led by the two American Artivists. The results of their researches will be presented during SIGNAL and in the frame of A.P.R.E.M.#6 at the Fabrique de Théâtre, on 16, 17 and 18 November 2017.
An initiative by, and with support from the Fabrique de Théâtre.
Chiara Colombi, Palais des impressions number 2
Participative assemblage
Wednesday 10.00 > 18.00
Thursday 10.00 > 18.00
Friday 10.00 > 18.00
Saturday 10.00 > 18.00
Sunday 10.00 > 20.00 (Closing at 18.00)
La Bellone
Back from a journey through India and Maldives Islands, Chiara Colombi conceived the artwork "Impressions Palace"; a collective creation process, starting with the sampling on paper of city pieces using scrubbed graphite. These impressions are then transformed into “bricks” which are then put together as an architectural patterned wallpaper. The artwork is installed in specific sites and grows with time and with the collective involvement of participants. The result of this collective construction will be visible throughout SIGNAL #6 in the courtyard of La Bellone.
Chiara Colombi (IT)
Chiara Colombi’s (1988) artistic practice operates at the intersection of aesthetics and social strategies. The forms she produces, charged with a reflexive symbolic and sensorial presence, respond to contextual purposes and mark the starting point of site-specific interventions characterized by public participation. As part of the project In other terms, the artist presents the fourth and last volume of Universal Manuals, a collection of book editions she initiated in 2013. _Part 4, The act of graphiting _provides the reader with a series of steps to act or engender a displacement of every day social attitudes. Here, to designate and draw the desires.
Loop-s / Luce Goutelle, Open Outcry
Ritual
Saturday 30.09 - 20.30
Parc de Bruxelles (Big fountain)
Open Outcry is a multidisciplinary project taking the shape of a ritual of disenchantment of finance. It is situated on a balance point between magic ritual, theatrical performance and political action.
In a context of repeated economic and financial crisis with deleterious effects, it is urgent to regain control on the society in which we live and to master its issues. To let the economic and financial questions in the only hands of experts is not conceivable anymore. Time has come to bring to light the spectres of the networks of influence, to dissect the finance and economy machinery and to get our hands dirty. "Open Outcry" is a rite of passage which ambition is to get us out of inaction, to put us into movement in order to open an access to other models of wealth distribution, of production, of creation; to bring other solutions to the foreground and to broaden the scope of what is possible.
Open Outcry is one of the founding projects of the Laboratoire sauvage de recherches expérimentales Désorceler la Finance created in 2017 by the company Loop-s , which gathers together a community of artists, activists and citizens.
Production : La Bellone - Kunstencentrum Buda - La Nuit Blanche 2017 - Fédération Wallonie- Bruxelles - Centre Culturel Le Brass - L’ERG – BIJ - Hypercorps - Cyclo - Les Ateliers de la Senne
Flore Herman, Anne Thuot et Sara Sampelayo, Transcription
Video Installation
21.09 > 21.10.2017
La Bellone
"Transcription" is a pluridisciplinary project. Based on performance, video, writing and cartography, it explores a precise urban perimeter in Brussels: the neighbourhood surrounding the Federal Agency for the reception of asylum seekers – Fedasil Centre "le petit château" and its many urban micro-zones.
As a sensitive map where everyone would draw its own stories, physical habits, remembrances or sensations, the project transforms public space into an artistic experimental space where anyone can inscribe him/herself physically and emotionally, regardless of life routes and origins.
Developped with a group of inhabitants of Petit Château and its neighbourhood, "Transcription" is also a participative project. The diverse sociocultural profiles of the participants are a starting point to invent new ways to use the space, common to all but that can be reinvested differently through artistic practices. No matter if Brussels is the city of origin, a stopover-city, or the destination city after a long migrating route, the city becomes a playground based on the multiple possibilities to use public space according to cultural differences.
Anne Thuot (BE)
Anne Thuot is performance artist, theater director and professor at INSAS (Brussels). She has developed from 2015 onwards the Lydia Richardson project, in partnership with Sara Sampelayo, photograph and video-artist, as well as Flore Herman, dramaturg.
With the support of La Bellone.
Brussels WAKE UP
Rise & Connect
Morning party
6:30 - 7:30 Yoga
7:30 - 9:15 Party + Breakfasts
La Bellone
Come and celebrate together the diversity of the city of Brussels at the legendary morning parties of Brussels WAKE UP.
In the magnificent court of La Bellone and in partnership with Cifas, we are proud to announce the fourth edition of Brussels WAKE UP under the theme "Rise & Connect".
Brussels WAKE UP transforms the morning: wake up to yoga, let the DJ dance you into the day, enjoy a delicious breakfast & go to work with the energy to change the world.
Because art and culture can be fun!
Programme:
6:30 - 7:30 // YOGA (optional)
7:30 - 9:15 // PARTY, BREAKFAST & SURPRISES