Curated by Julie Booms, Laura Lee Bral, Valrie De Neef, Benedicte Dierickx, Sarah Gallasz, Loes Gerits, Valerie Henau, Pieter Jennes, Katrien Loret, Rosan Meijer, Winke Noppen, Rene Pevernagie, Ilse Raps, Anna Scholiers, Elisatbeth Ida COLLECTIVE GARDENS (UNTITLED: GARDENING IN PROGRESS) When your eye meets this page, you are reading this introduction. Please continue! Browse through my pages and feel my content slide through your fngers. I am a subversive concept, a tilted garden, a dissident object, a unique book, an everlasting exhibition space. From the moment you laid eyes on me and picked me up, I changed. Now, I am fuid, constantly in fux, an endless circulation of ideas. You can appropriate, rearticulate and invade me. Do you already feel the urge to transform my body and structure? Perhaps, you can occupy my intentions? Exclude and infuse new objectives and expressions, or completely modify my appearance! I am a manifestation of Collective Gardens. I am a collection, a garden glossary of possibilities. I am a collective, tucked away in a disembodied host, waiting for interaction in order to make myself undying. Participating artists: Astrid Bossuyt, Sven Dehens, Celine Drouin Laroche, Amine El Gotaibi, Mo Franken, Freddy K, Thomas Grdal, KubistaBolve, Wera Imie Nazwisko, Margherita Raso, Augustas Serapinas Voice-over: Meet Hito. Shes a flmmaker and author. Maybe youve already heard people talk about her. She writes about all sort of things. Like for example, occupation. Voice-over: A way of defning our curatorial position: as a stranglehold, a creative impulse, a liberation of the concept itself, a provocation in need for a counter-action, an unanswerable question, say what?!, or an incentive for re-articulation, to name but a few. Voice-over: Imagine spaces, objects, processes, subjects, activities, dialogues converting into an amorphism. Let us go beyond physical space, diffuse a constellation of spaces as occupation is fugitive to its own predicament. Voice-over: Imagine cultivating new parallel spaces of occupation, re-articulating fow, appropriating territory, weeding through the spatial divisions, invading the Others parcel, engaging in the fnal product-presentation,... ... pictures of my archive, that occupy ME. (E-mail sent to curators, art-critics, art-historians, sociologists, artists,...) Dear,
The idea is to create a constellation of critical observations, thinking patterns, critiques and creative impulses that endlessly mediate our concept. By fltering our concept through the mind of others we can constantly re- think our position. We hope you like this idea and maybe you can send us a reaction in English before the 13th of May (maximum 50 lines)?
As a little extra incentive, we give you the link to a flm we made for approaching the artists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaW8YcApD3A
Many thanks in advance. New message To: Copy: Subject: From: (Email from Flurin Bisig) 1. Art as Occupation: Claims for an Autonomy of Life - Hito Steyerl, 2011 2. Use Collective Gardens as steppingstone to talk about Hitos concept of occupation 3. Occupation as hybrid mindset: as keeping busy, doing, (daily) activity, distraction, engagement, appropriation, colonization, invasion, blurring of spatial divisions, eternal process, negotiation, endless mediation, not merely as a territorial claiming 4. Occupation as another way of regrouping situations that would normally be separated in a more traditional manner 5. Collective Gardens as a fexible framework where situations & practices come together First there are the utopias. Utopias are sites with no real place. They are sites that have a general relation of direct or inverted analogy with the real space of Society. They present society itself in a perfected form, or else society turned upside down, but in any case these utopias are fundamentally unreal spaces. There are also, probably in every culture, in every civilization, real placesplaces that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted. Places of this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality. Because these places are absolutely different from all the sites that they refect and speak about, I shall call them, by way of contrast to utopias, heterotopias. Garden or place (topos) refers etymologically to the idea behind Thomas Mores Utopia; or to the origin of the word paradise, which derives from the Persian pairideiza, meaning walled or enclosed. That also entails a danger of exclusion the opposite of encircling and bringing together. Whats essental here is the dimension of the garden as a meetng place, where a dialogue can occur. (Johan Grimonprez, On Radical Ecology and Tender Gardening) (Michel Foucault, Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias) ... pictures of my archive, that occupy ME. (Email from Flurin Bisig) Dear, thanks for getting in touch and sending your statement. I don't remember reading that Steyerl piece but it sounds remarkable, as it oscillates - I imagine - between occupation as that which occupies our working hours and different forms of repossession and spatial insurrec- tion. The idea of collective gardens is intriguing as well, but I hope you will understand that the framework you sketch does not really offer me ground to react to either the formulation of the concept or the relation between this concept and the future show, its components and juxtapositions. I fnd myself in a similarly problematic position with our september exhibition, which I can't really get to work - in terms of communicating the project to the outside world, garnering support etc. - in any 'middle way': it's either a dry 10-line statement or a 4-page abstract script no one seems to fnd time for. So I sympathis and keep fngers crossed. I doubt this helps but it's the best I could do, fngers crossed for your work, mm From: Mihnea Mircan <[email protected]> Date: 2014-05-20 22:57 GMT+02:00 Subject: Re: A curatorial project Art and Agriculture Collectivity and Parallel Play Some Observations
Liam Gillick For TEBEAC at Academy of Fine Arts, Ghent, June 2014
The division of collective space is the heart of revolutionary potential and collapse. The commons have been enclosed. The enclosures have been privatized. The private has been visualized. Data has been collectivized. The farm has industrialized. Agriculture and art are quite compatible. Art and agriculture are romanticized.
The division of private space can be collectivized. The collective has been privatized. The garden is not a farm. Gardening is not agriculture. Gardening cannot be collectivized. Agriculture cannot be rectifed.
Mediation within the context of two similar activities that take place within spaces of nurture and growth have potential only in relation to the degree to which they have a historical connection to the crisis inherent in the revolutionary potential of the collective.
i.e. You can have a collective garden but you cant collectivize it. Ergo. You can have a collective farm and you cant do much with it.
Somewhere in the space between these two impracticalities is the potential of the structure Your work usually takes form in the exploration of spaces that are hidden. What made you so interested in hidden things? I think there are a lot of interesting things about the hidden and the concept of hiding in itself. In the beginning I was very intrigued that by hiding you are showing more and through hiding you become more aware of the things you are showing. Also, it is important to state that the hiding can be seen as a political statement or strategy. Nowadays it is very popular to show and visualize everything, but the dominant visual culture is neglecting in its ways of sharing and representing. When you have a reason to hide something, you are always aware of how it can be shared. In these times, the act of hiding is of great value to me. So hiding isnt just about hiding, but about the act of hiding in itself. Why are you hiding? How are you hiding? For me, communication is an important aspect because I like to work with people when looking for places and their meaning. Your conscious awareness of people is an interesting aspect of your work. It seems to me that you select your own public by making close connections with people. Is this something you think about during your process? It depends on a particular work. Sometimes it comes afterwards. Sometimes I know it from the beginning. Do you feel like its more important to make works for a selected group of people? Yes. Some works are meant for a more selective group of people and some works are more common and thus for everyone. And that is something you need to decide. For me, every work starts within certain circumstances and within a certain space. It arises from its surroundings and in a way the work already exists there. You just need to fnd a way to it. Is it then fair to say that the work grows through the people? Yes, through every conversation. At least it goes like that for me. Sometimes Im not even thinking about the work. I just like meeting other people and talking about things. Thats when the aspect of communica- tion becomes very important. A lot of works are very related to this conversational aspect. Sometimes I even arrange the space for a specifc topic and bring people inside of the space to talk about it. So your work is also a kind of a social experiment in its own? Yes, but its also an experiment for the art world. Im trying to do something honest, something in which I believe. But I am sometimes completely unsure about the things that I am doing. I only understand my work through the process. And I like to state that. Only through the process I can realize my work better. For me it is impossible to state something about the artwork from the beginning on, but in the art world you need to be concrete. Sometimes people want to know exactly what you will do for the exhibition. So it is harder to do process based activities, especially when you need a space for an improvisation. So in this way my work is an experiment to see how far I can go with this practice wherein people have to trust you and wherein I understand things only through the time. It could be very stressful, but I really appre- ciate this approach. It is more vital because everything is related and comes from a certain situation that relates to that time and the certain things around it. This way, you are more sensitive to the how and why things happened and that is what I am interested in. The space can amplify certain activities or generate new activities that are connected to the surroundings. I am not only interested in fnding those hidden spaces, it is also important to think about the kind of activities that could take place in the space and what kind of effect it would have in relation to the environment. My frst reaction when I saw your work was that I felt like you were creating parallel universes within existing spaces. It seemed like you were creating new stories by further contemplating on what was already there and because you were working in unused spaces you could go back to the origins of those spaces and to the origin of its meaning. Yes, it could be like that. It is related to how we get used to something and expectations or what you expect to perceive in certain spaces. For example, in a museum you know what to expect from the offce spaces, but then there are also other spaces of which people know they exist but are not paying attention to. It is important to realize how all spaces constitute the whole thing together. What kind of activities are going on in those spaces. Things are not one-sided. When you look at the cleaning staff, you notice that they have their own style of behavior. They make their own routes in the space. It is interesting how they construct their own space in the institution. But getting back to the hidden spaces, spaces that arent inhabited or dont have any activities, it becomes a bit different, because they dont have any traces of the current time, usually they have traces of activities that went on before, like some leftovers of the time when it was built. So you can really read the specifc time by entering those spaces. For instance, in which way someone installed the wire, or how funny the pipe was cut. You can see all these things that can tell you a lot. I like this. Then I think about what kind of activity I can insert. And how do you select the activity you want to insert into a certain space? Usually I dont select. I just spend some time inside the space and Im looking for what kind of activity the space proposes. Sometimes this comes very quickly, but other times it comes over time. You can think a lot, read a lot, but that is not that way it works for me. Some things just come over time and I cant do anything about that. I just have to spend time, live with it, and then I start to understand. Its like a con- versation between the space and me. This is how I understand what kind of activity should go on in the space. I usually choose simple activities like a coffee break room or a space for meditation. I like to open up the possibilities. In Komplot you present a different kind of working method where you build on the existing structure instead of working in a hidden space. How does this relate to your other work? The exhibition space of Komplot is made in the style of a white cube. But within this space there are certain tools like pipes, wires, sockets, doors, columns, stairs, etc. that reveal the original infrastructure of the building. For this exhibition I chose to add something to one of the existing pipes. I think the pipe was part of a radiator, which, over time, has been removed from the space, leaving the pipe without a purpose. I chose to extend the pipe by adding a fake pipe that will curve towards the space where the radiator was supposed to be. By making this kind of action, you play with the visitors attention in relation to the space. The visitors usually have certain norms and expectations about what they are coming to see. They know exactly that they are going to see art, so they are not paying attention to the sockets for example. So in a way you are excluding your gaze and ways of understanding in seeing things. That could be a problem these days, because you are losing that certain sensitivity, which makes your perception too narrow. There is a possibility that when you look at the pipe, you will notice that something is wrong and then you will pay attention to the things around it. Then the entire exhibition will start to look differently. It can give a new quality and value. In this way, the entire infrastructure also becomes part of the work. So you mean to open the gaze of the visitors? Yes it could be like that but it is also possible that it doesnt work. For those who dont notice it, everything will be the same. For me, it is important to expand the possibility within a certain context so we look at the things in a different light. I dont want to point out the work, because then you will exclude this moment of fnding it. It is something you need to discover yourself and then it becomes valuable. How you perceive a space is related to possibilities. In this I see a connection with my other works. Your work rather functions on an immaterial level. I feel like this kind of practice becomes more and more important within the art world, but we dont know how to deal with these kind of practices yet. As an artist, I always need to explain my approach. It is important to point out why you do certain things. The more people will talk about it, the more it will become understandable for others. Interview between Katrien Loret & Augustas Serapinas From: Johan Grimonprez <[email protected]> Date: 2014-05-10 16:13 GMT+02:00 Subject: A man, blind at his right eye, was hospitalized yesterday. A lost caulifower seed had germinated behind his eyeball, and a 2 cm colli was surgically removed. He now sees again. A man, blind at his right eye, was hospitalized yesterday. A lost caulifower seed had germinated behind his eyeball, and a 2 cm colli was surgically removed. He now sees again. ____________________________ A newspaper story, quoted in Boon, L.P., Menuet (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, 1955) Well you cant go to California, thats the frst place theyll look for you_Johan Grimonprez Disease in Bees Book IV, verses 251-280
Since life has brought the same misfortunes to bees as ourselves, if their bodies are weakened with wretched disease, you can recognise it straight away by clear signs: as they sicken their colour immediately changes: a rough leanness mars their appearance: then they carry outdoors the bodies of those without life, and lead the sad funeral procession: or else they hang from the threshold linked by their feet, or linger indoors, all listless with hunger and dull with depressing cold. Then a deeper sound is heard, a drawn out murmur, as the cold Southerly sighs in the woods sometimes, as the troubled sea hisses on an ebb tide, as the rapacious fre whistles in a sealed furnace. Then Id urge you to burn fragrant resin, right away, and give them honey through reed pipes, freely calling them and exhorting the weary insects to eat their familiar food. Its good too to blend a taste of pounded oak-apples with dry rose petals, or rich new wine boiled down over a strong fame, or dried grapes from Psithian vines, with Attic thyme and strong-smelling centaury. Theres a meadow fower also, the Italian starwort, that farmers call amellus, easy for searchers to fnd: since it lifts a large cluster of stems from a single root, yellow-centred, but in the wealth of surrounding petals theres a purple gleam in the dark blue: often the gods altars have been decorated with it in woven garlands: its favour is bitter to taste: the shepherds collect it in valleys that are grazed, and by Mellas winding streams. Boil the plants roots in fragrant wine, and place it as food at their entrances in full wicker baskets. (Virgil, Georgics) Dear, thank you for sending me this invitation and for sharing your exhibition concept. It is not common for curators to disclose their curatorial strategy before the exhibition has become a reality. In doing this, you make your ideas, your goals and your doubts clearly visible. I like this discursive transparency. It goes well with the concept of the Collective Garden that you use as a curatorial grip. Collectivity has become a trend, and so has gardening. As a metaphor for a group show with the works of upcoming artists, both collectivity and gardening function wonderfully well. They refer to crucial issues that are at stake today, such as finding the nexus between (alternative) economies and (alternative) ecologies. One of the first shows I curated was titled Nature Morte?? Art and Ecology. It took place in the public space and the university buildings of Louvain, back in 1995. One of the locations of the project, the 19th century municipal Botanical Garden, also functioned as the campaign image. A that time, under the spell of 1960s land art (Robert Smithson!) and 18th century landscaped gardens (Capability Brown!), I was very interested in the artificiality of the garden as a metap- hor fo our urge to control and domesticate nature. I guess Postmodernism was still lingering on somewhere in my mind... Today, gardening has come to contain less aesthetical references than social and economical ones. Urban gardening and collective cultivating have become fashionable symbols of alter- native civic behaviour; they reflect quite a few new paradigms of the years that followed after 2008. Micro-enterprises and small communities show their ability of surviving a heavy econo- mical and ecological crisis. However, the way you combine these issues with the notion of oc- cupation strikes me as being a bit odd. Ofcourse, occupation has become an important social and intellectual theme since Occupy Wall Street kicked off a lot of occupy-initiatives in 2011. Moreover, I also believe that gardening has a lot to do with occupation. So, strictly speaking, the connection you make between the two does make sense. But as a discursive and curato- rial tool it creates a paradox. After all, inviting artists to an occupation seems a bit awkward, doesn it? Occupation by invitation or, even worse, participating in an occupation because someone (the curator or a teacher or the market) expects you to do so, reminds me a bit of the problem cutting-edge artists experienced when being invited by Harald Szeemann to Docu- menta 5, back in 1972. While most of the artists simply seemed happy for being invited, only a few expressed their critical feelings about the way the curator managed to create a rigid set of narratives that encompassed the work of the artists. In the end, the most articulate ones, amongst them the French artist Daniel Buren and the American artist Robert Smithson, deci- ded to stand up in writing. The first lines of Cultural Confinement, Smithsons only contribution to both the exhibition and the catalogue, still deserves to be read by contemporary artists and curators: Cultural confinement takes place when a curator imposes his own limits on art exhibition, rather than asking an artist to set his limits. Artists are expected to fit into fraudulent categories. Some artists imagine theyve got a hold on this apparatus, which in fact has got a hold of them. By declining the invitation and reacting with words (his text also appeared in Artforum), Smith- son managed to mirror the curators approach and to occupy a position that equaled the one held by the curator. A curator urging artists to occupy anticipates (and therefore appropri- ates) this position, and I dont believe that is your intention. Anyway, I suppose some of the artists will manage to deal with this challenge. Johan Pas, Antwerp, May 2014 From: Johan Pas <[email protected]> Date: 2014-05-09 23:37 GMT+02:00 Subject: Re: A curatorial project From: Germann Martin <[email protected]> Date: 2014-05-20 20:59 GMT+02:00 Subject: RE: A curatorial project Dear, Apologies for my late answer. My reaction is short: I am very curious about in how far the simple truth that curators need artists more then way around will materialize itself in your exhibition! All the best, Martin Margherita Raso, 2014 Celine Drouin Laroche, 2014 I
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2 0 1 2 STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GARDEN, TURNING 360 In this Collective Gardens possibility we address the different reactions we have received on our shared Collective Gardens video. Because the content is hybrid, the answered propositions are hybrid as well. Some artists responded with an already realised work, other works were conceived through dialogues with the curators and to some artists we asked a specifc question. Some played around with materials literally related to collective gardens. While one focuses on the political dimension of Hito Steyerls understanding of the concept occupation, the other addresses this in a more formalistic manner by exploring space through a cinematic gaze. The artists, that are presented at this Collective Gardens manifestation, touch in their works upon different aspects of our shared concept. A reference to an eternal mediated song is indeed quite different from a work who chooses to zoom in on the institutional infrastructure in which this exhibition space is embedded. Then again there are artists who rather deal with this (im)material twilight zone between spaces. In other works, the notion of social, political and time-based spaces touching and interfering with each other is one of the primary concerns. Sure collective gardens can be full of growing healthy plants all neatly lined up next to each other. Or it can be looking like that crazy haircut of the teenage girl living next door. You never really know how things are going to turn out eventually. Margherita Raso Celine Drouin Laroche Mo Francken KubistaBolve Amine El Gotaibi Augustas Serapinas Astrid Bossuyt Wera Imie Nazwisko Sven Dehens Thomas Grdal Freddy K Astrid Bossuyt (1989, Bolivia) currently lives in Brussels. She studied Fine Arts at Sint-Lukas Brus- sels. She works with different media, such as sculpture, photography, video, installation and graphic art, dependent on the concept. In her artistic work she searches for the point where coincidence and setup meet. Therefore her work and life are closely interwo- ven, sometimes even inseparable. Sven Dehens (1990, Belgium) lives and works in Ghent. He received his Master in the Arts at Sint-Lu- cas in Ghent. The artist works with video and installa- tion. The form consists of constructed images in which specifc environments, individuals, animals or objects are flmed, all referring to a certain content. The visu- al aspect of most video work takes precedence over the auditive. During the work process he always questions the basic principles of cinema (narrative styles, editing, the screen, the white light, Blue-key, etc.). Celine Drouin Laroche (1986, France) currently lives in Paris. She studied at the ENSAPC (cole Nationale Suprieure dArts de Paris) in Cergy. In her artistic work she searches for different, sometimes even overlapping, presences in the actual time and space. The work of Celine Drouin Laroche consists of video installations, projections and sculptural forms. Amine El Gotaibi (1984, Morocco) currently lives in Tangier. He studied Fine Arts at the National Institute of Fine Arts in Ttouan, Morocco. During his studies he focused on diverse aspects of the visual arts, such as video, photography, installations, etc. His work comes into being within the specifc socio- political context of his homeland. The artist therefore works with existential, universal preoccupations, such as migration, human rights, and the borders between countries/continents. Chris Fitzpatrick (1978, New York) is an inde- pendent curator. In 2009 Fitzpatrick got a degree in Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts. Three years later, after working in the US and Italy, he moved to Belgium where he became direc- tor at Objectif Exhibitions, a non-proft institution in Antwerp that provides space for diverse contemporary artistic practices. At Objectif Exhibitions different solo exhibitions take place simultaneously, on different phy- sical and temporal scales. Fitzpatricks essays appear in international publications and journals such as Spike Art Quarterly, Mousse and Nero. Mo Franken (1989, Belgium) currently lives in Brussels. She played the classical trumpet at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels and Antwerp. During the last six months she focused on Frank Zappas different versions of the Black Page. Because this song keeps on being interpreted in a different manner throughout the years, we asked Mo to make her own interpretation as part of our Collective Gardens project. Freddy K (1985, Belgium) lives and works in Ghent. He studied mixed media at Sint-Lucas in Ghent. His work consists of installations and performances. One of his projects An exercise in happiness and frustration is an ongoing perfor- mance in which the artist blows confetti from one part of the space to the other. The amount of the confetti diminishes after each performance. It will end when the confetti totally disappears. Martin Germann (Germany) is senior curator at the S.M.A.K in Ghent since September 2012. From 2008 until 2011 Germann was curator at kestner- gesellschaft Hannover. Between 2010 and 2012 he was part of the curatorial team for Made in Ger- many Zwei, a survey show of young international art at kestnergesellschaft, Kunstverein Hannover and Sprengel Museum. At the S.M.A.K. Germann prefers to draw attention to the younger generation. He is interested in the local artistic context and supports the platforms in which S.M.A.K. coope- rates, such as Het Paviljoen, a new collaboration with HISK and KASK, and the annual Coming People, a group show with graduation projects from KASK and the Faculty of Visual Arts Campus Sint-Lucas in Ghent. Liam Gillick (1964, U.K.) is an artist who lives and works in New York. From 1983-1984 Gillick studied at the Hertfordshire College of Art. In 1987 he graduated from Goldsmiths College with a degree in Fine Art. Liam Gillick was part of the earliest Young British Artists (YBA) during the 1990s and his artistic practice has encompassed a wide range of media including sculpture, writing, architectural and graphic design, flm and music, as well as various curatorial projects. Gillick is interested in the aesthetics of social systems and forms of social organization. Central to his practice are the focus on modes of production, rather than consumption, and the publication(s) that function(s) in response to his art. Thomas Grdal (1978, Norway) lives and works in Antwerp and Oslo. Grdal graduated within the Department of In Situ / Painting at KASK Ant- werp in 2012. Without offering you foaties, Grdal throws you into the deep end of the pool where you will have to fend for yourself in interpreting his narratives. The language of his work consists of paintings, sculptures and mixed media instal- lations. Beneath the surface you will drown in a vast, surreal and mystical world. Like a daydream, or something you saw in the corner of your eye, his work will linger in your mind where the melan- choly visions will achingly haunt you. Johan Grimonprez (1962, Belgium) is a video artist as well as a curator and a teacher. In 1993 he got accepted into the Whitney Museum Inde- Biographies pendent Study Program in New York, which was followed by the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. He divides his time between Belgium and New York, where he lectures at the School of Visual Arts. His work balances on the line between documentary and art. In his work, he touches upon the status of the image in our cur- rent society and its impact on the viewer. With Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997) Grimonprez made his introduction in the international art scene. In this flm, the artist throws a light upon media strategies. His latest work, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade (2011), is the adap- tation of the book by Andrew Feinstein and deals with international weapon traffcking. KubistaBolve or artistduo Kajsa Hkansson Bolve (1988) and Anna Kubista Lfman (1989) were both born in Sweden and currently work in Bergen (Norway) and Brussels (Belgium). Kubista and Bolve study at the Academy of Art and Design in Bergen. Kajsa Hkansson Bolve is currently studying at the Hogeschool Sint-Lukas Brussels as part of an exchange program. Their art consists of interventions, video works, instal- lations and performances concerning presence, inventions, nature, human contact, and so on. Mihnea Mircan (1976, Romania) is a curator and writer and since 2011 the artistic director of Extra City Kunsthal in Antwerp. From 2005 to 2006 Mircan was curator of the Pavillion at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Between 2004 and 2007 he curated several exhibitions at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest. In 2007 Mircan was also curator of the Roma- nian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale. As a curator he has a strong context-bounded vision. Mircan is currently preparing the long-term research project Allegory of the Cave Painting, subsequently, curating a group exhibition and launching the frst volume of the accompanying reader in September 2014. Wera Imie Nazwisko (1983, Poland) cur- rently lives in Berlin. She studied Visual Arts at the Universitt der Knste in Berlin. Her work consists of installations that she made with found and collected objects. In her artworks the sepa- rate objects, all conveying their own meaning, function like words forming a sentence. She is interested in the culture of kitsch production, the question about the conditions for the existence of an artwork and the effect of presenting an object in several different combinations. Johan Pas (1963, Belgium) is Doctor in the Arts. Pas teaches modern and contemporary art at the Royal Academy for Fine Arts in Antwerp. Moreover, he is a curator and the author of several publications. His main interests lay wit- hin the neo-avant-garde context, more specifc in artist books and exhibition catalogues related to the movement. Over time, Pas has acquired a great collection of artist books. In the nineties, Pas dedicated a number of exhibitions and publications to the relationship between ecology and contempo- rary art. More recently, he focused on the work of several contemporary artists such as Fred Bervoets and Paul De Vree. Margherita Raso (1991, Italy) lives and studies in Milan. She is graduating at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, Milan. Her research includes the need to deal with different themes and forms without privilege to a specifc medium. She is inte- rested in the mechanics of our perception and more specifcally how we use them to perceive the world. In her work she often creates new spaces wherein different ways of looking and senses meet. In her latest artistic research she developed an interest in textile. Apart from her own work, she collaborates with Roberto Scalmana for the publication of Col- lective Gardens. Augustas Serapinas (1990, Lithuania) studied at the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Denmark. The work of Serapinas consists of installations and interventions where he implements new meanings and possibili- ties to existing spaces. With his work he questions the contemporary gaze and presents the viewer new opportunities of perceiving.
Hito Steyerl (1966, Germany) is a Berlin-based artist, writer and flmmaker. Steyerls work focuses on issues such as feminism and militarisation, as well as the mass proliferation and dissemination of ima- ges and knowledge brought on by digital technolo- gies. She speculates about the impact of the Internet and digitization on the structure of our daily lives. Her flms and essays mainly take the digital image as a point of departure for entering a world in which a politics of dazzle manifests as collective desire. Stey- erls paper Art as Occupation: Claims for an Au- tonomy of Life shows her ongoing interest in the so-called militarization of everyday life. The point in this paper is that in todays economic climate, the category of labour is increasingly replaced by that of occupation. Steyerl glosses the term as a space for endless mediation, indeterminate negotiation, with no real outcome. Colophon This publication is a production of TEBEAC, Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) Ghent, Belgium. This book was published on the occasion of the exhibitions: Collective Gardens - Drowning in the garden, searching for a thrill 25 June 29 June 2014 KASK, Ghent, Belgium Collective Gardens - Standing in the middle of the garden, turning 360 20 June - 28 june 2014 Komplot, Brussels, Belgium Concept and compilation: TEBEAC TEBEAC, the artists Printed in Belgium The artist and publishers gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyright material in this book. Every effort has been made by the artist, contributors and editorial staff to trace holders of copyright and to obtain permission for the use of copyright material. The publishers apologise for any errors or omissions. However, if any permissions have been inadvertently overlooked, please contact TEBEAC 2014, so that any oversights can be corrected as soon as possible.