Assembly of Practice #4: Whose collection?

After 'What does it mean to own?', 'Whose Artwork?', and 'Whose Institution', a final Assembly of Practice brings us to art collections as potential places of shared interest, which increasingly rely on archives, reactivation protocols and complex contractual relationships.

In this Assembly of Practice, we examine collections as potential places of shared interest, zooming in on questions that come to the surface with the complexity of collecting contemporary art practices, increasingly immaterial, performative, situated, ongoing and collaborative in nature.

Their integration in collections by means of documentation, reactivation protocols and complex contractual relationships may satisfy desires of collection(er)s but don't seem to create change in terms of care attributed to the needs of a practice, its ecology and sustainability.

Whose collection?

Conservation and reactivation often stay disconnected from the driving forces, methodologies and contexts of the collected material elements, thus allowing the pieces nothing more than exposure in a curated frame.

During a day of closed collective reflection we will go into different practices researching and/or implementing strategies to own, activate and conserve differently.

The group opens up to the public at 17h with the intention to share concerns, questions, insights and ideas that we have collected during the day. The practices of Eline De Clercq and Stijn Van Dorpe will be informing the conversations:
* Anne Reijniers and Eline De Clercq, Gesamthof / A Lesbian Garden, film, 15', 2022. The screening is followed by a conversation with Eline De Clercq.
* Stijn Van Dorpe, Curating is Writing the Future, reactivation of a performance conceived in 2019 in collaboration with Caveat. For the reactivation, the roles will be taken up by different people than in 2019. A conversation can come out of this.

Transcription of Anne Reijniers and Eline De Clercq's Gesamthof / A Lesbian Garden, including notes
Conversation with Katya Ev, Kobe Matthys (Agency), and Lotte Bode (MHKA) for L'internationale, Stories and Threads: Perspectives on Art Archives, 2022

Location

a.pass @ Bottelarij/Brussels Event Brewery Delaunoystraat 58/17 1080 Molenbeek Brussels

Door bell “a.pass" —> walk or bike into the parking space —> turn left —> walk till the end —> turn left —> and immediately left again. Red elevator to the 4th floor. Turn around the elevator shaft and walk towards the ping pong table. a.pass collective studio space is on the left.