Sunday 11.12.2022, 2 p.m. - 7 p.m.
Helen Dowling, Custom Make-out, photo series with Carmen Canela & Lina Bembe
We happily invite you to a special event on Sunday the 11th of December. We come together for the finissage of Marie Zolamian's exhibition, and the end of a major chapter of our organisation. At the end of 2022, the programme initiated still under two organisations, FLACC and CIAP, comes to an end. We are grateful for the last years and for the experiences and encounters they brought. We are looking forward to starting 2023 with new ideas, energy, and humour – in the style of Jester.
On this special day, some of our artists will share elements of their research or project. Alongside this, we will hold a farewell drink together with some departing colleagues. Luuk Nouwen worked as an artistic leader at FLACC and the past year as a Senior leader artistic trajectories at Jester. Tine Deboelpaep has worked as an artistic assistant in recent years at CIAP and Jester. Lisa Costantini has been working two years at FLACC, CIAP and Jester in administration and at the ceramic studio.
PROGRAMME
14u00 – presentation The Forest Underground (audio piece) by Miriam Sentler (location to be announced)
15u00 – artist talk with Sarah van Sonsbeeck and Rana Hamadeh, moderated by Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg (small auditorium)
16u00 – tour exhibition by Marie Zolamian & goodbye drink (exhibition space)
17u00 – film screening and talk with Helen Dowling (small auditorium)
18u00 – presentation by Alain Nsenga (small auditorium)
It is the final day of Marie Zolamian’s solo show Droomland. Seize the last chance to be wowed by Symbiocene, one of the artist's largest paintings to date: an impressive landscape, stretching effortlessly across the width of the exhibition space. The work takes you into a colourful, mysterious universe that emerges from Zolamian's oeuvre and reflects on the political meanings of the landscape in contemporary context.
Miriam Sentler presents her audio installation The Forest Underground, developed in collaboration with composer Drake Stoughton. The duo has been inspired by the sounds and the acoustics of the coal mines, where the voices of birds, crickets, and trees were heard on a daily basis while accompanying the miners. In their piece, Sentler and Stoughton compose a quasi-fantastical, transhistorical soundscape of that 'underground forest'. The work will have its premiere on December 11th, followed by a conversation with the artists. You can read more about the project here.
Helen Dowling will give us a glimpse into her upcoming film and ongoing research initiated in 2020 with the support of Sint Lucas Antwerp and continued during her research at Jester. Terms of Intimacy engages the image of sexuality and femininity in mainstream pornography by developing strategies to repurpose the acting and means of production within custom pornography. As part of the research, Dowling has been working on a new film, in collaboration with Custom Performers. Fragments of the work in progress will be presented, and the screening will be followed by a conversation with the artist.
At Jester, Sarah van Sonsbeeck continued her research into 'immaterial architecture' – things that affect our living environment that might not be immediately tangible or escape our control – such as molehills, which inspired her most recent series of ceramic and bronze works. Rana Hamadeh’s interdisciplinary projects often question the authority of historical voice, creating visibility around erased or unrecorded voices. In theatrical performances, sound works, texts or games, she creates space for discursive approaches to subject matter. At Jester, she tested the waters of becoming a game designer and ceramicist. We host a conversation between the two artists about their practice, moderated by Jester's artistic director Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg.
Alain Nsenga comes from a miners' family. This personal story fueled his fascination with the history and impact of mining across the globe. For his research, he interviewed miners from Congo and Limburg, and discovered links between their stories of migration, hard labour, and underground friendships. On the 11th, he will present parts of the research that was earlier on show at Z33 as part of On Trade Off – Charging Myths.
The Forest Underground by Miriam Sentler and Drake Stoughton was realised with the support of Jester, Emile van Dorenmuseum and O&O subsidy of CBK Rotterdam.