Eleven seconds: that is the average time we spend on a work of art. In 11 seconds, Charlotte Bouckaert and her audience watch one photograph for a long time: an exterior view of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Charlotte Bouckaert is fascinated by photography. In her performances, she handles the camera in such a way that it is not the solidified photograph that gets our attention, but the action that precedes it. Or, as in 11 seconds, a photograph gets a new life in surprising stories. On the stage is a work table with paper, scissors, paint, etc. The workshop of a bricoleur. A video camera projects what is happening on the table onto the back wall. The performer continuously manipulates the photo and makes our reading of the image shift. Read more...
 

In Living Room Clémentine M. Songe (aka Clément Layes) explores the dynamics of the living room, that place where we surround ourself with things that feel familiar, intimate, recognizable, safe. Transforming this room into a ‘living room’, a room that makes its own choices. In collaboration with the architect Morana Mažuran from the architectural office Ortner & Ortner Baukunst, the light designer Ruth Waldeyer and visual artist Jonas Maria Droste, Clémentine M. Songe bare the many interrelations that appear between our lives and this place, showing how much we take our habitual environment for granted, relying on it in order to feel ‘at home’ in the world. From 09.12.2021 to 20.01.2022, LIVING ROOM can also be seen as a spatial installation at O&O Depot! Read more...
 

For his latest creation, director Mesut Arslan set to work with the magisterial Gilgamesh epic. Not as a tale of immortality, as it has been told for thousands of years, but as an epic about learning to die. In the collection of heroic stories, Gilgamesh who is often accompanied by his friend Enkidu, experiences mythological adventures. For example, he goes in search of eternal life or he fights a duel with supernatural creatures sent by the gods to Uruk. In addition, he confronts himself with existential questions concerning, among other things, the awareness of mortality.

Together with Mesut Alp, archaeologist and expert on Mesopotamia, Mesut Arslan rewrote the epic and excavated a number of contemporary core themes from it. Arslan and Alp treat the encounter between Enkidu and Gilgamesh as one that puts nature against civilization, Homo Sapiens against Neanderthals, and time against space. Read more...
 

Looking back at a wonderful edition of Winternights 2021! Platform 0090 presented a showcase of Davul by Huseyin Umaysiz. The performance took place in the beautiful building De Gashouder... A warm thank you to SoAP Maastricht, VIA ZUID and C - TAKT! Watch the video by clicking the image, or watch here! (you will be redirected to YouTube)