Tekst ARAH

When travelling with a tent, we can find shelter everywhere – we’re bringing it along. Making home while not being at home – that’s the paradoxical reality of sleeping under a mobile roof. Camping tourism markets precisely this experience – the adventure of feeling sheltered out ‘in the wild,’ under neon-colored, high-tech tarpaulins and with the newest outdoor equipment at hand. Trekking as sports, not as “arduous journey”[1] – the question of where to sleep, where to stay tonight as expression of freedom, not as its limit. As much as the tent peg matters that is hammered into earth, the earth matters too – this is where the lines are drawn, what is homeland and what is foreign? Where is it safe to sleep?

It is also the paradox of the white, big tents, usually designed and provided by the UNHCR, that are making up refugee camps all over the world: a temporary, transitionary shelter supposedly, but with a temporary-ness that can span months, years, sometimes lifetimes and generations. The UNHCR writes on their website: “Shelter is a vital survival mechanism in times of crisis or displacement. It is also key to restoring personal security, self-sufficiency and dignity.” What if that time of crisis consolidates into the status quo, is hammered and fastened into the ground just like the tent, what if the settling residents must resist the unsettled weather ad infinitum? For how long does a tent provide security, self-sufficiency, dignity? Encroaching along the seams, seeping and dripping into this makeshift shelter – designed with an expiration date – drenching its occupants, is the uncertainty of waiting: Life not just put on hold but plunged into a loop of bureaucratic procedures, arbitrary rules, the unclarity of what the next step forward is – and when it will be permitted. The transitory nature of the journey – in the camp it gets forward is – and when it will be permitted. The transitory nature of the journey – in the camp it gets interrupted, arrested, immobilized. Meanwhile, the shelter provided goes through its own loop of being worn down, collapsing under the pressure, being patched up again, being put to use in different ways – and even if it goes up in flames, this is part of a routinized loop. If the tent symbolizes freedom – to make place where the earth is receptive, where a couple of small tent pegs can replace the need for a foundation – in the camp the tent becomes carceral. On Europe’s shores, in its margins, hospitality is the task of the political authority, not a gesture of open arms but stretched out index fingers allocating the tent, the plot of land, the soil – remote, barren, polluted, even contaminated.[2] The camps in the South of Europe are not built by their residents – refugees setting up camp upon foreign soil is not tolerated, as the evicted from Athens’ City Plaza Hotel to Calais’ Jungle can testify. As they made place for those without place, where they made place – livable, dignified place – with the help of anything and nothing, (not)withstandding their displacement, they get crushed by police and politicians who continue the displacement of the displaced. Settling down is directed by those authorities, as they designate the place for those without it, till the time comes that they will be moved again. If we imagine Calais as an archaeological site, uncovered in an imaginary future, what questions might be conjured up? Why did people have to strike camp? What force interrupted this settlement? What crisis caught up with its residents?

We might also imagine its ripped tarps and muddied tent pegs ending up in a museum’s showcase. The museum belongs to a public space for democratic citizens to come together and have an open dialogue about what constitutes the

longs to a public space for democratic citizens to come together and have an open dialogue about what constitutes the res publica. But more often than not, this museal order legitimizes a police order, by fixing objects in their proper time and space where they can be contemplated or ignored, by the legitimate citizenry who constitute the public, based on the exclusion of the non-citizen. The tent peg, as simulacrum, puts into question what constitutes a culturalhistorical artefact by entering the museal order with archaeological precision. At the same time, no museum sign can pinpoint its proper time and place. The fugitive tent peg enters the public space and disturbs its museal-police order. It haunts the museal-police order because it carries the trace of the places and the people that are excluded from the public space and its legitimate citizenship. This exclusion happens not after the fact but is constitutive of the public space. The museal-police order comes into existence through expulsion of the illegitimate non-citizen body, the denial of the perennial, concrete, earthly fugitive times-andplaces outside the realm of museal representation, data and statistics, at Europe’s imaginary and physical borders.

To all the tourists, who buy their place for some days or weeks at a time – for a carefree green getaway, an escape from the cabin fever; to all the citizens whose citizenship is based upon a brutal border politics of murder and humiliation; to all those who defend their place steadfastly by denying a place to the other, who constitute their identity in making the other invisible while projecting their own fears upon them, who let them be policed, who let them drown in the unseen outside where nobody counts, where there is no body count, only a surplus of no-bodies that may perish or must die in order to hold on to the false promise of (national) must die in order to hold on to the false promise of (national) belonging in the global capitalist machinery that devours places and crushes humans: make place, make space for the other, let’s make space for a different way of makingplace.

1 Trekking, in the English language, describes a “a trip or movement especially when involving difficulties or complex organization” (Merriam Webster), and is both reserved for migration as well as sports. 2 https://migration.gov.gr/en/kato-apo-ta-diethni-oria-ta-epipedamolyvdoy-sto-mavrovouni/ Greek government’s response after reports from HRW.

CAESUUR en het object | Caesuur and the object

CAESUUR en het object

ruimteCAESUUR is een fysieke plek waar tentoonstellingen opgebouwd worden, en bezocht. Er wordt een mogelijkheid geboden tot interactie tussen een object en een bezoeker. En dat niet alleen, objecten verhouden zich tot elkaar, tot de ruimte, tot een discours. Voor veel kunstenaars is dit een belangrijk proces: het overbrengen en vormen van ideeën door middel van het plaatsen van objecten in een ruimte. Daarnaast zijn er kunstenaars voor wie het object en de ontmoeting met dit object essentieel zijn; het is het hart van hun praktijk. Zij zijn afhankelijk van het unieke moment dat een kijker het gemaakte object ontmoet. Daar waar andere kunstenaars alternatieven hebben, zoals digitale presentaties, of andere representaties van hun werk.

De aandacht voor het object speelt een belangrijke rol in de geschiedenis van ruimteCAESUUR: de afgelopen jaren hebben we meerdere tentoonstellingen gemaakt rondom dit thema. Wij constateren dat er in de laatste jaren minder mogelijkheden zijn voor professionele kunstenaars die met fysieke media werken om hun werk te tonen. We spreken bijvoorbeeld over schilders, beeldhouwers, keramisten, en installatiekunstenaars waarvoor het object het medium is. Door politieke en maatschappelijke omstandigheden is het aantal plekken waar het werk getoond kan worden veel kleiner geworden. De Coronacrisis heeft deze omstandigheden verder verscherpt. Dit alles vormde de aanleiding voor CAESUUR om een project te initi-ren dat het object, en de ontmoeting hiermee, centraal stelt. tiëren dat het object, en de ontmoeting hiermee, centraal stellen.

ruimteCAESUUR nodigde tien kunstenaars uit voor wie het fysieke object centraal staat in hun praktijk. Zij vroeg deze kunstenaars om een object te leveren dat in de openbare ruimte van de stad Middelburg geplaatst kon worden. CAESUUR stelde de werken ze kort ten toon in haar etalage. Daarna werden de werken in de stad geplaatst en werd er een rondlooplijst gepubliceerd. Dit stelde de bezoekers in staat tot het ontmoeten van de kunstwerken.

De werken beleven in de stad hun ultieme fysische functies; ze kunnen bekeken worden, aangeraakt en gaan relaties aan op vele niveaus. Daarbij zijn ze ook kwetsbaar, ze zijn blootgesteld aan weersomstandigheden en de genade van het publiek. We ‘gebruiken’ de openbare ruimte dus ook een beetje ‘in plaats van’ de sterk verminderde binnenruimtes. Aan het einde van de tentoonstelling komen we tot conclusies in de vorm van een analoge catalogus met een inventarisatie wat er met de werken in de stad is gebeurd.

Januari / april 2021 | ruimteCAESUUR Jorieke Rottier | Willy van Houtum | Giel Louws | Dani Ploeger Hans Overvliet

Caesuur and the object

ruimteCAESUUR is a physical space where exhibitions are created and visited. It offers an opportunity for interaction between artworks and visitors. In this, material objects relate to each other, to the building, to a discourse. For many artists, this is an important process: conveying and forming ideas through the placement of objects in a space. There are artists for whom the material object and the encounter with it are essential; it is the heart of their practice. Whereas others have alternatives to present their work, such as digital platforms, the work of these artists depends on the moment when an audience encounters the physical artefact.

A focus on the material object has played an important role in the history of ruimteCAESUUR. In recent years, we have made several exhibitions that engage with this theme. We have noticed that there are ever fewer opportunities for artists working in physical media to show their work, such as painters, sculptors, ceramists and installation artists for whom the object is the primary medium. Due to political and social circumstances, the number of places where their work can be shown has been drastically reduced in recent years. In addition, the Corona crisis has further aggravated this situation. In response, ruimteCAESUUR initiated a new project in public space that focuses on encounters with objects.

ruimteCAESUUR invited ten artists for whom the physical object is central to their practice. They will ask these artists to ject is central to their practice. We asked these artists to deliver an object that coud be placed in the public space in the town of Middelburg. Caesuur exhibited the submitted works briefly in its display window. Subsequently, the works were placed in different locations in the historic centre of Middelburg. A guide map was published to enable visitors to locate and encounter the works.

In public space, the works will become interactive objects; they can be viewed, touched, and enter into relationships on many levels. They are also ultimately vulnerable, exposed to weather conditions and the mercy of the public. Upon conclusion of the exhibition, we will create an analogue magazine or catalogue with an inventory of what has happened to the works since they were installed throughout the town.

January/ April 2021 | ruimteCAESUUR Jorieke Rottier | Willy van Houtum | Giel Louws Dani Ploeger | Hans Overvliet

DISTANT SUFFERING | het project

Hans Overvliet onderzoekt sinds 2013 de rol van de massamedia met betrekking tot berichtgeving over (militair) geweld en de vervagende herinneringen aan geweld door middel van dit work in progress: DISTANT SUFFERING.

Overvliet was als verslaggever ooggetuige van de gebeurtenissen in het Midden-Oosten in de jaren tachtig. Deze ervaringen komen tot uiting in zijn oeuvre. De titel van het project is ontleend aan het boek Distant Suffering, Morality, Media and Politics van Luc Boltanski. Overvliet hanteert een ogenschijnlijk controversiële strategie: die van poëtische beelden, geïnspireerd door de woorden van Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822): Dichters zijn de niet-erkende wetgevers van de wereld. Met DISTANT SUFFERING onderzoekt Hans Overvliet ook het ‘eigendom’ van het incident versus het ‘eigendom’ van de documentatie ervan. De gekozen thema's hebben een sterke band met de beeldcultuur in het algemeen, met name de informatieoverload en het onnadenkend gebruik ervan. In zijn work in progress DISTANT SUFFERING bevraagt Overvliet ook de rol van de toeschouwer en zijn eigen rol als kunstenaar, evenals de neutraliteit en de veiligheid van de kunstruimte.

DISTANT SUFFERING | the project

Hans Overvliet, since 2013, investigates the role of the mass media with regard to reporting on (military) violence and the fading memories of violence by means of an ongoing artse-

ries: DISTANT SUFFERING.

As a reporter, Overvliet was an eyewitness to the events in the Middle East during the 1980s. These experiences resonate in his body of work. The title of the project is taken from Luc Boltanski’s book Distant Suffering, Morality, Media and Politics. Overvliet employs an apparently controversial strategy: that of poetic images, inspired by the words of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822): Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. With DISTANT SUFFERING Hans Overvliet also investigates the ‘ownership’ of the incident, versus the ‘ownership’ of its documentation. The chosen themes have a strong connection to visual culture in general, particularly the information overload and its thoughtless consumption. In the art-series DISTANT SUFFERING, Overvliet questions also the role of the viewer and his own role as an artist, as well as the neutrality and security of the art space.

kunsthistorische inspiratie | art historical inspiration Colofon | Colophon

Tekst | Text

Inleiding | Hans Overvliet German, Arabic & Farsi translation | Alina Achenbach Spanish translation | Núria Bofarill Manzano French translation | Marcel Moulin & Jan Moekotte Farsi translation | Nougeanne Kumaily

Inleiding | Introduction

Context Hans Overvliet

Tent

Alina Achenbach≈Ruben Hordijk≈Anne Hordijk CAESUUR en het object | CAESUUR and the object Tekst Giel Louws | translation Dani Ploeger Dank aan | Thanks to

Willy van Houtum | Anne Breel | Rinus Roepman

teamCAESUUR