Agenda 2019 - Stefaan van Biesen

 

 

A G E N D A : 2 0 1 9 > >

 

 

E X H I B I T I O N S :

[The Walking Body] Gallery of the Minho University Guimaraes Portugal december 2018/2019.

[Meesterlijk] Davidsfonds ⋈ Sint-Jacobus De Meerdere Kerk Beveren Belgium 16.05 > 20.05.2019.

[Equilibrium] Palazzo Albrizzi Bienale Venice Italy ⋈ Curated by Mary Patricia Warming [USA] 2019.

[Fingers Don't Know What The Hand Will Do] with Annelies Slabbynck ⋈ CAS Ostend Belgium 2019.

[Walking Bodies] MOW (V) Byzantine Collection Of Agios Germanos ⋈ Prespes Greece 2019.

[Tracing a Walk, Ostend 1936] Square 42 ⋈ Prinses Clementinaplein 42 ⋈ Ostend Belgium 2019.

 

 

M A D E - O F - W A L K I N G . [ V & VI ] :

[Walking Bodies] [5th International Meeting] University Western Macedonia ⋈ Greece 01.07 > 07.07.2019.

[Utopia book] Listen Festival ⋈ a summer of sound art ⋈ Frome (UK) Sound Walk Sunday 01.09.2019.

[Wander Weed Variations] Sound Walk Sunday ⋈ Hof Ter Saksen Beveren Belgium September 2019.

 

 

P O D . C A S T :

[Talking Walking] Pod cast with Andrew Stuck [Museum of Walking London UK] 2019.

[Hello Today Podcast] interview by Carlo D'Agnolo 2019.

 

 

V I D E O - F E S T I V A L :

[Meander] Urban Body In Action ⋈ International Festival Urban Video Performances ⋈ Valencia Spain 2019.

[Meander] Urban Body In Action ⋈ the Goethe Institute ⋈ Puerto Alegre Brazil 09.10 > 09.11.2019. 

[Meander] Laboluz. The Polytechnic University of Valencia Spain 2019.

[Meander] the Faculty of BA in Granada Spain 2019.

[Meander] Art Center La Runs ⋈ government of the Canary Islands 2019.

 

 

V I D E O - I N T E R V I E W :

[Bon Fim Talk] video conversation projects Rosário Forjaz & Stefaan van Biesen Porto Portugal 19.01.2019.

 

 

L E C T U R E - W O R K S H O P :

[Science of walking] Esc. Art. de Soares dos Reis with Rosário Forjaz ⋈ Porto Portugal 16.01 > 18.01.2019.

[Library of Walks] Academy of Fine Arts ⋈ Ieper Belgium > 21.03.2019.

[Library of Walks] [Made of Walking V] University Western Macedonia ⋈ Greece 01.07 > 07.07.2019.

[Kunstmo(nu)menten] Publication art book ⋈ Cortewalle Castle Beveren Belgium 08.11.2019.

 

 

P H O T O - M U L T I . M E D I A :

[Motor!k] photo album cover [vinyl/CD]. Motor!k: Belgium alternative rock band 2019. Dirk Ivens.

[STOFF vzw] a monthly photo contribution website. Organisation for asbestos victims in Belgium 2019.

 

 

S O U N D S C A P E S :

[Sound Walk Sunday] a sound/walk project by the Museum of Walks ⋈ London UK 01.09.2019.

 

 

S T U D E N T S - M E E T I N G S :

[Library of Walks I] Studio visit & talk. Students Academy of Fine Arts ⋈ Ieper Belgium > 27.03.2019.

[Library of Walks II] Studio visit & talk. Students Academy of Fine Arts ⋈ Ieper Belgium > 03.04.2019.

 

 

P R O J E C T S :

[Traces of Memory] an ongoing, current project with Dr. Shaomin Xue [China/Belgium] 2019.

[Traces of Rain] an ongoing, European current project 2019.

[Utopia, just around the corner?] a nomadic traveling book 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More info about the projects in 2019 > >

 

 

 

 

 

[Tracing a Walk, Ostend 1936] Square 42 ⋈ Prinses Clementinaplein 42 ⋈ Ostend Belgium.

18 > 19 > 20.10.2019

 

 

 

The theme of this portable nomadic museum is the group of refugee writers, those who were stranded in Ostend in 1936, fleeing the Nazi regime. Joseph Roth en Irmgard Keun, Egon Erwin Kisch en Gisela, Stefan Zweig en Lotte Altmann, Hermann Kesten,  Ernst Toller en Christiane Grauthoff, Arthur Koestler, Willi Münzenberg, Otto Katz, Etkar André, etc...

 

At that time my mother and my grandparents also stayed in Ostend. It is therefore a mix of family history and world events. Two stories that cross each other, unintentionally.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Made of Walking (VI) - Sound and Ecology

Sound Walk Sunday, global community event September 01.09.2019

 

 

see: https://www.museumofwalking.org.uk/events/wander-weed-session-2/

 

 

 

The museum of walks is a demanding party for various like-minded artists and walkers to have an artistic [sound] project take place on the same day. For this crossing border project, Stefaan van Biesen and Annemie Mestdagh are doing a Wander Weed session [Plant(e)scape Made of Walking IV Akamas Cyprus 2018, The Walking Body Minho University Guimaraes Portugal 2019], in Beveren Belgium. People are invited to a performative walk that is a mix of a lecture, a conversation and an exercise. The theme of this event is our relationship with plants and plant intelligence.

 

 

Sound Walk Sunday 2019 will take place on Sunday 1st September in the UK [London], as part of a week-long festival of sound walking events and performances beginning on the 1st September, globally celebrating outdoor audio, geo-located, immersive performances, listening walks and sound walks. In the coming months, we will be issuing calls for walking pieces that have been produced since Sound Walk Sunday 2017, and for new work to be premiered on Sound Walk Sunday 2019.

 

Sound Walk Sunday 2017 was inaugurated at the Made of Walking International Gathering at La Romieu, in south west France on the 27 August, 2017. We are delighted to renew our relationship with Made of Walking for Sound Walk Sunday 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

LISTEN Festival, a summer of sound art, Frome (UK) Sound Walk Sunday 01.09.2019.

 

 

LISTEN: Utopia, a drift for dancers and silent walkers. A silent walking and movement performance directed by Geert Vermeire conceived on the “Utopia” book by Stefaan van Biesen. Dancers: Soo Wright, Karen Burnett and Jackie Adkins

 

Dancers move around – in silence- through the city, with no other intention then to get lost, with a book, inspired by Thomas More’s Utopia, but containing in this version only one word and in a format that challenges the very idea of a book.

 

 

 

It is a book that resembles a walk – a movement, it is not linear, it opens from different angles, it has pages folded in pages, you can open and browse through it in different directions, actually it is not a book to be read, it is a book to be shared spontaneously between the silent dancers/walkers, carried around and to be opened on places that come towards the performers/walkers, symbolically opening the places, inviting to read the place, the walker and the moment in which they stand. The public is invited to join in with the dancers.

 

 

Photos by Mel Day.

 

2 Bridge Street, Frome a drift for dancers and silent walkers – with Geert Vermeire. 

A silent walk at the LISTEN, A Season of Sound Art, Frome (UK).

 

Dancers move around – in silence- through the city, with no other intention then to get lost, with a book, inspired by Thomas More’s Utopia, but containing in this version only one word and in a format that challenges the very idea of a book.

 

As a duo of walkers, they invite guest artists and the public to perform with them in a continuous series of walking performances in contemporary cities around the world. Interview video. Utopia is a performative silent walk, adapted to each place and shaped by the participating dancers/walkers, and organized since 2016 in Braga (Portugal), Nicosia (Cyprus) 2017, Brussels (Belgium) 2017, Brasilia (Brazil) 2018, New York (USA) 2017/2018, Athens (Greece) 2018, Queens 2018 (New York USA), Ypres (Belgium) 2019.

 

The walk goes along with an Utopia soundscape, called ‘Hythlodaeus 2015’ composed out of the poem ‘Unfolding the City’ by Geert Vermeire and ‘Siren’ by Stefaan van Biesen. Voice and composition by Stefaan van Biesen. Field recordings by Geert Vermeire and Stefaan van Biesen. The name of the sound piece is inspired by the explorer of Utopia, originated during field recordings of walks of the artists in Venice and in Antwerp where Thomas More wrote his book. This digital material was composed to a soundscape for the Utopia sound project for Cities and Memory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'not all of those who wander are lost'. [photo: Annemie Mestdagh]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Meander] Urban Body In Action ⋈ International Festival of Urban Video Performances ⋈ Spain 2019.

 

[Meander] will be part of the cultural programming of the International Seminar Convergences: the videos will be shown in the Art Gallery of the Goethe Institute of Puerto Alegre (Brazil), between October 9th and November 9th: 

 

https://wp.ufpel.edu.br/corpoimagemsom/convergencias/ 

 

Urban Body In Action, a travelling project:

 

[Meander] International Festival Urban Video Performances ⋈ Valencia Spain 2019.

[Meander] Urban Body In Action ⋈ the Goethe Institute ⋈ Puerto Alegre Brazil 09.10 > 09.11.2019.

[Meander] Laboluz ⋈ The Polytechnic University of Valencia ⋈ Valencia Spain 2019.

[Meander] the Faculty of BA Granada ⋈ Granada Spain 2019.

[Meander] Art Center La Runs ⋈ government of the Canary Islands 2019.

 

 

We are pleased to inform you that this I Edition of the International Festival of Minimum Performances in Video "Urban body in action" will also be part of the programming of the Seminar "Body, Culture, Identity. From the individual to the collective”, organized by the Autonomous University of Madrid, Sensory Landscape (Cristina Palmese and José Luis Carles) and with the support of Ambiances International Network. The seminar and therefore the screening of the festival will take place in Lavapiés (Madrid, Spain) on October 14 and 15, 2019.

 

Here you can check the information of the seminar:

http://bodycultureidentity.paisajesensorial.com/index.php/es /start/

 

 

[Meander] Urban Body In Action ⋈ International Festival of Urban Video Performances ⋈ Spain 2019.

University of Valencia Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, France, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Canada..

 

The International Festival of Urban Minimum Video Performances "Urban Body in Action", is launched in its first edition through an (international) open call in order to collect a set of video works-understanding these in its broadest definition: register of actions, interventions or video performances - that reflect minimal actions carried out in the urban space.

 

The International Festival of Urban Minimum Performances Video "Urban Body in Action", is a nomadic spirit and is conceived as a portable digital device that will be screened in university halls and art spaces from different countries (Portugal, Netherlands, France, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Canada and Spain) through collaborating university professors and art gallery managers. As a final memory of this festival, a DVD-Book will be made for authors, collaborating institutions and university libraries.

 

https://urbanbodyinaction.wixsite.com/

 

 

And from October 9 to 11, October is being screened at the Convergences Seminar.

Art Gallery of Goethe Institute of Porto Alegre Brazil.

https://wp.ufpel.edu.br/corpoimagemsom/convergencias/

We thank Felipe Castellani for having us.

 

 

It is also being shown at the UGR Faculty of Fine Arts (University of Granada-Spain).

http://bellasartes.ugr.es/pages/tablon/*/convocatorias/i-festival-internacional-de-performances-minimas-urbanas-en-video#.XXu1Ni0RHoA

Thanks to the host Gloria Lapena.

 

 

And soon the Festival will be screened in:

 

* October 14 and 15, 2019 at the Seminar “Body, Culture, Identity. From the individual to the collective”.

Lavapiés, Madrid (Spain).

http://bodycultureidentity.paisajesensorial.com/index.php/es/inicio/

Hosts: Cristina Palmese and José Luis Carles.

 

 

* October 18 at 2pm. at the Institute of Arts and Letters of the FURG (Federal University of Rio Grande - Brazil). This is the 4th edition of “FRESTA. Mostra de audiovisual-Visual Arts / FURG ”.

https: //www.furg.br/es/noticias/noticias-eventos/fresta-na-46-feira-do-livro-da-furg

Hosts: Janice Appel, Ana Maio, Marcelo Gobatto, Domingo Mestre.

 

 

* October 18 at 2pm. at the Institute of Arts and Letters of the FURG (Federal University of Rio Grande - Brazil). This is the 4th edition of “FRESTA. Mostra de audiovisual-Visual Arts / FURG ”.

https: //www.furg.br/es/noticias/noticias-eventos/fresta-na-46-feira-do-livro-da-furg

Hosts: Janice Appel, Ana Maio, Marcelo Gobatto, Domingo Mestre.

 

 

* November 28, 29 and 30, 2019 in LEAKS AND INTERFERENCES. IV International Performance Art Conference. Faculty of Fine Arts of Pontevedra (University of Vigo) and CGAC (Galician Center for Contemporary Art - Santiago de Compostela / Spain).

 

 

* November 23 and 30 and December 7 and 14, 2019 at the Urban Festival at the PiPe (Pictura Performance) in Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

Hosts: fransvanlent at 222lodge

 

 

* 27, November 28 and 29, 2019 at the II INTERNATIONAL ART AND IDENTITY POLICIES CONGRESS. Visuals and narratives of memory: urban space, nature, migration, technology and gender (CIAPI 2019).

Host: Immaculate Abarca.

 

 

* December 9, 2019, at 10 am, in the Auditorium (Nascente Hall) of the Jesuit College of the University of Madeira, Funchal (Madeira Island) Portugal.

Hosts: Duarte Encarnacao and Pau Pascual.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MOTOR!K] photo album cover New Belgium alternative rock band 2019.

 

MOTOR!K LP/CD out 19.07.2019 through Out Of Line / Rough Trade distribution.

Album cover photo by Stefaan van Biesen

 

 

MOTOR!K Belgium based band founded in 2018. Stepping out of their comfort zone and leaving their musical habitat these keymembers challenge new experimental fields inspired by the Krautrock movement from the 70's with an updated touch. Step into their world and let them take you by surprise. MOTOR!K are Joeri Dobbeleir [Guitars-Synths], Dirk Ivens [Guitars-Fx] and Dries D'Hollander [Drums].

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Made of Walking (V) Walking Bodies] Walking Arts Encounters Conference Prespes Greece.

30.06 > 07.07.2019

 

 

[Library of Walks] [What] The Body Knows [The Bleu Parade] Made of Walking (V) Prespes Greece 2019.

 

Walking encounters/conference in Prespes Greece, July 1-7 2019.

Department of Fine and Applied Arts of the University of Western Macedonia.

 

 

 

Video: this performative walk '(What) The Body Knows / The Blue Parade'' in the village of Psarades at Prespes is part of the Library of Walks that has been started by Stefaan van Biesen since 1990. From this ongoing process various applications grew, realized in Europe and Brasilia in collaboration with curator-writer Geert Vermeire. For Made Of Walking (V) in Prespes 2019, Stefaan van Biesen & Annemie Mestdagh, designed a portable nomadic library that is carried by a group of participants:

 

Walkers of the group: Yannis Ziogas, Natacha Antão Moutinho, Miguel Bandeira Duarte, Rosie Montford, Anna Villas Boas, Geert Vermeire, Chistopher Kaczmar, Marie-Anne Lerjen, Kristina Borg, Katerina Paisi, Juana Miranda, Raffaella Zammit, Lucia Masu, Emanuelle Klafiger, Ienke Kastelein, Caterina Giansiracusa.

 

Camera: Annemie Mestdagh & Stefaan van Biesen 2019. Time: 10:38.

 

Photo: presentation of the prop and collected artefacts during '[What] The Body Knows / The Blue Parade' at the exhibition at the Byzantine Collection Of Agios Germanos at Prespes Greece 2019.

 

The carriers become the artwork. In this way, a mental and energetic field becomes a space specific practice. They feel their togetherness and become aware of each other's physical presence, through the object/prop that they carry together and that is functioning as a 'conductor'. During walking (and breaks), they are asked to explore the surroundings with an observing alertness and to absorb the scenery.

 

 

People carrying a portable library. The slightly meandering, streamlined shape of the ultramarine blue canvas, (in ancient Greece there was no name for the colour 'blue') *1.), refers to the nearby Little Prespa lake. Also a link to the fate of refugees. While observing, participants are asked to collect items they notice on their way in the environment nearby, small significant artifacts. The pieces can be put in pet bottles (or later in glass jars), which are attached to the blue canvas. This gives the walk a ritual dimension in which a collection is created that is representative of the biotope where the action takes place. This way the natural and social identity of a place is archived, documented.

 

 

Being together in silence, carried away by a human energetic stream, walking as a sensitive experience, must lead to a collective act that sensitively reinforces the walk.

 

 

 

The project of Made of Walking (V) on Kozani TV.

 

 

Study/model [(What) The Body Knows / The Blue Parade] Made of Walking (V) Prespes Greece 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Study [(What) The Body Knows / The Blue Parade] Made of Walking (V) Prespes Greece 2019.

 

 

A nomandic A3 book, travelling [paper and textile]. Photos of walks, drawings, models and earlier versions of the Library of Walks in Europe and Brazil. Shown at the exhibition at the Byzantine Collection Of Agios Germanos at Prespes Greece July 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Fingers Don't Know What The Hand Will Do] CAS [Contemporary Art Space] Ostend Belgium. 08.01.2019.

Annelies Sabbynck & Stefaan van Biesen. Curated by Nadine Prieels.

 

 

Letters written by several people who came here to Europe as refugees since the 1990s. Their handwritten letter in their own original language contains an anecdote or a story about their flight to Europe. The hope of a safe life with better living conditions. The contents of the letter remain with the artist and the writer. What remains is the image of a handwriting letter in the shape of a hand. A silent witness of suffering or joy. Realisation sleeves: Annemie Mestdagh.

 

 

During the years in the work of Annelies Slabbynck and Stefaan van Biesen, 'hands' have always played an important role. This is what binds them philosophically and artistically. They also share a nomadic vision in which their work travels through the world. This conclusion was the start of a joint project where new works are created and maybe earlier works are being redefined. Work that originated through various perspectives such as work used during or for performances, video and exhibitions. The whole project is a joint process where interaction can arise on each other's work or an artistic response to a specific work of both.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Equilibrium] Art Science Exhibits at Palazzo Albrizzi Bienale Venice Italy 01.06 > 01.08.2019.

 

Curator Mary Patricia Warming [USA]

 

We are a parallel exhibition to the Venice biennale at an official biennale venue with official pavilions inside. The Grenada, Dominican Republic and Guatemala Pavilions are in our same palazzo.

 

We are happy to announce our next exhibition program during the 2019 Venice Biennale:

 

Art/NaturSci Pavilion: Equilibrium Exhibition May 10 - August 1st Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello - Associazione Culturale Italo-Tedesca.

 

Large-scale ecosystem recovery has been tried and tested in Africa, China, and the Middle East. Permaculture planted today can breathe carbon from the atmosphere tomorrow. As artists working with scientists for nature, we exhibit Equilibrium. Together with you, we can reclaim paradise.

 

Vernissage in Palazzo’s Courtyard: May 10th, 6:30 pm Gala Gallery Opening: June 1st 5:30 pm - Concert “Il suono degli angeli” Church Santa Sofía Strada Nova, 4193, 30121 Venezia VE, Italia 6:30 pm - Gala Opening at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello Exhibition’s Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-13:00 15:00-18:00

 

Featured artists: Ayame Ono - Japan Beric Henderson [Australia], Brent Dedas [USA], Elisabeth Pellathy [USA], Frederika Adam [USA], Gerardo Nolasco [Mexico], Haishu Chen [China], John D. Liu [USA/China], Manuela Fischer [Switzerland], Lothar Schiffler [Germany], Matthias Gorenflos [Germany], Megumi Baba [Japan], mp Warming [USA], Sonal Mithal [USA], Stefaan van Biesen [Belgium], Stefano Zaratin [Italy], Skunk Control [Australia], Ying Kit Chan [USA].

 

 

 

[Layers & Movements] a portable registrations of insect flights 2019.

 

 

 

About: Set in motion by international artist mp Warming, Art Science Exhibits is an independent venture created, and consistently recreated, by artists and scientists. The exhibitions and public programs we present work to greater the sphere of ArtSci conversation. Our mission for the future of nature-kind is to bring artists together with scientists as true conceptual partners. ​

 

Actions: We create exhibitions and networks for art and nature science experiences.

 

Projects: Previous exhibits include Bird Architecture at the Institute Library in collaboration with scientists at Yale University and the Peabody Museum of Natural History and Appealing to the Populous in partnership with Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin's Thaer-Institut of Agriculture and Horticulture, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin's Campus Nord Branch (Biology) Library, and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. Our first Berlin project opened for Berlin Science Week 2017. Participating artists attended from Belgium, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, the UK and the USA.

 

Future: Building on the framework of exhibitions, we envision ArtSci laboratories that increase contact between artists and scientists, and lead to cutting-edge creations. For the 2018 Berlin Science Week we are continuing to partner with Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin's Faculty of Life Sciences, while adding more artist-scientist collaboration. In the next steps we are also planning an Art/NaturSci Pavilion to open for the 2019 Venice Biennale.

 

https://www.artscienceexhibits.com/

 

 

Fragment Flyways score Equilibrium at Palazzo Albrizzi Venice 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Votum Vovit (Arnolfini Drawings)] Meesterlijk Haasdonk Beveren Belgium 16.05>20.05.2019.

 

 

 

Votum Vovit [Fingers Don't Know What The Hand Will Do], 2019. 7 drawings on acid-free A4 paper, text, photo, mixed media. This ensemble of 7 works is a personal commentary on Jan Van Eyck's work, the painting: 'Arnolfini and his wife': (drawings, prints, photo, text 1992).

 

Jan Van Eyck as a diplomat, practitioner of Alchemy, the iconography of domestic mysticism, the symbolic gesture: Fides (marital oath), etc ...

 

The ensemble spans a series of works, installations that have been made around this theme regularly since the beginning of 1990.

 

 

Wanderlust drawings on acid free paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hello Today Podcast] interview by Carlo D'Agnolo 24.04.2019.

 

 

 

Listen on Spottify Podcast: http://hellotodaypodcast.com/episodes.html/

 

A conversation between Carlo D'Agnolo [Hello Today Podcast] and Stefaan van Biesen about his ideas, works, the Milena principle, friendship, art, students, Babbelonië [teaching Dutch to immigrants], international projects, personal history and entrepreneurship in the art world. Time: 01:02:43.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[STOFF vzw] monthly photo on the internet page for asbestos victims in Belgium 2019.

 

 

STOFF vzw is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to bringing stories and testimonials of asbestos victims (and family members) to the attention in our society. In some regions of Belgium a lot of asbestos has been used in buildings in the past. In the long term, many have become ill, usually with fatalities and a very painful ending.

 

The danger is widespread and everywhere. Everyone knows people in their environment who die from the effects of exposure to asbestos.

 

On demand of Johan De Vos [art critic, writer and photgrapher], every month a photo of Stefaan van Biesen is posted as a 'gesture of beauty' of the local landscape on the website and also sent in a news letter by e-mail. These photos do not immediately want to illustrate the cause of this health problem, but the landscape 'climate', in which a material such as asbestos often occurs.

 

 

Photos: walks in the region

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bon Fim Talk] Rosário Forjaz & Stefaan van Biesen Porto Portugal 19.01.2019.

 

 

 

[A Bon Fim Talk] A conversation between the Portugese artist Rosário Forjaz and Stefaan van Biesen (Belgium) about the art project 'Meander' and 'the Library of Walks' in the Escola Artistica de Soares dos Reis in Porto 2019 by Stefaan van Biesen & Annemie Mestdagh. Also a conversation about their contribution and performative walks: ['Light Walk' and 'Enter The Triangle'] during Made of Walking (III) in La Romieu France August 2017, an international meeting of artists who work on the theme of 'walking'. Camera: Annemie Mestdagh / the Milena principle 2019. Time: 21:53.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Utopia Book [just around the corner?] Academy of Fine Arts ⋈ Ypres Belgium > 21.03.2019.

Workshop/lecture/studio visits.

 

 

Menin Gate and the city of Ypres Belgium > 21.03.2019.

 

A silent walk with the students of the Academy of Fine Arts Ypres.  The Menin Gate is the most famous Commonwealth war memorial in Flanders and perhaps the world. Tens of thousands of soldiers passed through here on their way to the front, many of them never to return. Opened in 1927, the memorial bears the names of 54 896 soldiers who were reported missing in the Ypres Salient between the outbreak of war and 15 August 1917.

 

'Utopia (just around the corner). A silent group walk, moving in a flow through a city like Ypres with no other intention then to get lost, with a book, inspired by Thomas More's, but containing only one word, "Utopia". It is a book that resembles a walk, it is not linear, it opens from different angles, it has pages folded in pages, you can open and browse it in different directions, not a book to be read, but a book to be shared spontaneously between the participating walkers, to be carried around in silence and to be opened on places that come towards them, as an inviting to open and read the place, the walkers and the moment in which they stand.

 

 

ARTISTIC SALON at the Ypres academy.

 

On Thursday 21 March 2019 the "first artistic salon" of this year will take place. We welcome - not coincidentally on the first day of the spring landscape artist Stefaan Van Biesen (°1953, Beveren). With his art he mainly enters into a dialogue with nature. Subjects such as body-mind, nature-culture, ecology and economy form the starting point in which these apparent opposites do not turn out to be irreconcilable. By means of interventions in the landscape, installations, diary notes, soundscapes and drawings Van Biesen travels through different areas. He is therefore not the classical artist who creates a creation solitary in the studio but sees art as a way of communicating with the environment and with each other. We would like to invite all interested parties to the large studio at 20 o'clock, to join our local salons in this wonderful artistic story.

 

 

Helena Pinket [Art Historican Academy of Fine Arts Ypres Belgium].

Lecture Stefaan Van Biesen 21.03.2019. Large studio in the Academy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Science of Walking] lecture/workshop Esc. Art. de Soares dos Reis ⋈ Porto Portugal 16.01 > 18.01.2019.

 

 

 

Workshop and lecture with the students of the Escola Artistica de Soares dos Reis in Porto. Co-orginased by fellow artist Rosário Forjaz.

 

Promenadology is the topic of the mutual artistic research of Stefaan van Biesen with a visual, sonoric and phenomenological approach, referring to Spaziergangwissenschaft (Science of Walking) as introduced by urban sociologist Lucius Burckhardt in the 1990ies. This collaboration leads to new and complex interpretations of this science of walking. More than a tool for esthetics and science, walking becomes a quality of the human improving awareness, making a new sense for the urban human kinetics and becoming an artistical, esthetical and social approach of the urban space.

 

 

Artist talk by Stefaan van Biesen. About his walking practive and how this relates to digital media, sound, drawings & performances. The oeuvre of Stefaan van Biesen departs from an associative solidity between thinking, acting, environment: ‘how do thoughts manifest themselves via acts in our environment, what extent do they contribute to our well-being?’.

 

 

Meander. [Stefaan van Biesen, Annemie Mestdagh] Walking is an instrument of knowledge and experience in the artistic work of Stefaan van Biesen. Concepts such as silence / time / body / mind, influenced by Eastern approaches, are situated in a Western way of thinking. Stefaan van Biesen invites you to a silent walk / performance: 'Meander' where concepts like 'turn on / let go / lead / trust / care' are the underlying ideas. In this constellation of influences [of feeling and being involved], the participant becomes, like the co-walker, the work of art!

 

Concept and prop: Stefaan van Biesen and Annemie Mestdagh / the Milena principle. Outdoors. Duration: 20 minutes. Photo: students during the Meander walk in Soares dos Reis 18.01.2019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walking Talking interview by Andrew Stuck [Museum of Walking London UK] 2019.

 

 

 

[Talking Walking] Made of Walking ⋈ La Romieu France 27.08 > 01.09.2017.

Delighted to say that Andrew Stuck [Museum of Walks London Uk] has got around in 2019 to editing the Talking Walking interview with me in the summer of 2017 in La Romieu during Made of Walking (III). A pod cast made by Andrew during a walk with him. A walking talk about work and art in relation to my 'Library of Walks' and 'Letters to a Tree'. Listen here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Intimacy] Guardainfantes [1994] S&H De Buck Gallery Ghent Belgium 07.12 > 28.02.2019.

 

 

Guardainfantes [1994] is about the intimacy of sheltering, to seek protection by grandmother. Something that once was obvious for children (while working on the fields). It is also a tribute to my own grandmother, Clemence, who in the Second World War took care for 48 children at her house. Temporarily or for a longer period of time. She and her family just did it as a social task, without complaining, as if it were self-evident, without having something in its place. Children from neighbours and family that became refugees by the war.


The name 'Guardainfantes' refers to the Spanish origin of my family bloodline and grandmother. Our Spanish ancestors who stayed here in Flanders through the Spanish occupation in the 16th century.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Walking Body] Gallery of the Minho University Guimaraes Portugal 2018/2019.

 

 

 

Art works + digital prints by Stefaan van Biesen & Annemie Mestdagh with results of the workshop-encounters the walking body at the School of Arts + Architecture in the University of Minho, Guimaraes - Portugal.

 

 

 

the Walking Body, is an art project framed, in our perspective, by the conceptual movement of promenadology (Spaziergangwissenschaft) which was conceived in the eighties by Lucius Burckhardt in Kassel. The German thinker saw the body as a valid scientific tool capable to improve the urban life in society. Giving continuity to this scientific assumption, we add, in our approach, an aesthetic transgression of the Walking Body which punctuates a new poetic distribution of the human experience of vagrancy. In an osmotic way, the phenomenology of the body redefines the social space as an emotional transparency, beyond the invisibility of the urban protagonists trapped in the accelerated transit of the technological motion. the Walking Body is an euphonic territorial conquest of the natural and the urban, the landscape and the city, through kinetics and perception, by redesigning the idiosyncrasy of a walker with the place.

 

Drifting and vagrant bodies define a nomadic way of the human communication by exposing us in a porous emotion of the being. The limits of the habitat of the Walking Body will be configured by the amplitude of the affective event and not by architectural gestures of a rigid and permanent rational construction.

 

Text/research by Simona Vermeire Art works by Stefaan van Biesen Workshops and walks by Stefaan van Biesen, Annemie Mestdagh and Vermeire Geert the walking body in Guimaraes - coordinated by Miguel Bandeira Duarte curated by Vermeire Geert

 

The project is hosted by Lab2PT and EAUM Licenciatura em Artes Visuais (School of Architecture - Visual Arts) of the University of Minho and in partnership with the art collective The Space Transcribers and the Museum Nogueira da Silva Braga - Portugal

 

 

 

Exhibition about The Walking Body with the students of the Minho Universtity Guimaraes Portugal [The Art Department]. An exhibition as a proces, a lab.

 

 

 

 

 

 

©stefaan van biesen-annemie mestdagh 28.12.2020