KONT presents:
Friendly Proximity
Friday 1 April 2022, doors from 17.30
18.00 - 19.00 Communal dinner by Hadas Cnaani and Noam Youngrak Son (Pay What You Can, max 25p, please reserve your spot)
19.00 - 19.30 Documentary Staying With The Tides/In De Getijden Blijven, with introduction by Griet Menschaert and Floor Hofman
19.30 - 21.30 Slow dates: one-to-one conversations between everyone present
2021 marked the 5 year anniversary of the fluid collective KONT (Eindhoven, The Netherlands). The sum of these years can be considered as follows: 5 magazines, 6 events to launch these magazines, 2 corona-zines, many slow dates and other activities, dozens of funding applications, art books fairs and a load of unexecuted plans due to... But the most important is missing from this calculation: the hundreds of artists and non-artists that participated, the friendships that emerged, the collaborations that took place, the felt generosity, the hard work, sincere involvement, and moments of doubt that all those that were involved have gone through. To mark this 5-year anniversary KONT will show her documentary Staying With The Tides during this evening at the Kunsthal. In the documentary, filmmaker Floor Hofman presents an intuitive interpretation of the movement that KONT has made during these past years.
The documentary serves as a starting point as well, as KONT is currently going through a big transition. Griet Menschaert, founder, will take a step back this year and is handing over the vehicle of KONT to a new generation. Personal and artistic considerations rub up against each other during this uncertain process, which means an open attitude is required of all the artists involved. A recent month-long residency in the Kruisruimte in Eindhoven took place to intensify this process of collaborative self-examination. The new generation of KONT (represented this evening by Maaike Twisk) will rise to the forefront in the coming months, and will nudge her in a different direction.
During this Friday evening KONT aims to open up a space for friendly and critical proximity, something we have been doing in Eindhoven for five years already, and hope to realize in Ghent as well. We start with a refined meal, by Hadas Cnaani and Noam Youngrak Son. After a short introduction by Floor and Griet we will watch the documentary. To close off you will be invited to wind down with the other attendees during a slow date: slow, personal (one-to-one) meetings with an open end…
KONT is a vehicle that has committed itself to creating space for friendly dialogue and collaboration between sensitive, critical, involved, local and regional artists of all disciplines and generations. KONT is a safe space to get to know each other through doing. It encourages artists to transcend their individual interest by means of one-on-one collaboration. KONT’s heart lies in Eindhoven
Griet Menschaert went to high school in Gent, studied Germanic languages in Louvain and Fine Arts in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. 20 Years ago she moved from the Pajottenland to Eindhoven. In this design and technology driven city, she missed a family of like-minded individuals. Thus she became founder of KONT.
Maaike Twisk is member of the new generation of KONT. After receiving her bachelor in Fine Arts she gradually started creating less and reading more, and is now studying philosophy. She no longer has an art practice worthy of note. She does however continue to share her inquisitive involvement with the world, through text messages, unsolicited advice and occasional artistic projects.
Floor Hofman is a documentary filmmaker, designer and passionate interviewer. She co-creates with different cultural and social groups to tell stories.
Hadas Cnaani (born in Israel) lives and works in Antwerp and has a holistic approach to cooking and food. She hosts spice tours and is mindfoodness coach.
Noam Youngrak Son (born in South Korea) graduated at Design Academy Eindhoven and now lives in Ghent. Noam participated in KONT05 magazine and is non-binary designer and writer, also member of queer initiative Bebe Books.
“Just as the history of science usually presumes that the scientists who do their disciplines already exist, the history of art has assumed since time immemorial that artists are the natural protagonists of the business that produces works of art, and that these players have always existed as well. What would happen if we rotated the conceptual stage ninety degrees in both cases? What would happen if we observed artists in their efforts to become artists in the first place? We could then see every phenomenon on this field more or less from a side view and, alongside the familiar history of art as a history of completed works, we could obtain a history of the training that made it possible to do art and the asceticism that shaped artists.”
(Peter Sloterdijk, The Art of Philosophy)
