#33: We will ensure work by female artists and curators make up at least 50% of our programme each year.|#70: Have the office space inside the exhibition space, it reminds of you what you are doing.|#88: Changing internships, artists, curators,... are important propositions to keep a fresh set of eyes.|#124: Do less, do it better.|#131: A visitor who comes back after a week might discover new additions to the exhibition.|#10: Don’t be obsessed with numbers.|#25: Never ask the artist to just present their work, ask them to co-create and co-organise the space.|#98: The success of it will not lie in the result but in the process.|#130: Be a uniquely charged and curated gallery that is an artwork in itself.|#60: Look after all tools. The moment it looks like things are missing it means that things are missing.|#87: Always keep in mind there is something really special about being in a room that is 19 meters tall.|#30: Don’t work with artists who are assholes.|#79: The layered painting in the Old House has the potential to become the emblem to explain what Kunsthal Gent is doing.|#16: Kunsthal Gent will always be a construction site.|#37: Operate with radical transparency.|#39: Be the early stepping stone in an artist’s career|#91: Embrace doubt.|#61: No all male install teams.|#54: What about disabled artists?|#29: We make the program for the artist that we exhibit.|#62: Be kind. Full dishwasher: empty it.|#90: The best systems have a failure or ‘a hole’ in them…|#59: Always protect the floor when painting (or pouring concrete)|#4: Pay what you can.|#75: A building is a capricious thing: it is inhabited and changed, and its existence is a tale of constant and curious transformation.|#33: We will ensure work by female artists and curators make up at least 50% of our programme each year.|#70: Have the office space inside the exhibition space, it reminds of you what you are doing.|#88: Changing internships, artists, curators,... are important propositions to keep a fresh set of eyes.|#124: Do less, do it better.|#131: A visitor who comes back after a week might discover new additions to the exhibition.|#10: Don’t be obsessed with numbers.|#25: Never ask the artist to just present their work, ask them to co-create and co-organise the space.|#98: The success of it will not lie in the result but in the process.|#130: Be a uniquely charged and curated gallery that is an artwork in itself.|#60: Look after all tools. The moment it looks like things are missing it means that things are missing.|#87: Always keep in mind there is something really special about being in a room that is 19 meters tall.|#30: Don’t work with artists who are assholes.|#79: The layered painting in the Old House has the potential to become the emblem to explain what Kunsthal Gent is doing.|#16: Kunsthal Gent will always be a construction site.|#37: Operate with radical transparency.|#39: Be the early stepping stone in an artist’s career|#91: Embrace doubt.|#61: No all male install teams.|#54: What about disabled artists?|#29: We make the program for the artist that we exhibit.|#62: Be kind. Full dishwasher: empty it.|#90: The best systems have a failure or ‘a hole’ in them…|#59: Always protect the floor when painting (or pouring concrete)|#4: Pay what you can.|#75: A building is a capricious thing: it is inhabited and changed, and its existence is a tale of constant and curious transformation.|
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01.05.2020 19:00

Hosted by Other Women's Flowers, Jesse Jones, Sigrid Vertommen

Pay what you can

Syllabus reading group #1:
Joyful Militancy on the 1st of May

Joyful Militancy on the 1st of May
Syllabus reading group #1
May 1st, 2020, 7 - 9 pm (CET)
in English

Together with the Ghent book club Other Women's Flowers, Kunsthal Gent organises a monthly reading group around Jesse Jones' Syllabus. Join us online on Friday May 1st at 7pm (CET) for a live reading collage of several chapters from 'Beyond the Periphery of the Skin' by feminist activist Silvia Federici.

You’re very welcome to join the reading or listen in - also in case you do not manage to read the text beforehand. Please bring 3 to 5 images of the body as a place of joyful resistance. We will collage the images into the live reading of the text. Serve yourself with food and wine, and prepare for 2 hours of joyful militancy!

This session will be hosted by Other Women’s Flowers, artist Jesse Jones and feminist researcher Sigrid Vertommen (UGent). One participant will be joining us from inside Jesse Jones’ work in Kunsthal Gent: the space formed by a monumental curtain with an image of Silvia Federici’s left arm, where the reading group would take place if we would not be in lockdown.


PRACTICAL:
Register at info@kunsthal.gent: we will send you a pdf of the text and a link to the meeting (until we find a better application for meeting online while sharing images, we’re using zoom.)

We will read together the introduction (pp 1-5); chapter 10 - In Praise of the Dancing Body (pp 119-124), and the Afterword - On Joyful Militancy (pp 125-128). You can obtain the book from Kunsthal Gent or here.


MORE BACKGROUND

Book review: “Silvia Federici shows how capitalism has captured our bodies and proposes possibilities for reclaiming and recreating them to resist the present and prefigure the future.”
Introduction: 8 minutes with Silvia Federici

Silvia Federici is a feminist, writer, teacher, and activist. Her research and political organizing accompany a long list of publications on philosophy and feminist theory, women’s history, education, culture, international politics, and the worldwide struggle against capitalist globalisation and for a feminist reconstruction of the commons.

Jesse Jones is a Dublin-based artist and teaches visual arts at the TU Dublin School of Creative Arts. Her practice crosses the media of film, performance and installation. She often works in collaborative structures and investigates how historical examples of shared culture can play a role in our current social and political experiences.

Other Women’s Flowers is a beehive, a book-club and an artistic playground. It was born out of the wish to share, discover and discuss the written work of women, and to do so in a celebratory, playful way. Our dinner gatherings are a moment to share literary enthusiasm, debate contemporary challenges and rethink solidarity, one book at a time. Everyone is welcome to join the gatherings.

Sigrid Vertommen is conducting postdoctoral research on the political economy of global fertility chains at the Department of Conflict and Development Studies at Ghent University. She is particularly interested in understanding women's role and participation in the bio-economy as egg vendors and surrogates through the lens of reproductive labour.

Syllabus: In January 2020, Jesse Jones’ work Syllabus opened in Kunsthal Gent: a monumental curtain that when pulled, fills the space with an image of Silvia Federici’s left arm. As agreed in a contract signed on the opening, the work is to stay in the exhibition space for 5 years, on the condition that Kunsthal Gent will host a monthly reading group or related event inside the circle that is created by the work. The contract foresees that ‘Events may be postponed where necessary due to unforeseen circumstances including, but not limited to, acts of God or enemy, earthquake, fire, or flood, riot, war or civil commotion, trials, examinations, pestilence, epidemic or accusations of demonic possession.’ A facsimile of the contract is available from Kunsthal Gent.

Image: Carla Besora, the Dance

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