Live video-performance (40")
In the live video-performance In fact, we are a team!? (on friendship), visual artist Elien Ronse explores the simplicities and complexities of friendship. Over the course of several years, Elien documented moments with friends, such as moving homes together, disappointments and the celebration of a 33 year old friendship. Relationships with friends don’t come with a social script: they have less patterns and ceremonies than romantic relations. Yet even in friendships, there are numerous small habits and behaviours that demonstrate mental, financial, and other forms of care. These are great and humble ways to find strength in resisting capitalist normative logic and countering imaginations around the nuclear family. During the performance, Elien shares twenty stories, actions and happenings related to the warmth and difficulties within friendships.
Elien Ronse (Ghent/Brussel) worked at Kunsthal Gent in August, November and December 2021 (development programme Permanently Practising). This live performance results from work periods at Kunsthal Gent and Workspace Brussels.
I am a white Belgian hetero female highly educated visual artist relating in non-monogamous ways and financially living under the poverty line (in Belgium). I engage in projects where different fields merge such as contemporary art, community work, political activism, theoretical research,… I am often traveling for work and until now I was supported by residencies such as Das Weisse Haus (Vienna), Pier-2 Artcenter (Kaohsiung), Digital Art Studios (Belfast), Zarya (Vladivostok), YARAT (Baku, postponed),… I participated in events and exhibitions in Silent Green (Berlin), Pleasure Zone (Basel), Hotwheels (Athens), Barimart (Gwangju)… Next to that I am/was engaged in collaborative practices such as Manoeuvre, Cultureel Centrum Truck Stop, De Koer, Other Women’s Flowers, Para-instituut voor KUNST en precariteit(Gent),… I recognise all of them as a stage (to some degree) for my visual work. I'm holding an MA in Arts received in Dutch Art Institute, a degree in Social Work and I recently graduated from the Advanced Master program in Sint Lucas Antwerp.