WIELS welcomes you to the 8th iteration of Open School, where the current artists in residence of WIELS let you in on their work, processes and reflections. These presentations are accompanied by a discursive guest lecture exploring the recurring theme of Sovereignty.
Free entry
Full programme below
PROGRAMME
12:00-14:00 : Open Studio’s
Meet the WIELS residents in their studios, explore their practice and discuss their current research and work-in-progress.
Nina Schuiki
Birde Vanheerswynghels
Marianne Csaky
Jannick Deslauriers
Ruudu Ulas
Goeun Bae
Badi Rezzak
Ina Hagen
14:00-18:00 : Residents’ interventions
Goeun Bae
Ongoing | Sound and text installation
WC Open School
WC –1, +3, +4
Birde Vanheerswynghels
Ongoing | Installation
Hunting and Gathering
Studio 2 (+1)
AKONITO
Ongoing | Video installation
Zachtjes, zachtjes, Reizen ons ge dachtjes.
Waar die gedachtjes reizen? Wie men, Wie reikter u zijn armen?
Studio 9 (+3)
Nina Schuiki
14:30 | Text installation / Reading
My Heart Is Not Here
Short reading of poems by Flemish poet Jeanne Van de Putte (1907-1930)
Panorama (+5)
Ruudu Ulas
Ongoing | Photo installation
Exercise in Making Do /
Study for Material Resistance, 2024
Brewing hall (Mezzanine)
15:00 | Artist talk
In Progress
Studio 5 (+2)
Ina Hagen
Ongoing | Sound & video installation
Study for Open School: Tongue Fern
Staircase
15:45 | Reading of material in progress
Study for Open School: Tongue Fern
Staircase
Marianne Csaky
Ongoing | Video installation
Delete, single-channel version of a 3-channel animated video with sound
Shapes, single-channel version of a 2-channel animated video with sound
Wiels’ CAFÉ
16:30 | Lecture with visuals
The Other Planet
Auditorium
18:00-20:00: Film screening & introduction
Klaas Tindemans on Ausländer raus!
Introduction, film screening and discussion
Auditorium
‘Bitte liebt Österreich. Erste europäische Koalitionswoche’ was an installation and performance during the Wiener Festwochen in the year 2000, conceived and created by film and theater maker Christoph Schlingensief. In the spring of that year, a government coalition had been formed, for the first time in Austria, between the conservative ÖVP and the far-right FPÖ, leading to many domestic and foreign protests. As a theatrical retort to this unprecedented coalition, Schlingensief had a container village built - on Herbert-von-Karajanplatz in Vienna, opposite the Wiener Staatsoper, as in the then infamous TV programme Big Brother, the "mother of all reality shows”. The difference was that he did not house so-called average people (with a sense of adventure and somewhat vain), but asylum seekers, from all corners of the world. Whoever was voted out of the village was not simply led out, but was expelled outright. The winner got a residence permit. That was the script, which could pass for a cynical variation on an equally cynical TV format. At the same time, he organized discussions and lectures around the container village, had the residents play puppet shows - written by Elfriede Jelinek - but things got out of hand. The FPÖ (as well as some politicians in the "state parties") found this whole project absolutely scandalous, bigotry under the guise of art, joined in this by the populist tabloids. The radical-left activists who went to demonstrate every Thursday at the Hofburg, near the Staatsoper, also turned their sights on Schlingensief's ambiguous performance. In haste, the asylum seekers were moved to safety, but the political spectacle continued. Paul Poet recorded this story, in a straightforward reportage, in the film Ausländer raus!. The title is the bottom line of the programme of the FPÖ – until today.
Klaas Tindemans is a lecturer and researcher at the VUB and at the RITCS. He researches and publishes on documentary theater, postcolonial drama and political theory, among other topics, and he reviews theater for the journal Etcetera and the website Pzazz.