This past Thursday June 4th we met at the apartments of id11 in Delft, for some the first visit to the space and neighbourhood. Only two of the participants, Veri and Marina, had started working and living in the space. Yet the past two weeks they completed not only their individual projects but began a collaboration. This project Donations Delft, involved acquiring household wares and goods from the neighbours and turned into a whole panoply of social relations. Stephen Wright from n.e.w.s. joined us from Paris as guest docent and the participants presented their works from the past months as well their proposals for Negotiating Equity. In the coming weeks everyone will use the spaces in different ways and their projects are found above under their respective titles or under the participants names to the left in the side bar.
On Friday our group along with Florian Göttke’s Ruffles and Fray project visited Open Source in de Bijmer. Starting at the Bijmer Arena we travelled along the route Straat van Sculpturen or Street of Sculptures. 13 international and local artists were invited to create a temporary or permanent work within an area of 3 kilometers, between Bijmer Arena and Kraaiennest metro stations. The curator Helga Lasschuijt gave a short talk about the background of the project and how it came about, originally an initiative of a few residents. We then visited Thomas Hirschhorn’s Bijmer Spinoza Festival, his latest installation that is called a festival, in order to be, in his own words, transplantable. After months of research Hirschhorn was invited by the local track coach Sammy Monsels to set up his installation right near the running track. Typical Hirschhorn in material choice of ducktape, cardboard and cheap wood, this bricolage of rooms contains videos of the Bijmer plane crash, his older work, ‘Dancing Spinoza’, ‘Believers’, a computer centre with Internet access, a snack bar with Surinams food, a Spinoza carmade of plastic bottles, an oversized book of ethics on top and last but not at all least, a specialized library dedicated to Spinoza. A copymachine faciitates photocopies posted everywhere and there is a newspaper published everyday which can be read on the website or taken home. Hischhorn then talked to us about his project, his methodology and practice. Manifold readings of Spinoza’s Ethics are constant sources of inspiration along with interaction of the local readers, users, of his ‘festival’. We ended the day with a rehearsal for Child’s Play, by Guillaume Desanges, in collaboration with Frédéric Cherboeuf, whereby art historical images of artists in performative action are then performed by local children- brilliantly, coached by Muriel Monsels. A lecture on philosophy and evening theatre of Spinoza are not te be missed as well as delicious food and ginger beer. Suggested reading by the Ambassador of Art History, Vittoria Martini: Monument-Re

During this month’s artists talks at FLAT_land (Bij wijze van Spreken) organised in collaboration with id11 and STeC, Suzanne van Rest, Marina Tomic and Veridiana Zurita made presentations of their works so far and future installation proposals. Suzanne showed her research that focuses on light, man-made as well as natural, sometimes in competition with each other. Her upcoming project, Overexposure references the light of 17th c. Delft through the images of Johannes Vermeer. Veridiana’s When I was the Environment uses her body to literally crawl through the apartments of Delft while being videoed. Marina’s project All day long also incorporates the ‘living’ aspect of the residency in order to test redundancy, habit, as a way to rethink or daily activities and our relationship with time. Having nothing upon arrival Veri and Marina organised gifts and reciprocal relationships with their neighbours. While living together for two weeks, ‘Donations Delft‘ was based on interaction with the neighbourhood and a means of survival tactics. Three other artists, Liset van Dommelen, Pavel Forman and Matthijs Kiel presented their works in progress and afterwards we were able to take a tour _galerij_loop_02___ of the studios or lived in apartments.

Good news, DAI has received another apartment for the participants until the end of July. Curious to see the projects and how they differ from their original proposals.