Where does the social begin?

In the closing event of Imogen Stidworthy’s exhibition Dialogues with People […] we take up this question with curators Iris Dressler & Hans D. Christ, writer and publisher Sandra Alvares de Toledo and architect, writer and forestier Wim Cuyvers. Through their respective practices, our four guests will discuss, together with Imogen Stidworthy, how we conceive and practice different forms of social and common space.

Curators Iris Dressler and Hans D. Christ will talk about their curatorial practice in Württembergischer Kunstverein (Stuttgart) and the Bergen Triennale 2019. Within these practices they will focus on how they understand different forms of voicing in a socio-political sense. They develop formats by which different constituencies can discuss and be heard; from an understanding, for example, of what it means to call a biennial an assembly, to understanding the Kunstverein as a space of agency that extends beyond the viewing of art, a space where art and the relation between art, artists, the institution and the public are subject to continual renegotiation.

Sandra Alvarez de Toledo will reflect on the ideas and practices of Fernand Deligny and his experimental network for living with non-verbal autistic children in the Cevennes (FR), whichexisted from 1967 to the mid-1980’s. Drawing on her long-term research she will bring her own perspectives to Deligny’s extraordinary experiment in this ‘common’ space between verbal and non-verbal being, with its wider implications for approaches to social care, language and interpersonal relationship.

Wim Cuyvers will talk about how he works with different notions of public space, with a focus on his project Le Montavoies, a piece of forested land in the Jura (FR) where he has been living and working since 2009. Le Montavoies is a site in which Wim experiments with spatial practices and interventions into the landscape, which he conceives as a common space for many different publics.
Among the people who visit Le Montavoies are young men who are no longer capable to live in "the institutions for special youth care", with whom he cooperates and lives on an individual basis over a period of three months; together they work in the landscape on a non-institutional space.

Programme

2-2.15 PM
Introduction and walk through the exhibition with curators Pieternel Vermoortel and Piet Mertens

PART 1

2.15 – 3 PM
Hans D. Christ and Iris Dressler + conversation with Imogen Stidworthy

PART 2

3.30-4.15 PM
Sandra Alvarez de Toledo

4.30-5 PM
Wim Cuyvers

5 PM
A conversation between Sandra Alvarez de Toledo, Wim Cuyvers and Imogen Stidworthy

Practical information

The exhibition will be open from 10AM, it takes 90 minutes to see the full duration.

Participation is free.

Join us for dinner in the evening! Especially for this occasion we’ll serve a buffet.

Please let us know in advance if you plan to join us for the buffet, by June 24th, at info@netwerkaalst.be or 053/709 773.

We kindly ask you to contribute towards the buffet. Your reservation will be made on receipt of to the Netwerk bank account: BE55 0010 9871 3744