Persis Bekkering gave us the tip that ‘Jan van Eyck Academie supports artists with childcare responsibilities’, and on a late evening at Performing Arts Forum (PAF) we improvised an application with the title sex and time. A full hearted, but not particularly worked through application. Much in contrast to the many elaborate funding dossiers we had prepared, submitted and gotten rejected elsewhere. Jan van Eyck Academie was a match, or luck. So half a year later, without knowing what either Maastricht or JvE looked like, we left PAF and drove to Academieplein 1.
When we got the news about the residency Andrea also got a job in Brussels. So quickly we went from 0 to 200 % employment. JvE was a very different experience for Andrea and I. For me it was luxurious and generative, we lived in a big comfortable apartment where we could easily invite co-habitators. Every morning we walked 15 minutes through a lush park to a great kindergarten (shout-outs to Veronique from MIK Juliana–a lighthouse of pedagogical competence!), and from there we walked 5 minutes to our beautiful studio. There we would meet brilliant co-participants and advisors. For Andrea it was also all that, but she often couldn’t really enjoy it because she had gotten the job in Bruxelles, which involved learning a lot of new systems, endless voice messaging and emailing and going weekly to Bruxelles to contribute in keeping an underfunded, but fantastical art school (ISAC) afloat.
I was often struck by how little I shared with the other residents–in terms of references, ambitions, or professional context–refreshingly so, and in contrast with other art institutions I have worked in. At Jan van Eyck Academie decolonization seemed to be approached through a subtle and structural strategy rather than through image-driven virtue signalling. If I remember right the term Pluriverse, was used by Rolando Vázquez in a lecture, and it seems to capture the ambition well: a commitment to maximum diversity in the cohort, paired with individualised support that allows each participant to organise themselves—private studios, flexible production grants, and a range of advisors to choose from.
While I think this approach fosters both aesthetic autonomy and genuine plurality. I also see a weakness in how it can overlook collaborative and collective modes of sensing and making sense. How to make a trans-pluriversal institution? How to build coalitions?
To be fair, JvE does propose a couple of avenues. One is a weekly dinner by three participants, which follows thirty-minute presentations by two participants. Another is the so-called inlab where 2 or more participants can collaborate on a curatorial format.
Andrea and I wanted much more, so we made some attempts.
Most mornings we invited the whole cohort into our studio for a physical, emotional and intellectual warm-up. We called it the mid-thirties crisis. Céline Matthieu was our most frequent visitor and like that we built a trust which also became shared with Penélope, as Céline and her built a friendship over the year. A couple of artworks emerged from this encounter too and might still be found in Céline’s current exhibitions and pieces.
[…]I show a paper cut in strips by my friend Andrea as she played with her two-and-a-half-year-old and they cut and drew the paper skirt. It then hung on the wall of their studio, where I saw it almost every day, and I kept thinking of how I could own it without owning it. So I asked her if I could present it as a work, something she didn’t intend as such. Same with the calendar she drew following the form of what time looks like in her mind, a snaking curved shape[…]
Every Friday we proposed a cocktail-party-reading-group in our living room. While Penélope slept next door we slowly read Sophie Lewis’ Abolish the Family. In this book Lewis traces different histories of family abolition and the debates that surround them. After reading a chapter, it was tender and precious to discuss in a group with so many lived realities of “family”: living in diaspora, losing a partner to arranged marriage, endless visa problems, polyamorous complexities and class barriers… Vulnerable stories intermingling along the mixing and shaking of liquids with ice. Stirring the pluriverse.
It was with a similar ambition that we opened our sex & place writing experiments up to group formats. It started with the generous participation of H M Baker, and our visitors Steph Holl-Trieu and Carina Erdmann and an attempt of a score-based and semi anonymous writing session. By developing this score we later wrote sex & place vol 2 with JvE co-participants HaYoung, Luca Soudant and Kexin Hao.
Finally Ginevra Petruzzi, Joy Mariama Smith and I proposed a collective studio towards the end of the year-long residency. Here the invitation to all participants was to step out of their individual studio and participate in a temporary collectivity over 5 days.
Apart from Céline, Ginevra, H M Baker, Joy, Steph, Carina, Luca, HaYoung and Kexin, I have to mention a few others with whom a sense of coalition articulated:
Olena Newkryta who became a dear friend and participated in several performances as well as babysittings – so that we could explore the “wild” Maastricht nightlife. We started an email correspondence as we discovered having lived surprising resonant class mobilities in different societies (Ukraine and Denmark).
Arjun Das who became a dear friend, joined us as a performer of “Jaleo” and helped us conceptualise our “reverse colouring book” or “clitoridian coalition” window paintings.
Nadim Chouffe who danced with us in our participant presentation and with whom we plan to write. .
And Michał Grzegorzek who by bringing DRAGANA BAR and co-curating with us A Spring Lesson brought collective and performance oriented experimentation to the Academie.