Vincent Meessen
On écrit en fonction d’un périple à venir et qui n’a pas encore de langage. Gilles Deleuze
Nous sommes tous des Caraïbes aujourd’hui dans nos archipels urbains. Peut-être n’y a-t-il pour personne aucun retour possible dans un pays natal, seulement des notes de terrain pour le réinventer. James Clifford
1.INTRODUCTION
Potential Estate (2006-2009) is a collaborative research project. It involves various artists who have been developing collaborative works with experimental and critical approaches on the issue of residence.
The first group of artists involved in the project, have been invited in may 2006 by artist Vincent Meessen within the frame of a first Cabinet. Cabinet Joseph Jacotot, as it was called, included a.o. samples from existing projects mostly realized by Belgian artists : Herman Asselberghs, Johan Grimonprez & Dieter Lesage (Lost Nation), Ronny Heiremans & Katleen Vermeir (A.I.R), Ivo Provoost & Simona Denicolai (Umfblyzer), David Evrard, Ivo Provoost & Simona Denicolai (Building Underwood). These works were displayed in collaboration with graphic designer Pierre Huyghebaert. The Cabinet also presented side contributions by Adam Leech and writer Laurent Flamand, artists with whom Meessen had collaborated for his show.
Artists were invited on a double basis: first, they had produced several relevant collaborative projects before, and secondly all had a direct experience of the USA, this second condition being linked with the proposed location for the "residential".
Through this first sample of relevant past projects from various artistic horizons, Meessen suggested that a temporary collaborative unit of production and reflection might be initiated within a mid-term exchange process. The aim is to produce new works and elaborate contents related to these various micro-political practices .
As artists being concerned with the production of situations, we all have a interest in the topics such as : "the fiction of community", "the constitution of entities through irregular spatial occupation" and the "power of translations through narratives".
That’s why the project will gather people concerned with artistic practices ranging from radical social experiments (cfr. projects such as Universal Embassy, Building Underwood, ...), to striking private (cfr. A.I.R, Rezidenz) and public space interventions (Umfblyzer, R-House), just to quote projects in which some of the artists were involved.
2. PHILOSOPHY
Potential Estate is developed by the artists themselves trying to build through this research an open and temporary collective housing scheme beyond the frame of exhibition.
As a project Potential Estate wants to favour and enrich a shared concern about artistic practices that link with the politics of life. The daily life is the privileged place where the human subject experiences its own (hi)story. The politics of life offers the conditions of possibility for a subject to reach oneself and rule his own sovereignty (after A. Mbembe). The practice of art could be seen as a particularly appropriated tool for empowering politics of life instead of being subjected to the politics of economy since art, following us, consist today mainly in the tactical framing, organization and naming of irregularities.
The politics of life within spaces and the try-out of its contextual re-negotiation is for sure what ultimately gathers us and our guests. In brief, it means that presented works have a strong focus on the uses (juridical, historical, economical, narrative, let’s say "political at large") of private and public spaces: apartment, house, embassy, hotel, camp, library, bar, gallery, urban irregular settlements, public park, border, ... are among others places that we have documented, challenged or inhabited in previous works as intervention spaces.
After an exploratory trip, Belgium, Wisconsin (USA) has been proposed as a possible location for a "residential". We want to operate a shift that activates a reflection on trans-nationality. We will consider the place as a former migration spot where Belgians and Luxemburgers have settled next to natives americans.
3. FORMATS
Four different main artistic formats are envisioned to achieve the project: a website covering the project from its starting point till its term (2006-2009); a series of Cabinets (2006-2008); a residential (summer 2009); and possibly the use of the exhibition format (2009).
3.1. WEBSITE
This website will present and update the project. The specific project content will be posted on it in order for the site to become the archive of Potential Estate. The site will be developed in collaboration with graphic designer Pierre Huyghebaert and developper Thomas Carton from Studio RVB using mainly Spip open system. Each participant has participatory access to the site.
3.2. CABINETS
The chosen format for presenting and activating the research is the Cabinet. A series of Cabinets are to be held in various locations. From the beginning we’ve conceived the Cabinets not only as a collaborative format between the core group of artists and other artists, but also as the platform on which we negotiate the project with hosting institutions and partners. In this way they also can claim an active role in the development of Potential Estate.
The word "Cabinet" recalls the first historical format of exhibiting arte-facts from various origins. The Cabinets are cumulative and collaborative, being the result of proposals and choices made by the core group of artists. Artists propose some new developments of their own works or collaborative pieces born within the project process. Each artist involved is invited to propose works from other artists or users presenting original approaches on related topics.
The Cabinets are named after famous but somehow forgotten migrants (what we would call today "political refugees") relating our research explicitly to the topic of cosmopolitics.
Cabinet Jacotot* , STUK arts center, Leuven, Belgium - May 2006 - Named after radical French pedagogist, refugee in Leuven between 1818 and 1825. Author of "Langue Universelle". More infos on Jacotot
Following people have lent samples from their previous works for the first Cabinet : Herman Asselberghs/Dieter Lesage/Johan Grimonprez (B), David Evrard (B), Laurent Flamand (B), Ronny Heiremans & Katleen Vermeir (B), Pierre Huyghebaert (B), Adam Leech (US), Vincent Meessen (B/US), Ivo Provoost (B) & Simona Denicolai (It).
Cabinet Reclus, Netwerk, center for contemporary art, Aalst, Belgium, May - June 2007 - Named after Elisée Reclus, French geographer, university teacher and famous anarchist, refugee in Brussels between 1892 and 1905. Author ao of the Universal Geography in 25 volumes.
Following artists have been invited to participate and join the core group : David Evrard (B), Ivo Provoost (B) & Simona Denicolai (It), Ronny Heiremans & Katleen Vermeir (B), Pierre Huyghebaert (B), Adam Leech (US), Vincent Meessen (B/US).
3.3 RESIDENTIAL
Used as a noun, the word "residential" is a contraction between "residency" and "biennal", two of the key formats though which current contemporary artists evolve in the field of art. The "residential" is seen as the test proof for a potential format of production.
Without invitation, a group of artists choose a remote location (where no art institution is located) for its potential of translation. The group shares a common space, produce work and research.
The location proposal for the residential is Belgium, a village of 1800 inhabitants located in Wisconsin, USA (45 min from Milwaukee). The place has been established after migration of Luxemburg-Belgian populations to the Midwest, an area at the time inhabited by Native Americans.
3.4 EXHIBITIONS
Scheduled for 2009, two exhibitions (one in the USA, one in Belgium) might propose an insight in the artists productions from the beginning till the closing of the project. Up to now, the format of the final proposal is still undetermined since it has to be the production of the group, its guests and its future hosts.
A catalogue/book, printed version of the internet webiste will be published with critical essays by Cabinets - guests and - critics invited to join and implement the project.
Other articles in this chapter
The Potential Estate website • www.potentialestate.org • Confirm your interest here!