COLLECTIVE GARDENS

(UNTITLED: GARDENING IN PROGRESS)

Curated by Julie Booms, Laura Lee Bral, Valrie De Neef, Benedicte Dierickx,
Sarah Gallasz, Loes Gerits, Valerie Henau, Pieter Jennes, Katrien Loret, Rosan Meijer,
Winke Noppen, Rene Pevernagie, Ilse Raps, Anna Scholiers, Elisatbeth Ida
COLLECTIVE GARDENS
(UNTITLED: GARDENING IN PROGRESS)
When your eye meets this page, you are reading this introduction.
Please continue! Browse through my pages and feel my content slide
through your fngers. I am a subversive concept, a tilted garden, a
dissident object, a unique book, an everlasting exhibition space. From
the moment you laid eyes on me and picked me up, I changed. Now,
I am fuid, constantly in fux, an endless circulation of ideas. You
can appropriate, rearticulate and invade me. Do you already feel the
urge to transform my body and structure? Perhaps, you can occupy
my intentions? Exclude and infuse new objectives and expressions, or
completely modify my appearance! I am a manifestation of Collective
Gardens. I am a collection, a garden glossary of possibilities. I am a
collective, tucked away in a disembodied host, waiting for interaction
in order to make myself undying.
Participating artists: Astrid Bossuyt, Sven Dehens, Celine Drouin Laroche,
Amine El Gotaibi, Mo Franken, Freddy K, Thomas Grdal, KubistaBolve,
Wera Imie Nazwisko, Margherita Raso, Augustas Serapinas
Voice-over: Meet Hito. Shes a flmmaker
and author. Maybe youve already heard
people talk about her. She writes about all
sort of things. Like for example, occupation.
Voice-over: A way of defning our curatorial position:
as a stranglehold, a creative impulse, a liberation of the
concept itself, a provocation in need for a counter-action,
an unanswerable question, say what?!, or an incentive
for re-articulation, to name but a few.
Voice-over: Imagine spaces, objects, processes, subjects, activities, dialogues
converting into an amorphism. Let us go beyond physical space, diffuse
a constellation of spaces as occupation is fugitive to its own predicament.
Voice-over: Imagine cultivating new
parallel spaces of occupation, re-articulating
fow, appropriating territory, weeding
through the spatial divisions, invading
the Others parcel, engaging in the fnal
product-presentation,...
... pictures of my archive, that occupy ME.
(E-mail sent to curators, art-critics, art-historians, sociologists, artists,...)
Dear,

The idea is to create a constellation of critical observations, thinking patterns, critiques and creative impulses
that endlessly mediate our concept. By fltering our concept through the mind of others we can constantly re-
think our position. We hope you like this idea and maybe you can send us a reaction in English before the 13th
of May (maximum 50 lines)?

As a little extra incentive, we give you the link to a flm we made for approaching the artists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaW8YcApD3A

Many thanks in advance.
New message
To:
Copy:
Subject:
From:
(Email from Flurin Bisig)
1. Art as Occupation: Claims for an Autonomy of Life - Hito Steyerl, 2011
2. Use Collective Gardens as steppingstone to talk about Hitos concept of occupation
3. Occupation as hybrid mindset: as keeping busy, doing, (daily) activity, distraction, engagement, appropriation, colonization, invasion, blurring of spatial
divisions, eternal process, negotiation, endless mediation, not merely as a territorial claiming
4. Occupation as another way of regrouping situations that would normally be separated in a more traditional manner
5. Collective Gardens as a fexible framework where situations & practices come together
First there are the utopias. Utopias are sites with no real place.
They are sites that have a general relation of direct or inverted
analogy with the real space of Society. They present society itself
in a perfected form, or else society turned upside down, but in
any case these utopias are fundamentally unreal spaces.
There are also, probably in every culture, in every civilization,
real placesplaces that do exist and that are formed in the very
founding of society which are something like counter-sites,
a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites,
all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are
simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted. Places of
this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible
to indicate their location in reality. Because these places are
absolutely different from all the sites that they refect and speak
about, I shall call them, by way of contrast to utopias,
heterotopias.
Garden or place (topos) refers etymologically
to the idea behind Thomas Mores Utopia; or to
the origin of the word paradise, which derives
from the Persian pairideiza, meaning walled or
enclosed. That also entails a danger of exclusion
the opposite of encircling and bringing together.
Whats essental here is the dimension of the
garden as a meetng place, where a dialogue can
occur.
(Johan Grimonprez, On Radical Ecology and Tender Gardening)
(Michel Foucault, Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias)
... pictures of my archive, that occupy ME. (Email from Flurin Bisig)
Dear,
thanks for getting in touch and sending your statement.
I don't remember reading that Steyerl piece but it sounds remarkable, as it oscillates - I imagine - between
occupation as that which occupies our working hours and different forms of repossession and spatial insurrec-
tion. The idea of collective gardens is intriguing as well, but I hope you will understand that the framework you
sketch does not really offer me ground to react to either the formulation of the concept or the relation between
this concept and the future show, its components and juxtapositions.
I fnd myself in a similarly problematic position with our september exhibition, which I can't really get to work - in
terms of communicating the project to the outside world, garnering support etc. - in any 'middle way': it's either
a dry 10-line statement or a 4-page abstract script no one seems to fnd time for. So I sympathis and keep
fngers crossed. I doubt this helps but it's the best I could do, fngers crossed for your work, mm
From: Mihnea Mircan <mihnea.mircan@extracity.org>
Date: 2014-05-20 22:57 GMT+02:00
Subject: Re: A curatorial project
Art and Agriculture
Collectivity and Parallel Play
Some Observations

Liam Gillick
For TEBEAC at Academy of Fine Arts, Ghent, June 2014


The division of collective space is the heart of revolutionary potential and
collapse.
The commons have been enclosed.
The enclosures have been privatized.
The private has been visualized.
Data has been collectivized.
The farm has industrialized.
Agriculture and art are quite compatible.
Art and agriculture are romanticized.

The division of private space can be collectivized.
The collective has been privatized.
The garden is not a farm.
Gardening is not agriculture.
Gardening cannot be collectivized.
Agriculture cannot be rectifed.

Mediation within the context of two similar activities that take place within
spaces of nurture and growth have potential only in relation to the degree to
which they have a historical connection to the crisis inherent in the
revolutionary potential of the collective.

i.e. You can have a collective garden but you cant collectivize it.
Ergo. You can have a collective farm and you cant do much with it.

Somewhere in the space between these two impracticalities is the potential of
the structure
Your work usually takes form in the exploration of spaces that are hidden. What made you so
interested in hidden things?
I think there are a lot of interesting things about the hidden and the concept of hiding in itself. In the
beginning I was very intrigued that by hiding you are showing more and through hiding you become more
aware of the things you are showing. Also, it is important to state that the hiding can be seen as a political
statement or strategy. Nowadays it is very popular to show and visualize everything, but the dominant
visual culture is neglecting in its ways of sharing and representing. When you have a reason to hide
something, you are always aware of how it can be shared. In these times, the act of hiding is of great
value to me.
So hiding isnt just about hiding, but about the act of hiding in itself. Why are you hiding? How are you
hiding? For me, communication is an important aspect because I like to work with people when looking
for places and their meaning.
Your conscious awareness of people is an interesting aspect of your work. It seems to me that
you select your own public by making close connections with people. Is this something you think
about during your process?
It depends on a particular work. Sometimes it comes afterwards. Sometimes I know it from the beginning.
Do you feel like its more important to make works for a selected group of people?
Yes. Some works are meant for a more selective group of people and some works are more common
and thus for everyone. And that is something you need to decide. For me, every work starts within certain
circumstances and within a certain space. It arises from its surroundings and in a way the work already
exists there. You just need to fnd a way to it.
Is it then fair to say that the work grows through the people?
Yes, through every conversation. At least it goes like that for me. Sometimes Im not even thinking about
the work. I just like meeting other people and talking about things. Thats when the aspect of communica-
tion becomes very important. A lot of works are very related to this conversational aspect. Sometimes I
even arrange the space for a specifc topic and bring people inside of the space to talk about it.
So your work is also a kind of a social experiment in its own?
Yes, but its also an experiment for the art world. Im trying to do something honest, something in which
I believe. But I am sometimes completely unsure about the things that I am doing. I only understand my
work through the process. And I like to state that. Only through the process I can realize my work better.
For me it is impossible to state something about the artwork from the beginning on, but in the art world
you need to be concrete. Sometimes people want to know exactly what you will do for the exhibition. So
it is harder to do process based activities, especially when you need a space for an improvisation. So in
this way my work is an experiment to see how far I can go with this practice wherein people have to trust
you and wherein I understand things only through the time. It could be very stressful, but I really appre-
ciate this approach. It is more vital because everything is related and comes from a certain situation that
relates to that time and the certain things around it. This way, you are more sensitive to the how and why
things happened and that is what I am interested in. The space can amplify certain activities or generate
new activities that are connected to the surroundings. I am not only interested in fnding those hidden
spaces, it is also important to think about the kind of activities that could take place in the space and what
kind of effect it would have in relation to the environment.
My frst reaction when I saw your work was that I felt like you were creating parallel universes
within existing spaces. It seemed like you were creating new stories by further contemplating on
what was already there and because you were working in unused spaces you could go back to
the origins of those spaces and to the origin of its meaning.
Yes, it could be like that. It is related to how we get used to something and expectations or what you
expect to perceive in certain spaces. For example, in a museum you know what to expect from the offce
spaces, but then there are also other spaces of which people know they exist but are not paying attention
to. It is important to realize how all spaces constitute the whole thing together. What kind of activities are
going on in those spaces. Things are not one-sided. When you look at the cleaning staff, you notice that
they have their own style of behavior. They make their own routes in the space. It is interesting how they
construct their own space in the institution. But getting back to the hidden spaces, spaces that arent
inhabited or dont have any activities, it becomes a bit different, because they dont have any traces of
the current time, usually they have traces of activities that went on before, like some leftovers of the time
when it was built. So you can really read the specifc time by entering those spaces. For instance, in
which way someone installed the wire, or how funny the pipe was cut. You can see all these things that
can tell you a lot. I like this. Then I think about what kind of activity I can insert.
And how do you select the activity you want to insert into a certain space?
Usually I dont select. I just spend some time inside the space and Im looking for what kind of activity the
space proposes. Sometimes this comes very quickly, but other times it comes over time. You can think
a lot, read a lot, but that is not that way it works for me. Some things just come over time and I cant do
anything about that. I just have to spend time, live with it, and then I start to understand. Its like a con-
versation between the space and me. This is how I understand what kind of activity should go on in the
space. I usually choose simple activities like a coffee break room or a space for meditation. I like to open
up the possibilities.
In Komplot you present a different kind of working method where you build on the existing
structure instead of working in a hidden space. How does this relate to your other work?
The exhibition space of Komplot is made in the style of a white cube. But within this space there are
certain tools like pipes, wires, sockets, doors, columns, stairs, etc. that reveal the original infrastructure of
the building. For this exhibition I chose to add something to one of the existing pipes. I think the pipe was
part of a radiator, which, over time, has been removed from the space, leaving the pipe without a purpose.
I chose to extend the pipe by adding a fake pipe that will curve towards the space where the radiator was
supposed to be. By making this kind of action, you play with the visitors attention in relation to the space.
The visitors usually have certain norms and expectations about what they are coming to see. They know
exactly that they are going to see art, so they are not paying attention to the sockets for example. So in
a way you are excluding your gaze and ways of understanding in seeing things. That could be a problem
these days, because you are losing that certain sensitivity, which makes your perception too narrow.
There is a possibility that when you look at the pipe, you will notice that something is wrong and then you
will pay attention to the things around it. Then the entire exhibition will start to look differently. It can give a
new quality and value. In this way, the entire infrastructure also becomes part of the work.
So you mean to open the gaze of the visitors?
Yes it could be like that but it is also possible that it doesnt work. For those who dont notice it, everything
will be the same. For me, it is important to expand the possibility within a certain context so we look at the
things in a different light. I dont want to point out the work, because then you will exclude this moment of
fnding it. It is something you need to discover yourself and then it becomes valuable. How you perceive a
space is related to possibilities. In this I see a connection with my other works.
Your work rather functions on an immaterial level. I feel like this kind of practice becomes more
and more important within the art world, but we dont know how to deal with these kind of
practices yet.
As an artist, I always need to explain my approach. It is important to point out why you do certain things.
The more people will talk about it, the more it will become understandable for others.
Interview between Katrien Loret & Augustas Serapinas
From: Johan Grimonprez <johan@zapomatik.com>
Date: 2014-05-10 16:13 GMT+02:00
Subject: A man, blind at his right eye, was hospitalized yesterday. A lost caulifower seed had
germinated behind his eyeball, and a 2 cm colli was surgically removed. He now sees again.
A man, blind at his right eye,
was hospitalized yesterday.
A lost caulifower seed had
germinated behind his eyeball,
and a 2 cm colli was surgically
removed. He now sees again.
____________________________
A newspaper story, quoted in Boon, L.P., Menuet
(Amsterdam: Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, 1955)
Well you cant go to California, thats the frst place theyll look for you_Johan Grimonprez
Disease in Bees
Book IV, verses 251-280

Since life has brought the same misfortunes to bees as ourselves,
if their bodies are weakened with wretched disease,
you can recognise it straight away by clear signs:
as they sicken their colour immediately changes: a rough
leanness mars their appearance: then they carry outdoors
the bodies of those without life, and lead the sad funeral procession:
or else they hang from the threshold linked by their feet, or linger
indoors, all listless with hunger and dull with depressing cold.
Then a deeper sound is heard, a drawn out murmur,
as the cold Southerly sighs in the woods sometimes,
as the troubled sea hisses on an ebb tide,
as the rapacious fre whistles in a sealed furnace.
Then Id urge you to burn fragrant resin, right away,
and give them honey through reed pipes, freely calling them
and exhorting the weary insects to eat their familiar food.
Its good too to blend a taste of pounded oak-apples
with dry rose petals, or rich new wine boiled down
over a strong fame, or dried grapes from Psithian vines,
with Attic thyme and strong-smelling centaury.
Theres a meadow fower also, the Italian starwort,
that farmers call amellus, easy for searchers to fnd:
since it lifts a large cluster of stems from a single root,
yellow-centred, but in the wealth of surrounding petals
theres a purple gleam in the dark blue: often the gods altars
have been decorated with it in woven garlands:
its favour is bitter to taste: the shepherds collect it
in valleys that are grazed, and by Mellas winding streams.
Boil the plants roots in fragrant wine, and place it
as food at their entrances in full wicker baskets.
(Virgil, Georgics)
Dear,
thank you for sending me this invitation and for sharing your exhibition concept. It is not
common for curators to disclose their curatorial strategy before the exhibition has become
a reality. In doing this, you make your ideas, your goals and your doubts clearly visible. I like
this discursive transparency. It goes well with the concept of the Collective Garden that you
use as a curatorial grip. Collectivity has become a trend, and so has gardening. As a metaphor
for a group show with the works of upcoming artists, both collectivity and gardening function
wonderfully well. They refer to crucial issues that are at stake today, such as finding the nexus
between (alternative) economies and (alternative) ecologies.
One of the first shows I curated was titled Nature Morte?? Art and Ecology. It took place in the
public space and the university buildings of Louvain, back in 1995. One of the locations of the
project, the 19th century municipal Botanical Garden, also functioned as the campaign image.
A that time, under the spell of 1960s land art (Robert Smithson!) and 18th century landscaped
gardens (Capability Brown!), I was very interested in the artificiality of the garden as a metap-
hor fo our urge to control and domesticate nature. I guess Postmodernism was still lingering
on somewhere in my mind...
Today, gardening has come to contain less aesthetical references than social and economical
ones. Urban gardening and collective cultivating have become fashionable symbols of alter-
native civic behaviour; they reflect quite a few new paradigms of the years that followed after
2008. Micro-enterprises and small communities show their ability of surviving a heavy econo-
mical and ecological crisis. However, the way you combine these issues with the notion of oc-
cupation strikes me as being a bit odd. Ofcourse, occupation has become an important social
and intellectual theme since Occupy Wall Street kicked off a lot of occupy-initiatives in 2011.
Moreover, I also believe that gardening has a lot to do with occupation. So, strictly speaking,
the connection you make between the two does make sense. But as a discursive and curato-
rial tool it creates a paradox. After all, inviting artists to an occupation seems a bit awkward,
doesn it? Occupation by invitation or, even worse, participating in an occupation because
someone (the curator or a teacher or the market) expects you to do so, reminds me a bit of the
problem cutting-edge artists experienced when being invited by Harald Szeemann to Docu-
menta 5, back in 1972. While most of the artists simply seemed happy for being invited, only
a few expressed their critical feelings about the way the curator managed to create a rigid set
of narratives that encompassed the work of the artists. In the end, the most articulate ones,
amongst them the French artist Daniel Buren and the American artist Robert Smithson, deci-
ded to stand up in writing.
The first lines of Cultural Confinement, Smithsons only contribution to both the exhibition
and the catalogue, still deserves to be read by contemporary artists and curators: Cultural
confinement takes place when a curator imposes his own limits on art exhibition, rather than
asking an artist to set his limits. Artists are expected to fit into fraudulent categories. Some
artists imagine theyve got a hold on this apparatus, which in fact has got a hold of them. By
declining the invitation and reacting with words (his text also appeared in Artforum), Smith-
son managed to mirror the curators approach and to occupy a position that equaled the one
held by the curator. A curator urging artists to occupy anticipates (and therefore appropri-
ates) this position, and I dont believe that is your intention. Anyway, I suppose some of the
artists will manage to deal with this challenge.
Johan Pas, Antwerp, May 2014
From: Johan Pas <johan.pas@ap.be>
Date: 2014-05-09 23:37 GMT+02:00
Subject: Re: A curatorial project
From: Germann Martin <Martin.Germann@smak.be>
Date: 2014-05-20 20:59 GMT+02:00
Subject: RE: A curatorial project
Dear,
Apologies for my late answer.
My reaction is short:
I am very curious about in how far the simple truth that curators need artists more then
way around will materialize itself in your exhibition!
All the best,
Martin
Margherita Raso, 2014
Celine Drouin Laroche, 2014
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STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GARDEN,
TURNING 360
In this Collective Gardens possibility
we address the different reactions we
have received on our shared Collective
Gardens video. Because the content is
hybrid, the answered propositions are
hybrid as well. Some artists responded
with an already realised work, other
works were conceived through dialogues
with the curators and to some artists we
asked a specifc question.
Some played around with materials
literally related to collective gardens.
While one focuses on the political dimension
of Hito Steyerls understanding of the concept
occupation, the other addresses this in a more
formalistic manner by exploring space through
a cinematic gaze.
The artists, that are presented
at this Collective Gardens
manifestation, touch in their
works upon different aspects
of our shared concept.
A reference to an eternal mediated song is indeed quite different
from a work who chooses to zoom in on the institutional
infrastructure in which this exhibition space is embedded.
Then again there are artists who rather
deal with this (im)material twilight zone
between spaces.
In other works, the notion of social, political and time-based spaces
touching and interfering with each other is one of the primary concerns.
Sure collective gardens can be full of growing
healthy plants all neatly lined up next to each
other. Or it can be looking like that crazy haircut
of the teenage girl living next door. You never
really know how things are going to turn out
eventually.
Margherita Raso
Celine Drouin Laroche
Mo Francken
KubistaBolve
Amine El Gotaibi
Augustas Serapinas
Astrid Bossuyt
Wera Imie Nazwisko
Sven Dehens
Thomas Grdal
Freddy K
Astrid Bossuyt (1989, Bolivia) currently lives in
Brussels. She studied Fine Arts at Sint-Lukas Brus-
sels. She works with different media, such as sculpture,
photography, video, installation and graphic art,
dependent on the concept. In her artistic work she
searches for the point where coincidence and setup
meet. Therefore her work and life are closely interwo-
ven, sometimes even inseparable.
Sven Dehens (1990, Belgium) lives and works in
Ghent. He received his Master in the Arts at Sint-Lu-
cas in Ghent. The artist works with video and installa-
tion. The form consists of constructed images in which
specifc environments, individuals, animals or objects
are flmed, all referring to a certain content. The visu-
al aspect of most video work takes precedence over the
auditive. During the work process he always questions
the basic principles of cinema (narrative styles, editing,
the screen, the white light, Blue-key, etc.).
Celine Drouin Laroche (1986, France) currently
lives in Paris. She studied at the ENSAPC (cole
Nationale Suprieure dArts de Paris) in Cergy. In her
artistic work she searches for different, sometimes even
overlapping, presences in the actual time and space.
The work of Celine Drouin Laroche consists of video
installations, projections and sculptural forms.
Amine El Gotaibi (1984, Morocco) currently lives
in Tangier. He studied Fine Arts at the National
Institute of Fine Arts in Ttouan, Morocco. During
his studies he focused on diverse aspects of the visual
arts, such as video, photography, installations, etc.
His work comes into being within the specifc socio-
political context of his homeland. The artist therefore
works with existential, universal preoccupations, such
as migration, human rights, and the borders between
countries/continents.
Chris Fitzpatrick (1978, New York) is an inde-
pendent curator. In 2009 Fitzpatrick got a degree in
Curatorial Practice at the California College of the
Arts. Three years later, after working in the US and
Italy, he moved to Belgium where he became direc-
tor at Objectif Exhibitions, a non-proft institution in
Antwerp that provides space for diverse contemporary
artistic practices. At Objectif Exhibitions different solo
exhibitions take place simultaneously, on different phy-
sical and temporal scales. Fitzpatricks essays appear in
international publications and journals such as Spike
Art Quarterly, Mousse and Nero.
Mo Franken (1989, Belgium) currently lives in
Brussels. She played the classical trumpet at the Royal
Conservatory in Brussels and Antwerp. During the
last six months she focused on Frank Zappas different
versions of the Black Page. Because this song keeps on
being interpreted in a different manner throughout the
years, we asked Mo to make her own interpretation as
part of our Collective Gardens project.
Freddy K (1985, Belgium) lives and works in
Ghent. He studied mixed media at Sint-Lucas
in Ghent. His work consists of installations and
performances. One of his projects An exercise in
happiness and frustration is an ongoing perfor-
mance in which the artist blows confetti from one
part of the space to the other. The amount of the
confetti diminishes after each performance. It will
end when the confetti totally disappears.
Martin Germann (Germany) is senior curator at
the S.M.A.K in Ghent since September 2012. From
2008 until 2011 Germann was curator at kestner-
gesellschaft Hannover. Between 2010 and 2012 he
was part of the curatorial team for Made in Ger-
many Zwei, a survey show of young international
art at kestnergesellschaft, Kunstverein Hannover
and Sprengel Museum. At the S.M.A.K. Germann
prefers to draw attention to the younger generation.
He is interested in the local artistic context and
supports the platforms in which S.M.A.K. coope-
rates, such as Het Paviljoen, a new collaboration
with HISK and KASK, and the annual Coming
People, a group show with graduation projects from
KASK and the Faculty of Visual Arts Campus
Sint-Lucas in Ghent.
Liam Gillick (1964, U.K.) is an artist who lives
and works in New York. From 1983-1984 Gillick
studied at the Hertfordshire College of Art. In
1987 he graduated from Goldsmiths College with
a degree in Fine Art. Liam Gillick was part of the
earliest Young British Artists (YBA) during the
1990s and his artistic practice has encompassed a
wide range of media including sculpture, writing,
architectural and graphic design, flm and music,
as well as various curatorial projects. Gillick is
interested in the aesthetics of social systems and
forms of social organization. Central to his practice
are the focus on modes of production, rather than
consumption, and the publication(s) that function(s)
in response to his art.
Thomas Grdal (1978, Norway) lives and works
in Antwerp and Oslo. Grdal graduated within the
Department of In Situ / Painting at KASK Ant-
werp in 2012. Without offering you foaties, Grdal
throws you into the deep end of the pool where
you will have to fend for yourself in interpreting
his narratives. The language of his work consists
of paintings, sculptures and mixed media instal-
lations. Beneath the surface you will drown in a
vast, surreal and mystical world. Like a daydream,
or something you saw in the corner of your eye, his
work will linger in your mind where the melan-
choly visions will achingly haunt you.
Johan Grimonprez (1962, Belgium) is a video
artist as well as a curator and a teacher. In 1993
he got accepted into the Whitney Museum Inde-
Biographies
pendent Study Program in New York, which
was followed by the Jan van Eyck Academy in
Maastricht. He divides his time between Belgium
and New York, where he lectures at the School
of Visual Arts. His work balances on the line
between documentary and art. In his work, he
touches upon the status of the image in our cur-
rent society and its impact on the viewer. With
Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997) Grimonprez made
his introduction in the international art scene.
In this flm, the artist throws a light upon media
strategies. His latest work, The Shadow World:
Inside the Global Arms Trade (2011), is the adap-
tation of the book by Andrew Feinstein and deals
with international weapon traffcking.
KubistaBolve or artistduo Kajsa Hkansson
Bolve (1988) and Anna Kubista Lfman (1989)
were both born in Sweden and currently work
in Bergen (Norway) and Brussels (Belgium).
Kubista and Bolve study at the Academy of Art
and Design in Bergen. Kajsa Hkansson Bolve is
currently studying at the Hogeschool Sint-Lukas
Brussels as part of an exchange program. Their
art consists of interventions, video works, instal-
lations and performances concerning presence,
inventions, nature, human contact, and so on.
Mihnea Mircan (1976, Romania) is a curator
and writer and since 2011 the artistic director of
Extra City Kunsthal in Antwerp. From 2005 to
2006 Mircan was curator of the Pavillion at the
Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Between 2004 and 2007
he curated several exhibitions at the National
Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest.
In 2007 Mircan was also curator of the Roma-
nian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale. As a
curator he has a strong context-bounded vision.
Mircan is currently preparing the long-term
research project Allegory of the Cave Painting,
subsequently, curating a group exhibition and
launching the frst volume of the accompanying
reader in September 2014.
Wera Imie Nazwisko (1983, Poland) cur-
rently lives in Berlin. She studied Visual Arts at
the Universitt der Knste in Berlin. Her work
consists of installations that she made with found
and collected objects. In her artworks the sepa-
rate objects, all conveying their own meaning,
function like words forming a sentence. She is
interested in the culture of kitsch production, the
question about the conditions for the existence of
an artwork and the effect of presenting an object
in several different combinations.
Johan Pas (1963, Belgium) is Doctor in the
Arts. Pas teaches modern and contemporary art
at the Royal Academy for Fine Arts in Antwerp.
Moreover, he is a curator and the author of
several publications. His main interests lay wit-
hin the neo-avant-garde context, more specifc
in artist books and exhibition catalogues related
to the movement. Over time, Pas has acquired a
great collection of artist books. In the nineties, Pas
dedicated a number of exhibitions and publications
to the relationship between ecology and contempo-
rary art. More recently, he focused on the work of
several contemporary artists such as Fred Bervoets
and Paul De Vree.
Margherita Raso (1991, Italy) lives and studies
in Milan. She is graduating at the Academy of
Fine Arts of Brera, Milan. Her research includes
the need to deal with different themes and forms
without privilege to a specifc medium. She is inte-
rested in the mechanics of our perception and more
specifcally how we use them to perceive the world.
In her work she often creates new spaces wherein
different ways of looking and senses meet. In her
latest artistic research she developed an interest in
textile. Apart from her own work, she collaborates
with Roberto Scalmana for the publication of Col-
lective Gardens.
Augustas Serapinas (1990, Lithuania) studied
at the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal
Academy of Fine Arts in Denmark. The work of
Serapinas consists of installations and interventions
where he implements new meanings and possibili-
ties to existing spaces. With his work he questions
the contemporary gaze and presents the viewer new
opportunities of perceiving.

Hito Steyerl (1966, Germany) is a Berlin-based
artist, writer and flmmaker. Steyerls work focuses
on issues such as feminism and militarisation, as well
as the mass proliferation and dissemination of ima-
ges and knowledge brought on by digital technolo-
gies. She speculates about the impact of the Internet
and digitization on the structure of our daily lives.
Her flms and essays mainly take the digital image as
a point of departure for entering a world in which a
politics of dazzle manifests as collective desire. Stey-
erls paper Art as Occupation: Claims for an Au-
tonomy of Life shows her ongoing interest in the
so-called militarization of everyday life. The point
in this paper is that in todays economic climate, the
category of labour is increasingly replaced by that
of occupation. Steyerl glosses the term as a space
for endless mediation, indeterminate negotiation,
with no real outcome.
Colophon
This publication is a production of TEBEAC, Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) Ghent, Belgium.
This book was published on the occasion of the exhibitions:
Collective Gardens - Drowning in the garden, searching for a thrill
25 June 29 June 2014
KASK, Ghent, Belgium
Collective Gardens - Standing in the middle of the garden, turning 360
20 June - 28 june 2014
Komplot, Brussels, Belgium
Concept and compilation: TEBEAC
TEBEAC, the artists
Printed in Belgium
The artist and publishers gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyright material
in this book. Every effort has been made by the artist, contributors and editorial staff to trace holders of
copyright and to obtain permission for the use of copyright material. The publishers apologise for any errors
or omissions. However, if any permissions have been inadvertently overlooked, please contact TEBEAC 2014,
so that any oversights can be corrected as soon as possible.