Tuesday we welcomed Benedetta Parisi —all the way from Turin— in (hot hot hot) Antwerp to share some snippets of her WIP project.
We got to know this enthusiastic artist at Proximamente. When she told us she wanted to do a residency in Belgium, we felt it was very meaningful and so we were happy that we could support her. We connected Benedetta with le BAMP—where she is currently staying—and with artists from the WIPCOOP network. She interviewed David Labi, Augusto Pedraza, Nela Deleu, Tamayo Okano, and Omar Cortegana, who shared their fascinating stories with her. And on Tuesday, we organized a sharing session… We enjoyed hearing the long-distance love stories of —no longer— strangers that Benedetta had met during her residencies.
"Why have people been moving across the earth since the beginning of human history? Why do people migrate? Benedetta Parisi's work begins with these questions. What are the distances in our lives? The distances that separate us from the places we love? "From the people we love?" — a report by Benedetta (read the full report below)
After her presentation, we explored the theme of ‘distance’ & how we individually & collectively relate to it, together with some artists from the WIPCOOP network — Tamayo Okano, Augusto Pedraza, Andrea Gallo Rosso & Moryana Filipova.
“Andrea begins to move, almost dancing. He brought a t-shirt and leaves it on the ground, tracing his silhouette. His voice, from a distance, tells of his absence on the outline. His death, perhaps. What do we leave behind when we disappear? What traces do we leave?” — report by Benedetta (read the full report below)
It turned into a beautiful afternoon, with a lot of personal sharing, reflection, and new questions, insights and connections.
“Speaking of these distances, perhaps the only thing we can say in the end is that the distance between us, in the moment we were talking about it, grew thinner — allowing us to speak, close up and from afar together, truly sharing, for one moment, only the present.” — report by Benedetta (read the full report below)
Benedetta is currently staying at le BAMP to continue her research about distance & love. Good luck, Benedetta! We are very excited & curious to see where your stories will take you next.
Thank you everyone for joining us in this sweltering heat & opening up to no longer strangers ❤️
Benedetta’s Report
Antwerp Report – Tuesday, June 24 Why have people been moving across the earth since the beginning of human history? Why do people migrate? Benedetta Parisi's work begins with these questions. What are the distances in our lives? The distances that separate us from the places we love? From the people we love? The group made up of Tamayo, Moryana, Andrea, Augusto, and the Mestizo Art Platform team then introduced themselves through Personal Acts. Each person chose a way to introduce themselves to the others—whether with an object, a staged action, or a story. During the personal acts, the rest of the group noted down where they could see a distance in the others' work, whatever distance meant to them. Moryana She brought a necklace from her mother's collection in Bulgaria. We could listen to the sound while she told us about Bulgaria, about the 15 kg of jewelry sent by her mother, about the homesickness that coexists with the desire to fight to create her own path, to seek possibilities. The distance is named between art and ordinary life, between Moryana’s smile and the melancholy she tells us about, between this sadness and creation. Moryana tells us, "Happiness can move us." Tamayo, in silence, begins to move from the ground. She approaches each member of the group, including Tine's dog. Her body searches for connections, meets the others, very closely, sniffing them, brushing against them. Everyone reacts differently to that touch. It puts us in crisis, raises questions in us: What should I do? How should I react to this closeness? What is the distance between us and animals? Between above and below? In this waiting for the touch we ask ourselves questions. Augusto tells us that his wake-up this morning came through the news of the elections in Colombia. The right wing won. Suddenly, the world outside this room bursts into our reflection. What distance is there between me and the struggle? Can I fight for my country from afar? Am I an activist? How can I be one? What distance is there between politics and my daily life? "We don't know where we are," Augusto says. Where are we? And again the question returns: what is our place in the world? Andrea begins to move, almost dancing. He brought a t-shirt and leaves it on the ground, tracing his silhouette. His voice, from a distance, tells of his absence on the outline. His death, perhaps. What do we leave behind when we disappear? What traces do we leave? Memory, as a form of distance within time and presence at the same time. The tension between Andrea telling us about his accident and the shape on the ground, which we can still feel. Mulanga tells us how, for the first time in her life, she finds herself geographically very close to her father, while at the same time feels she has never been so far from him. She finds herself close to her childhood and suddenly far from her adulthood. How do we position ourselves within distance and closeness? Like the ripples that form in water, our actions reverberate through space, through distance, through time. Paulien brings as her central theme the distance between artist and mother. Her fear of death in relation to her son. Time: past – present – future. And how, for her, the only way to escape this relentless time is to try to create a present moment, to be everything everywhere all at once. She saves us by sharing these few, so concise words with us. We escape fear only by staying like this: in the infinite instant, which she tries to create for her son. But distance can also help, says Tine. It can give us other perspectives; it can help us face things, see them more clearly. The distances we speak of are connected to one another, intertwine. They carry the themes that are part of our research, our lives, and we see them voiced by others. Speaking of these distances, perhaps the only thing we can say in the end is that the distance between us, in the moment we were talking about it, grew thinner — allowing us to speak, close up and from afar together, truly sharing, for one moment, only the present.
