Wide Ecologies
Masterclass in the framework spring project week, KASK, Ghent
in collaboration with Netwerk Aalst
15 Mar | 19 Mar 2021
In times of the current sanitary crises, a growing necessity to invent new forms of interaction challenges the ways in which art institutions engage with audiences and local communities, also putting the architectural ensemble of the museum at stake. As an outdoor activity and a communitarian practice, gardening may offer many useful clues to twenty-first-century cultural practices, even beyond the defies imposed by the emergence of Covid-19.
During the week of March 15-19, 2021, Curatorial Studies will investigate the garden as a methodology that not only traverses the works of artists but that also can be found in new approaches for art initiatives. We will delve into the possibilities of artistic and curatorial practices departing from the terrain, as well as from the principle of cultivating as a gesture of awareness and care towards the surroundings.
One of this research's main goals will be to chart a network of agents, actors, and initiatives on the field to draw a better idea of how gardens can be inscribed into the contemporary art scene at a local level. The group will visit various initiatives experimenting with the format of the garden according to a comprehensive understanding of ecology. Some of them are Bart Backaert, head of the Green Implementation Department of the City of Aalst; Komplot, in Brussels; Flor Maesen and his Land of the Confused; the Garden at Wiels; Lise Duclaux; Kobe Matthys; the Zenne Garden; Filip Van Dingenen and his Platform for Algae Diplomacy; and Wendy Morris.
Our field research and discussions are expected to contribute on a theoretical level to the deliberations and debate currently held by Netwerk Fabriek, in Aalst. Apart from the documentation of the research conducted during the week, a practical proposition curated by Curatorial Studies in the context of Netwerk Fabriek in the next few months would be a possibility for a tangible outcome of this project week.
For more info, please check:
Netwerk Aalst's website and Kask's Curatorial Studies' website