Falke Pisano — Where should we begin?

+++ Falke Pisano was our Superhost in 2022. +++

From 13 January 2022 to 15 January 2023, artist Falke Pisano was offered the museum as a workspace and meeting point for the Superhost project Where Should We Begin?. The result was a multiple and layered installation built around conversations, performances, lectures, workshops, film screenings, drawings, tools and spatial interventions. The starting point was a sustained artistic and conversational inquiry into working conditions in the arts, with particular attention to the invisible labour behind public programming in art institutions.

The project aimed to bridge discursive ideals with material realities, creating space for collective imagination and reflection. Pisano developed new tools, drawings and instructions for how to use the top floor of the museum and invited other artists to respond to her interventions.

A film was shown by artist Simnikiwe Buhlungu (My dear kite (you can but you can’t) – Late Yawnings, 2021), recorded during the pandemic and reflecting on creativity and displacement. In July, artist Karen Vantvelt – s/he – created a spatial intervention in response to a blue gate installed by Pisano. Later in the summer, RA Walden introduced a new language, ẍây ithřa, developed as an alternative to the restrictive character of English. Muhka presented a series of prints and a podcast workshop on this language.

In parallel, K. Verlag and Muhka published the book Inserts in Real Time: Dora García Performance Work 2000–2023, offering a retrospective of García’s performances with a focus on political engagement, feminism and queer theory. Contact info@muhka.be to check whether the book is still available in the museum shop.

About Falke Pisano

Falke Pisano lives and works in Rotterdam. Her practice spans sculpture, installation, performance, video work and artist publications. Her artistic practice scrutinises the ways in which systems of thought are structured, formalised and ultimately naturalised. Her series of works stem from long-term research cycles that delve deep into specific subject matter and undermine conventional frameworks of knowledge by triggering a continuous exchange between language, ideas, materials and forms.

Pisano states: ‘I am interested in how we come to know the world, how we develop the capacity to look at this world critically, to be able to tolerate more and more complexity, and to adjust our worldview (and self-image) again and again. I am interested in how, by constantly thinking and speculating about our position and capacity to act within this world, we can slowly develop methods, interventions and forms of organisation that go beyond merely aesthetic and representational proposals, but still carry the power of the imagination and in which it remains possible to connect in unexpected, or in non-optimised functional ways, different modes of thinking (theoretical, poetic and practical) and acting (imagining, articulating, moving, organising, making, doing).’

Invited artists

Simnikiwe Buhlungu

Born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her work investigates how knowledge is produced and circulated. She moves between socio-historical phenomena and everyday observations, translating them into images, texts and sounds. In her recent work, she reflects on beehives, listens to mbaqanga music, and is seeking contributions to Simunye Resource Works, a publishing house that is forever yet-to-exist.

(s)he

A Belgian artist whose work balances between physicality, language, digital sculpture and existential observation. Her poetic text-based practice is closely intertwined with performance and spatial experience. Her work explores the boundaries of gender, identity and language.

(s)he lives inside

(s)he lives

(s)he lives a life

alive

her head is gone

her words are found

(s)he becomes

(s)he extended her legs towards the walls , and her fingers into an emotional layer of a hidden body . the body is stuck . you can call her he , but (s)he has breasts , doesn’t like bread and grew up in the West . Belgium rooted , but (s)he is not rooted , could not escape , but tries to . needs some help but isn’t helpless . (s)he cares without knowing , (s)he lives without growing . (s)he is made from clay . not found at an archeological sound , but sounds like the digital world behind . ( words . )

cries ( sometimes ) hides ( sometimes ) but mostly hangs around smiling .

(s)he is . (s)he is alive . but does (s)he know where (s)he is right now ?

RA Walden

RA Walden creates sculpture, performance, video and printed matter. Their socially engaged practice draws from crip theory, queer theory, science fiction and speculative fiction. Their work explores care, tenderness, embodiment and vulnerability—and how these relate to systems, language and time. With ẍây ithřa, Walden developed a new language as a caring form of communication for sick, trans and disabled bodies.

Superhost

Superhost is an annual trajectory in which an artist or collective engages in a year-long sustainable relationship with the museum and its publics. The programme supports the production of new artworks and encourages performative or discursive practices. Superhost is a form of collaboration in which time and experimentation are central.