Part of the puntWG Open Call Series

shy* play is a series of performative events initiated by Aster Arribas and Antje Nestel, in collaboration with Angelo Custodio, Karime Salame Sainz and Rajni Shah. *shy is used here as a shorthand for shyness, introversion, and neurodivergence. The asterisk gestures a refusal to adhere to a final form of fixed categories.

shy* play departs from the urgency to reflect and craft amongst the hindrances that the dominant art world's contexts have confronted us with: In our experience, shy, introverted and neurodivergent expressions suffer under the regime of neurotypicality and extraversion which has become the standard method for institutional artistic experimentation and sociality formation. In response, this project asks: can shyness, introversion, and neurodivergence be a means for creative and experimental sociality formation?

In this project, neurodivergent tendencies act as springboards for the creation of different relational techniques which, in turn, perform as a means for artistic experiments in neurodivergent sociality. We hope to facilitate a spacetime where shyness, introversion and neurodivergence can exist outside the bounds of neurotypical hegemony, while also exploring the potential of creating new ways of doing-together-in-difference.

PuntWG will act as a laboratory where shy* play will collaborate with visiting humans and more-than-humans in exploring techniques that employ the voice, space, relationality, and performativity. A 300 meter-long fabric of various textures and opacities will become a space-shifter and facilitator throughout the project’s duration. All shy* play events and activities are organised for a limited number of visitors, so make sure to sign up.

shy* play is generously supported by Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Stichting Stokroos and DAS Research.

Events

shy* play Workshops
20th and 27th of May, 1st, 3rd and 10th of June from 14:00 to 17:00
Sign up: https://shy-play.org/events.html

Through embodied and physical techniques of relation, participants will explore together-in-difference the potential for valuing otherwise when departing from neurodivergent tendencies. What if there is no center of attention or space? How to practice a decentered visibility? How can we create an architecture that challenges the view that the human subject is at the center of experience?

Throughout the duration of the workshop, a 300-meter-long fabric composed of various textures and opacities will be used as a space shifter and facilitator. It will also host activities such as costuming, body wrapping, thresholding, voicing, transferring text, and drawing on surfaces, as well as other unexpected techniques.

All shy* play's events are procedural: a collective construction of spacetime with those visiting (both human and more-than-human) whereby it is assumed that each mode of existing, seeing, voicing, experiencing, participating, expressing, and moving in the environment has the same existential value, all the while recognizing the effects of cumulative trauma load that neurotypical demands can have on a neurodivergent bodymind.

shy* play workshops are organised for a limited number of visitors, so make sure to sign up.

shy* play Lounging Sessions
25th, 26th of May, 2nd, 4th and 8th of June from 14:00 to 18:00/20:00
Sign up: https://shy-play.org/events.html

Participants of the lounging session will enter into the traces of the previous workshop, which will serve as the spatial starting point for inhabiting a shared timespace. These traces will host directionalities of neurodivergent tendencies to be immersed within a hangout experiment. There will be textual information and cues to relational techniques that linger in the space, and one can choose to engage with them.

Specifically designed for the occasion, costumes will be available for all participants to wear. These costumes will be large enough to accommodate all body shapes and forms, and ribbons, ropes, and elastic straps will be provided for adjusting. The costumes can also host drawings and writings, as well as any desired transformations.

shy* play Lounging Sessions are organised for a limited number of visitors, so make sure to sign up.

Part of the airWG Series

In the “Chimera” series, Ksenia Bilyk observes cultural matters that are used by Russian political propaganda.

In her works, she attempts to understand the scale of propaganda and how it motivates people to support the aggressive war effort.

The resentment that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union combined with history of the victory over fascism in World War II, turned this memory into a psychotic, almost religious cult with a desire for revanche.

On February 24, 2022, along with tank fire and rocket explosions, we witnessed the results of propаganda full of manipulative anti-Western rhetoric, which now serves as a facade for the destruction of the so-called “brotherly nation”.

Working in the context of war, Bilyk tries to capture the sick, ugly essence of the aggressor and highlight the prejudice that has poisoned the collectiven consciousness. She seeks to uncover the mechanics behind the twisted mirror that distorts reality beyond recognition.

Since Russian propaganda is based mainly on narratives of the past, most of Bilyk's works from this series have references to Soviet symbols. She intentionally uses symbols that have been distorted by propaganda, as they have lost their original cultural meaning and have become a mere tool for propaganda themselves. She distorts them into even more absurd, ironic, and helpless forms following the same myth-making manner.

Opening times: 15:00 - 18:00

Part of the atelierWG Series

At puntWG, you can see my first explorations of an alternative paradise and I would love to talk to you about it.

For 2500 years, earthly paradise was defined and shaped by prophets, kings, painters, explorers and politicians. What they painted for us is a delightful picture of an isolated, walled haven where you lack nothing: for centuries a dream image that is as stable as it is unattainable.

But does that image still suffice as an ideal desired world? Does it still match the perception and desires of people in our current era? Or is an alternative, contemporary representation of the earthly paradise conceivable? A form that yields something essentially different from what a miracle garden, a tropical beach or other 'pamper resort' has to offer us? And what could such a paradise look like?

I will occupy myself with these questions in the coming years and I will report visually on this Project Paradise. Not with the illusion of being able to deliver the final image. But making an effort to visualize and present a 'workable' version of paradise as comfort and inspiration for possible places of escape.

Consultation Hours Paradise 2.0

Interviews about paradise, by appointment

3-6 June, 10:00-13:00 and 19:30-21:30

As part of my Project Paradise, I have conversations with diverse people about their image of paradise, based on a set number of questions. 

With CONSULTATION HOUR Paradise 2.0 I want to find out in what different forms of paradise exists in 2023.

If you want to share your thoughts on paradise with me, you can sign up for an interview here.

Read more about Project Paradijs

www.helgkos.nl

Photography by Ilya Rabinovic

Part of the puntWG Open Call Series

Back in 1637 one could buy a canal house in Amsterdam with a tulip bulb, during the so-called tulipmania, the first economic bubble. Their function as a currency, with its value just as unreliable as crypto currency today, was short-lived. Its value changed completely again in the Dutch Famine of 1945, when people ate old dry tulip bulbs. The bulbs went from currency to emergency food. Tulip bulbs are both a symbol for the unjust wealth the Netherlands gathered from colonialism, and of the poverty caused by WW2. 

For the exhibition we produce a limited amount of ceramic coins called ‘Tulpengulden’, that can be used to purchase food and drinks. We turn the gallery into a bank, where we offer a currency exchange service. The entrance is where the actual exchange happens. The exchange rate changes throughout the show, which is displayed on a screen. 

We use the kitchen to cook on Fridays - starting ourselves with Curry Udon, a dish that combines Indian curry that travelled from the UK to Japan with Japanese noodles and fish broth, with tulip bulbs as topping. We serve cocktails based on tulipvodka and mocktails with tulipsyrup.  Next Friday's menus are by artist/chefs Müge Yilmaz and Mattia Papp. As the menu changes, so does the exchange rate for the coins.

Events:
Friday 31 March, 18h: Opening event and dinner
Friday 07 April, 18h: Dinner by Mattia Pap
Friday 14 April, 18h: Dinner by Müge Yilmaz

Generously supported by:

Eau&Gaz
https://eauetgaz.org

Stichting Stokroos
https://stokroos.nl

Dinners sponsored by:

Kesbeke
https://www.kesbeke.nl

Photography by Ilya Rabinovic

Part of the airWG Series

Open:
Saturday and Sunday 18-19 & 25-26 March, 2pm-6pm.
Monday-Friday 20-24 March, 3pm-7pm. 

WG Artist in residence Anna Kakhiani from Kyiv came to the Netherlands shortly after the beginning of the war, first living in the 'opvangcentrum' in the former townhall of Piershil, Hoekse Waard, then setting up studio in Amsterdam. Completing her 3 month residency at airWG she now presents her work in an exhibition at puntWG.

The exhibition entitled Tomorrow's Light is Falling on My Wall captures, in a non-documentary way, the changed sense of the future that has come about because of the war, as Ukrainians are forced to leave their homes and abandon their lives.  

Anna Kakhiani (1991) is a Ukrainian visual artist and curator, working with a range of media, including video, film, text, installations, as well as performance and land art. During the last decade, she has developed art projects and installations, often in collaboration with artist groups, cultural organisations and artistic initiatives. She has exhibited at a variety of venues, predominantly in Ukraine, and participated in the residency curated by Liverpool Biennale 2018. Recently, she took part in the Moon Gallery Foundation project “The Essence of Home” 2022-2023.

Anna Kakhiani can be found on Instagram: @annakakhiani and Facebook: anna.kakhiani.

Anna Kakhiani’s WG residency is supported by the Dutch Fund for Ukrainian artists,
Mondriaan Fund and airWG.