2020 – 2023, Ongoing research
ATLAS is an artistic and social laboratory that unites a collective of artists, critical thinkers and cultural workers. This temporary collective works around four central themes of the European project BEPART: power dynamics, collective policy, redefining the public, and the significance of a particular place.
Their collaborative practice consists of two components: a book of mappings and a multimedia happening based on these mappings. In turn, the practice also generates new mappings for the book.
Atlas Collective consists amongst others of Elly Van Eeghem, Marieke De Munck, Matthias Velle, Niké van Os, Samah Hijawi, Lieselot Siddiki, Dominique Collet, Leontien Allemeersch, Robin Vanbesien, Michiel Soete, Chris Rotsaert, Fatih Devos, Evelyne Coussens, May Abnet, Andy Sarfo, Max Pairon & Jorik De Wilde. This project marks the first time the collective is working together.
ATLAS Ljubljana – October 2021
In October 2021 we went with a group of artists to Ljubljana in the framework of the second Assembly of the BE PART Network. We lived and collaborated for one week together and shared our research with an audience of the City of Women Festival with the Closing Happening x HET VERMOEDEN VAN EEN STAD x SUM NA MESTO x A HINT OF A CITY x.
Closing happening at the Old Power Station Elektro
Photos © Leontien Allemeersch
READ MORE ABOUT ATLAS IN LJUBLJANA
Atlas is a temporary and fluid collective of around 15 artists, cultural workers and art critics each with their own practice related to participation. During several residencies they share their practices and collaborate on a common-practice. Socially engaged and collaborative art practices are being discussed in the context of specific sites and audiences as well as changing power dynamics and political shifts. In a time of worsening working conditions, Atlas offers the space for artistic work and reflection, shared meals, and having fun together with curators, young artists, students and cultural workers.
In October 2021 the Atlas-collective dived into a residency in Ljubljana on invitation of the City of Women-festival. As a way of ‘living practice’ Atlas lived together for 9 days, to see how their practices can root in a new city and how to relate them to each other. Everyone uses their own tools, for some that is food, for others a pen, a stage, needle and thread, our voice,.. During their stay Atlas builded a portrait, a possible city made out of impressions of the place surrounding them. Linked by coincidences, driven by curiosity and connections.
How to gather all these different impressions, actions and thoughts? As a working methodology the Atlas-collective shares on a regular basis ‘bezinksels’, you can think of the cold coffee in your cup after a day of work, the leftover screw in your pocket or a scribble in your notebook you don’t want to forget. These bezinskels, which can be translated as residues, give insights into the different trajectories of the collective. All these outcomes aren’t finalised or concretized but intuitive and organic reactions to what is happening.
And all of a sudden, by bringing together all these residues through connecting, combining and collecting, a landscape unfolds itself. Atlas invites you to dive into our Sum na mesto. Discover a map of the city consisting of different points of views, endless streams of thoughts and fragments of impressions assembled by many hands and eyes. This is a welcome to dive in the surroundings you know or places you haven’t been before.
ATLAS - A BOOK
From September 2022 we start to work on ATLAS, a book. This will be a publication looking back on ten years of STADSATELIER at VIERNULVIER and forward, towards looking at participation in the arts in a different way. Check upcoming stories soon.