Group exposition: Our Invisible Hands

Contributors: Anastasia Eggers, Pia Jacques de Dixmude, Collectif dallas, Karolina Michalik, Claire Chassot, Ines Marita Schärer & Caroline Profanter, Jonathan De Maeyer, Ciel Grommen & Maximiliaan Royakkers, Mona Thijs, Yacinth Pos, Ioana Lupascu

Curators: Ils Huygens en Annelies Thoelen

Our Invisible Hands is the name of the Seasonal Neighbours group exposition organised in Z33, centre for art, design and architecture in Hasselt (Belgium). Between 30 January and 17 April 2022 various research trajectories were presented in the form of finished works, work in progresses, talks, and documentation of in-situ interventions. 

Our Invisible Hands showed the impact of temporary labour in the agricultural sector, and the perspective of the working man in the rural landscape. Starting from the real-life reality in the field, the exhibition developed themes of rituals, boundaries, communication, identity, coming home, and the relationship between humans and plants. Seasonal labor comes and goes, and is local. How can we understand this ever-recurring migratory flow from within?

More information on the various trajectories can be found on the trajectory pages.

PRESS

Read an article about the exhibition, published in news paper De Standaard here (in Dutch). ︎︎︎

Listen to a radio interview with Ciel Grommen and Maximiliaan Royakkers, aired at Klara here (in Dutch).︎︎︎

17, 18 and 26.09.2021

Radio recordings in Haspengouw

During two evenings and an afternoon, Mona Thijs collected songs and stories for her project Playlist van de pluk on three different farms in Haspengouw. She was accompanied by translators and a studio on wheels.

20.03.2022

Sacred Fire Pot procession

Sacred Fire Pot by dallas collectif (Camille Gaillard & Salomon Tyler) is a new ritual object, re-interpreting the traditional fire pot and referring to its ancestral strength as a place for gathering. It has a ceremonial shape and is transportable with the help of four people. On the 20th of March it will move in a procession over the Roman road that runs through the orchards of Hesbaye in order to be lit at the fruit company Pipo in Sint-Truiden. A symbol of care, guard of the plants against the frost, protector of the future crops and fruits, and above all a representative of all the elements and people who have this same temporal and punctual movement.

Practical info:

We gather at 14h00 at the parking lot of the church of Halmaal, 3800 Sint-Truiden. Exact location here.

Procession route: Halmaal-Dorp > Vermerlaan > Romeinseweg > Bevingen-Centrum > End point: Bruine-Lieve-Vrouwstraat

Lighting of the "holy firepot" with drinks at 17h00 in the
Rue Bruine-Lieve-Vrouw, 2nd orchard on the right after the Chapel Bruine-Lieve-Vrouw. Exact location here.

20.04.2019 - 20.04.2019

Field Essays

An exhibition installation by Maximiliaan Royakkers & Ciel Grommen, shown in Transfer space of MarionDeCannière Gallery, Antwerp︎︎︎

Invited to present the House for Seasonal Neighbours in a gallery in Antwerp, Max and Ciel decided to show two new Field Essays which continued the exploration of potential representational spaces for homeless seasonal neighbours in the Belgian countryside of today and tomorrow.

On one image, one can recognize the same parking lot of the local Aldi market in Boeshoven, this time even more dressed-up as a cultural space. The other shows the basis of a windmill on a strawberry field of rural Flanders, that turned into a futuristic field house to shelter from the rain. However, on both, humans seem to remain invisible again —or are they just camouflaged?

29.09.2018

Greetings from Belgium

A cosy afternoon as closing event for the ‘House for Seasonal Neighbours’.

For the occasion, we screened the short movie ‘A Collection of Hours’, graduation project of Florinda Ciucio, who was filming this summer in a local fruit company.