Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum are coming to the end of their residence in the 'In Overvecht' art programme in which five groups of artists have lived and worked for four months in an apartment of a 10-storey building before its demolition as a consequence of the new town planning project for the Overvecht district in the Dutch city of Utrecht.
A neighbourhood built with the idealist objective of creating a wonderful model of community and coexistence. A failed model, due, among other reasons, to the lack of small businesses and shops to actually serve the said community and satisfy their needs. A neighbourhood far from the centre of Utrecht which is currently attracting a large number of migrants and undergoing great social changes. An ideal neighbourhood for analysing a society of large shopping centres.
Jaio and van Gorkum have taken part with their project 'Blijf binnen. Sluit ramen en deuren', an essential preliminary step for the subsequent project which was developed together with consonni in Barakaldo. It will shortly appear in the publication which consonni is preparing with the artists and which is to be released at the beginning of 2009. It involves a compilation of the different stages and reflections as well as the research implied by the zombie metaphor both in Utrecht and Barakaldo.
Among the other actions making up their project in Holland, was a talk by Rebelact, a group of activist clowns formed a few months ago in Amsterdam whose aim is to agglutinate art, humour, activism and the media and who had already organised a zombie walk in protest of the consumer society. Then, on 19 April, they held a zombie walk through the streets of Utrecht which was co-produced with Casco Projects within the Ricardo Basbaum’s Re-projecting project (Utrecht).
Now they are to conclude their residence with a series of talks on 27 and 28 September and an exhibition, together with the rest of the residence artists, which will be held at the Centraal Museum from September 29 to October 5 (Nicolaaskerkhof 10, Utrecht).
Presentations and Debate:
In Overvecht in context ’art projects in neighborhoods’
Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 September 14:00-16:00
Aula Centraal Museum
Day 1: Cinematic monuments for Overvecht
With: Renée Kool, Neeltje ten Westenend and Henriette Waal, Bettina van Santen, Leon Borlee, Endry van Velzen, Arnold Reijndorp and Jord den Hollander
Day 2: Suburbia and subculturen
With: Linda-Maria Birbeck, Sjaak Langenberg, David Hamers, Klaas van Gorkum and Iratxe Jaio, Siebe Thissen, Mira Kho and Frank Siddiqui.
