Propositions #8: I Wanna Be Adored
(the Non-Fascist Remix)

BAK, basis voor actuele kunst in Utrecht proudly presents Propositions #8: I Wanna Be Adored (the Non-Fascist Remix), an evening program of performance, music, installations, hosted space, dancing, bites, and celebration with the BAK 2018/2019 Research Fellows. The program is the culmination of the BAK 2018/2019 Fellowship Program, in which the Fellows individually and collectively developed their research dealing with the pressing issues of the contemporary, including-in concert with BAK’s main research focus Propositions for Non-Fascist Living–the resurfacing undercurrent of fascisms. Propositions #8: I Wanna Be Adored (the Non-Fascist Remix) synthesizes the research and learning trajectory of the past ten months, and addresses it through a celebratory spatial experience of a party otherwise.

As crises of the contemporary compound, society demands our bodies and minds stay productive while simultaneously processing anxiety, violence, and trauma. Through the real risks of social change work and building practices toward liberation, there is a need for collective experiences that can deal with the urgencies of our times while allowing and fostering joy, generosity, celebration, hospitality, and togetherness.

Propositions #8: I Wanna Be Adored (the Non-Fascist Remix) takes cues from alternative ways of coming together, whether through collective organizing, artistic practice, study groups, or the dance floor, and is inspired by legacies of club and night culture in which less traditional sites of knowledge production, such as the body, the party, the collective experience, sonic environments, and dance, are key. Spaces that center embodied celebration and enjoyment along with communal knowledges and negotiations can offer tangible tools, imaginaries, and possibilities for fostering joyful and critical acknowledgement, release, healing, conviviality, artistic practice, and expression—modeling practices for being together otherwise.

The title of the event is inspired by Madchester band The Stone Roses’ song “I Wanna Be Adored,” taking a facetious spin to the sometimes superficial and isolating position of “the artist” and “the club,” and proposing a “non-fascist remix.” This event is premised on a love for (more than) humanity without sorting according to social “types” or rigorous zones of exclusion for categories of people, while also intentionally facilitating space for those who feel the brunts and violences of structural oppressions.

Program

Download the program here.

Ongoing:

Apoca & Futuro, 2019
Charm Mone
Apoca & Futuro is comprised of two audio files composed as experience enhancers, developed to support and guide imagining through the ideas of apocalypse and future. These tracks were created by artist Charm Mone to accompany a reading performance by artist Jota Mombaça, performed with the Fellows in April 2019.

Serpent Rain, 2016 and Zumbi Somos Nós (We Are All Zumbi), 2006
Curated by Thiago de Paula Souza
Denise Ferreira Da Silva and Arjuna Neuman, Serpent Rain, 2016, video, 30 min., and Frente 3 de Fevereiro, Zumbi Somos Nós (We Are All Zumbi), 2006

Serpent Rain is as much an experiment in working together as it is a film about the future. The collaboration between Denise Ferreira Da Silva and Arjuna Neuman began with the discovery of a sunken slave ship, and an artist asking a philosopher: How do we get to the posthuman without technology? And the philosopher replying: Maybe we can make a film without time. The result is a film that speaks from inside the cut between slavery and resource extraction; between black lives matter and the matter of life; between the state changes of elements and timelessness and tarot. Together we ask: What becomes of the human if expressed by the elements?

Zumbi Somos Nós (We Are All Zumbi) combines the multipdisciplinary açoes (actions), artistic interventions in public space, and social criticism by the Brazilian collective Frente 3 de Fevereiro. All of these, along with vibrating musical compositions produced by some of the 15 members of the group, question the racial discrimination suffered by young black Brazilians at the hands of the local authorities.

I Wanna Be Adored (the Video Loop), 2019
Curated by Charl Landvreugd with BAK 2018/2019 Fellows
The I Wanna Be Adored (the Non-Fascist Remix) video loop is a motley assemblage of online video clips selected by the BAK 2018/2019 Fellows. The short clips, between 1–4 minutes each, narrate or relate to ideas of wanting to be adored and “non-fascist living.”

The Emancipatory Significance of Provincialization, 2019
Curated by Katayoun Arian
This playlist functions as a mixtape of sorts. Mixing older clips, including political philosopher Hannah Arendt and science fiction writer Octavia Butler, with videos about today’s insurgencies and globalization processes, it hints at proposing emancipatory and feminist politics to inform non-fascist attitudes and political action. These videos also reference the theory, jokes, practices, music, histories, art practices, etc. that were cited, read, watched, and thought through during the course of the ten- month Fellowship Program.

19–21 hrs
Welcome/hosting, 2019
Jeanne van Heeswijk and BAK 2018/2019 Fellows, Yallah Sabaya, Laced Up Project
At the threshold of the space are greetings and welcomes from the BAK 2018/2019 Fellows, Yallah Sabaya, and the Laced Up Project (both Utrecht). Yallah Sabaya, a special evening with dance and music just for women organized with Welkom in Utrecht and De Voorkamer, Utrecht, leaves messages to those who enter from their gathering in BAK the night before, one of several traces throughout the event. These messages address the idea of being adored, of welcomes, among other themes. The Laced Up Project, along with BAK 2018/2019 Fellow Jeanne van Heeswijk welcome people with treats, raffle tickets to win prizes, and the chance to make a label with a message, quote, identity, etc. you want to transmit that during the event.

19–21 hrs
Snacks and music
Jessica de Abreau, Lukás Likavcan, Narges Mohammadi, De Voorkamer, Mick Wilson and BAK 2018/2019 Fellows, Wijkkeuken van Zuid
While you listen to music, get some drinks, and take a look at the videos, we welcome you to take some delicious, nourishing snacks as part of the evening. The snacks and bites are prepared by the BAK 2018/2019 Fellows, De Voorkamer, Utrecht, and Wijkkeuken van Zuid, Rotterdam. De Voorkamer opened in 2016 to provide an inclusive space to facilitate and stimulate the talents of status holders and people living in asylum seeking centers. In Wijkkeuken van Zuid, talented home cooks from Rotterdam- Zuid cook delicious delicious meals, representing the culinary qualities of the Afrikaanderwijk, Rotterdam.

19–20 hrs
DJ Jes (BAK 2018/2019 Fellow Jessica de Abreu) and DJ RUR (BAK 2018/2019 Fellow Lukáš Likavčan) will play their premiere sets for the culmination of the BAK 2018/2019 Fellowship Program! Their skills were developed with the help of a DJ workshop led by BAK 2018/2019 Fellow Katayoun Arian.

20–21.15 hrs
Narges Mohammadi DJs

20.30–21.00 hrs:
The Thread and the Gap, 2019
Patricia Kaersenhout and Lukáš Likavčan with Pelumi Adejumo
The Thread and the Gap is a performance that mobilizes poetics of sound, text, textiles, and bodies into an act of healing of the “colonial gap,” creating a site for an impossible encounter—a gesture toward a space where the unforgivable crimes of colonial modernity might be tenderly acknowledged and transcended. It does not precipitate redemption, but a possibility of ways of being together otherwise. The audio track is performed by spoken word artist Pelumi Adejumo.

21–21.10 hrs
Cacophony Reading, 2019
BAK 2018/2019 Fellows, BAK team, Mohammadi DJs
This audio intervention, played once during Propositions #8: I Wanna Be Adored, was recorded at BAK in April 2019 at a workshop on visionary fiction, activist writing, and critical practices led by artist Jota Mombaça. The people read, together but in disorder, The Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804, as translated by Laurent Dubois and John Garrigus.

21.10–21.15 hrs
Water People Statement, 2019
Fellows Jeanne van Heeswijk, Charl Landvreugd, Lukáš Likavčan
In April 2019, artist Jota Mombaça joined the BAK 2018/2019 Fellows by invitation of Fellows Thiago de Paula Souza and Mick Wilson, along with the BAK team. Among the many critical conversations, collective practices, and performances that occurred during this time together, Mombaça led a workshop on visionary fiction, activist writing, and critical practices, in which groups of Fellows speculated into the future and wrote declarations of independence. This Water People Statement, played once during Propositions #8: I Wanna Be Adored, is created by and performed by BAK 2018/2019 Fellows Jeanne van Heeswijk, Charl Landvreugd, and Lukáš Likavčan.

21.15–22.30 hrs
Runway and Costuming
Haseeb Ahmed and BAK 2018/2019 Fellows, Fazle Shairmahomed
In January 2019, BAK 2018/2019 Fellows Jessica de Abreu and Patricia Kaersenhout, along with BAK, invited artist and activist Naomie Pieter to guide the Fellowsthrough a performative workshop on Pieter’s practice and the body in Black women’s activism, which left a lasting impression on the Fellows. One element of the workshop included teaching the Fellows to walk a runway and dance a soul train, reflecting and embodying joyful resistances that respect and embellish legacies of Black women’s embodied activism. For Propositions #8: I Wanna Be Adored (the Non-Fascist Remix), the Fellows bring back the runway with a new twist, adding a wind machine in reference to the research and work of BAK 2018/2019 Fellow Haseeb Ahmed, opening it with those at the event in relation to Pieter’s influence and BAK’s runway project What is the City But the People? (2018), and with hosting and runway education by artist Fazle Shairmahomed. Learn about runway, to walk a runway, and make and borrow outfits to stomp with.

22–00 hrs
Dancing in the Studio
Katayoun Arian, Sky Deep
Katayoun Arian (DJ discourse) spins from 22–22.40 hrs, and then from 22.40–00 hrs Sky Deep plays her premiere DJ set in the Netherlands on the invitation of BAK 2018/2019 Fellow Katayoun Arian through the platform Fwd: Gher Space.

Propositions for Non-Fascist Living
Propositions #8: I Wanna Be Adored (the Non-Fascist Remix) is the eighth program in BAK’s long-term research series Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017–ongoing), prompted by the resurfacing of historical and contemporary fascisms.

BAK 2018/2019 Fellows
BAK 2018/2019 Fellows are Netherlands-based writer, researcher, and curator Katayoun Arian; anthropologist, curator, and activist Jessica de Abreu; artist, activist, and womanist Patricia Kaersenhout; artist, writer, and curator Charl Landvreugd; and artist Jeanne van Heeswijk; as well as internationally-based artist and educator Haseeb Ahmed; curator and educator Thiago de Paula Souza; artist Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh; researcher and theorist Lukáš Likavčan; and artist, educator, and researcher Mick Wilson.

BAK Fellowship Program
The BAK Fellowship Program, inaugurated in 2017, is a site for the post-academic development of talent and critical practice that advance the notion of art as a public sphere and a political space. BAK offers a unique environment for learning, research, and art-making, which evolves in concert with its public programs. Ten research positions are offered per (academic) year to Netherlands-based and international practitioners involved in contemporary arts, theory, and activisms. Throughout the ten-month BAK 2018/2019 Fellowship Program, the ten Fellows have addressed, thought around, and experimented through a number of topics of the contemporary, including collective practices, conceptions of violence, colonial legacies, modeling, embodiment, instituting otherwise, and care, through their artistic practice, individual and collective research, and with exceptional guests.

The realization of this project has been made possible through financial contributions by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the City Council, Utrecht.

BAK’s main partner in the field of education and research is HKU University of the Arts Utrecht.