Veldwerk

With their programme Veldwerk, Kunstenplatform PLAN B supports a group of artists in a long-term research project in rural space. There is only one criterion for their project: it must take place outside the city, or at least question the city as the center of things.

The artists thus put their practices, fields of interest and questions to work to investigate a landscape, and (re)imagine it while listening. Not as a nostalgic, deprived or authentic region in relation to the ever modernizing city, but as a cut-out of rural dynamics and relationships.

These interrogations resonate with the 2022 edition of our annual festival: Feral. We spent part of it at an urban farm, Le Début des Haricots, and questioned the binary opposition between the urban and the rural by recomposing the idea of public space.

Cifas is joining forces with Kunstenplatform PLAN B to present the projects developed during Veldwerk III.

Veldwerk III

The group of artists for Veldwerk III is composed of Nina de Vroome, Barbara T'Jonck, Tim Theo Deceuninck, May Abnet and Ánima O. Cassamajor.

They went to work in an old mining village, looked critically at the idea of a collective rural community, explored how the landscape can become a photographer, reimagined “the valley” as a meaningful place to think about information technology, and wondered how we can bring nature to the city and the city to nature - with a focus on people who have less access to it because of systemic oppression.

Project supported by the Flemish government.

Presentation of the projects

This public presentation will be an opportunity for the five artists in the programme to complete their research trajectory by presenting an object that bears witness to their thinking: a poster, leaflet, publication, etc. They will activate these objects through readings, performances or the presentation of images. These fragments of research and their multitude of questions all (re)imagine rural space in their own way.

Languages: mainly English, a bit of French and Dutch.

Kunstenplatform PLAN B

Kunstenplatform PLAN B works with imagination in the rural context. They support artistic practices, create presentation moments, and ask questions about rural reality. This is done through location-specific projects which are created both on their own initiative (Veldwerk, Die Malle Jan, Kunstenfestival PLAN B) and at the invitation of various organisations (Uitwijken, KONVOOI, Sorry Not Sorry). Recurring themes are the collective, the non-urban and the small-scale.

Since 2023, the artists of Kunstenplatform PLAN B have been exploring Village Dramaturgy, meeting the residents of Haren, a village-like enclave in the Brussels-Capital region, to begin researching issues of participation. Platform member Vincent Focquet will lead a seminar on dramaturgy in 2025, co-produced by Cifas and La Bellone.