Trainings for the Not-Yet, openings weekend at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, 2019 Photo: Tom Janssen
Works, Typologies and Capacities, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Installation with potatoes and wall prints at Trainings for the Not-Yet, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, 2019
An exhibition as a series of trainings for a future of being together otherwise, convened with a multitude of collaborators by Jeanne van Heeswijk and BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
Trainings for the Not-Yet, is an exhibition that evolves through a series of trainings organized in weekly chapters. The trainings range from “dreamscaping” to radical listening, from creating sanctuary to enacting radical care, from fighting housing struggles to building solidarity economies, and from composing intersectional alliances to becoming collective. They take place amid and with artworks by van Heeswijk as well as by an array of international artists engaged in social change and modeling collectivity. Van Heeswijk sees these works as learning objects. Meant to be used and accommodated by and in the trainings, they are living repositories of knowledges, stories, and experiences; the tools-in-wait for activation in difficult conversations and joyful praxis; and the archives of past and future anticipations of what “we” want to become when practicing visions of transformative justice, equality, dignity and love, care, resilience, collective power and sharing, and the relationality spawning alternative possibilities. Van Heeswijk’s works include objects and environments from some of her pivotal past and ongoing projects, including Philadelphia Assembled, Philadelphia, 2014–2017; Homebaked, Liverpool, 2010–ongoing; and Public Faculty Series, various locations, 2008–ongoing. Other learning objects comprise works such as Patricia Kaersenhout’s Formats of Care in Times of Violence, 2019; Adelita Husni-Bey’s Agency, 2014; Carmen Papalia’s, White Cane Amplified, 2015; Ultra-red’s Protocols for the Sound of Freedom, 2012; Black Quantum Futurism, Time Travel Experiments, 2017; and Adrian Pipers’s Funk Lessons, 1983, among others.
TFTNY 14 September 2019–12 January 2020
Opening: 14 September 2019 Jeanne van Heeswijk, Laura Raicovich, Maria Hlavajova, Adelita Husni-Bey, Patricia Kaersenhout, Shumaila Anwar (Initiative for Diversity, Inclusion & Peace (IDIP)), Angel Bat Dawid (Le Guess Who?), Utrecht in Dialoog, Habiba Chrifi-Hammoudi (U Centraal), Joy Mariama Smith, Adrian Piper, Denise Valentine, Nancy Jouwe, Black Quantum Futurism (Camae Ayewa and Rasheedah Phillips), Chloë Bass, Beatrice Catanzaro, Kolar Aparna, Mehbratu Efrem Gebreab, Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh (Arab Image Foundation) and Hamada al-Joumah, Qanat, Jérôme Giller, To Be Determined (Clara Balaguer and Gabriel Fontana), Fran Ilich, Jun Saturay, Ying Que, Grace Lostia, Alejandro Navarrete, Bakudapan Food Study Group, Urban Front (David Harvey and Miguel Robles-Durán), Afrikaanderwijk Cooperative, Superuse Studios, Freehouse, De Voorkamer (Pim van der Mijl and Shay Raviv), W.A.G.E, Philadelphia Assembled (Toward Sanctuary Dome), Staci Bu Shea (Casco Art Institute), Laced-Up Project (Sarah Mobley and Maaike van Dooren), Whitney Stark, Carmen Papalia, Zein Nakhoda, Homebaked Community Land Trust (CLT), Britt Jürgensen, Marianne Heaslip, URBED, Homebaked Bakery (Angela McKay), Homegrown Collective (Samantha Jones), Selçuk Balamir (de Nieuwe Meent, Code Rood), Joska Ottjes (Vereniging de Kasko, Bond Precaire Woonvormen), Irene Calabuch Mirón, Ethel Baraona Pohl, Refugee collective We Are Here, Elke Uitentuis, Abdulaal Hussein and Paul De Bruyne, New Women Connectors, Stranded FM, Joram Kroon (Prace), Welkom in Utrecht, Gabriel Erlach, Ultra-red, Mustapha Seray Bah (Stichting Mowad), Goldsmith.Company, Extinction Rebellion Utrecht, and others
TRAINING PROGRAM TRAININGS FOR THE NOT-YET: Community-to-community trainings, with artists, organizers, activists, dancers, cooks, and more
The opening weekend unfolds through a two-day program of conversations with and by Utrechters on the concerns and propositions that cast their relation to the city, titled 'The City Staircase' - a collaboration with Jeanne van Heeswijk, Gabriel Erlach and Utrecht in Dialoog.
Training N 9–13 September 2019 Furniture for the Not-Yet Training with Superuse Studios: furniture construction with reusable materials (a preliminary event for the program organizers, part of the preparation period for Trainings for the Not-Yet)
Training I 18–22 September 2019 Proscenium–Performing Institutions Training with Adelita Husni-Bey: participatory performance, role play, creative writing, and discussion
Training II 26–28 September 2019 Unforgetting & Reconnecting: Story Mapping Training with Nancy Jouwe and Denise Valentine: mapping timelines, street names, landmarks, oral histories, archival material, and personal histories
Training III 2–6 October 2019 Mad About Study Training with Joy Mariama Smith: collective reading and writing, conversations, somatics, movement research, karaoke, and more, culminating in a dance party and public intervention on Saturday 5 October 2019
Training IV 9–13 October 2019 Each Step Yields Depth Training with Chloë Bass: cooking, recipe writing, storytelling, dialogue, translation, language-learning, language-teaching, with public supper on Sunday 13 October 2019
Training V 9 & 11 October 2019 More than Friends Training with Staci Bu Shea: presentation, dialogue, and physical movement
Training VI 10 October 2019 Say YES to Consent Training with Laced-Up Project: discussions, presentations, and practical exercises on the art of consent
Training VII 12 October 2019 Extended Bodies: Care, Accountability, and Relation Training with Whitney Stark: thinking exercises and collaborative resource building (writing, speaking, mapping) to come up with and share tools, practices, and ideas on care, accountability, and relation
Training VIII 16–20 October 2019 Decommodifying Housing: How to Get There? Training with Homebaked Community Land Trust (CLT) (Britt Jürgensen and Marianne Heaslip), De Nieuwe Meent (Selçuk Balamir), de Kasko (Joska Ottjes), Refugee Collective We Are Here, Ethel Baraona Pohl, and Irene Calabuch Miron
Training IX 16–20 October 2019 The Diego de la Vega Coffee Co-op Autumn School Training with Fran Ilich: presentations and talks with images, case studies of alternative art, community and economic models, and collective production and spinning into motion of plans and strategies
Training X 22–26 October 2019 Open Access: Organizing Accessibility from the Grassroots Training with Carmen Papalia: dialogue, embodied movement, non-visual mapping, creative writing, exercising non-visual senses, and sign and banner making
Training XI 29–31 October 2019 A Week By & For: Designing Inclusive Spaces Training with De Voorkamer: food, spatial, textile, and media design, as well as poetry, storytelling, music, creative activism, and more, with a public get-together on Sunday 3 November 2019
Training XII 1–2 November 2019 Voices of New Women Training with New Women Connectors: plenary presentations, dialogue, work-tables, and group discussions locating the personal in relation to the political
Training XIII 6–9 November 2019 (New) Formats of Care in Times of Violence Training with Patricia Kaersenhout: storytelling, dialogue, embroidery, and spiritual healing
Training XIV 13–17 November 2019 Propositions #9: Deserting from the Culture Wars Symposium and trainings with BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, co-convened with Sven Lütticken
Training XV 20–22 November 2019 Community Futurisms Training with Black Quantum Futurism: neighborhood walks, freestyle poetry, soundscapes, building a toolbox to help reverse gentrification, interactive lecture, and building quantum event maps and quantum time capsules
Training XVI 27 November–1 December 2019 An investigation into collective work-processes for self-determination Training with Hamada al-Joumah and Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh: discussions, collective readings, presentations, and exercises for developing a resource box for collective working and decision-making processes
Training XVII 27 November–1 December 2019 QFCPSSBBXOXO:
Queer and Feminist
Physical and Critical
Self-Defense and Support
Bloc of Bodies
Training with a subdivision of To Be Determined (Clara Balaguer and Gabriel Fontana): deep listening, voice activation, team forming, and physical exercises to map limits and define strategies for protecting bodies
Training XVIII 4–5 December 2019 Disrupting Neoliberal Urban Governance: New Organizational Forms for the Immediate Future Training with Urban Front (David Harvey and Miguel Robles-Durán): dialogue, seminar, drawing, and writing to conceive new organizational forms that can disrupt, co-opt, and penetrate existing urban governance structures
Training XIX 7 December 2019 Propositions #10: Instituting Otherwise Training and symposium with Maria Hlavajova and Laura Raicovich: reimagining and reworking art institutions
Training XX 11–15 December 2019 Exploring Untimely Togetherness Training with Beatrice Catanzaro: exploring memory forms, co-writing, and co-visualizing (personal) narratives
Training XXI 11–15 December 2019 Training for the Underwater(ed) Land Training with Qanat (Abdellah Hassak, Amine Lahrach, Edouard Sors, Francesca Masoero, George Bajalia, Jérôme Giller, Louisa Aarrass, Noureddine Ezarraf, and Sara Frikech): artistic interventions, participative research, and discussions aimed at building a political and poetical map of water in its entanglement with the formation of landscapes and worldviews
Training XXII 18–22 December 2019 Kitchen Atlases Training with Bakudapan: mapping, cooking, eating, and reading
Throughout the course of Trainings for the Not-Yet, the Basic Activist Kitchen (the BAK) organizes daily cooking sessions and meals for trainings participants as well as for passers-by. Each week, different individuals and collectives are invited to collaborate and thus engage their respective practices and networks in the activity of communal cooking. What ingredients are used and where they originate; what is cooked, with and by whom; what is eaten together, when and why; and who is invited to the table and who is able or willing to join: these are political acts.
the BAK is run by a group of Utrecht-based activists, artists, and researchers with backgrounds in theatre, art, squatting, organizing, anthropology, history, and gender studies, in collaboration with Food for Good, Asia Komarova (Casco and the Outsiders), M. G. Lostia and Sofia Fonseca, Willem Geertman Art and Culture Collective, Revolutionaire Eenheid, Sayonara Stutgard, 3K, and others, initiated by Jeanne van Heeswijk
Collective dinner on weekdays, 18–19 hrs and collective lunch on weekends, 13–14 hrs. the Basic Activist Kitchen follows sustainable principles, choosing ingredients from local suppliers, and prepares vegan and vegetarian meals based on the season.
the Basic Activist Kitchen table is organized as a space for encounters both to debate these questions and to embody them through practice—to train in them, in fact—as a means of shaping-in-common the not-yet. With the urgencies of this time in mind, the BAK is an experiment in actualizing solidarity and mutual, multidirectional care, sharing responsibility for food, the planet, and for each other.
The kitchen and the practice of communal cooking are integral part of Jeanne van Heeswijk’s work, and as such they connect across most of the projects she has initiated. In this undertaking, she is reaching out to local communities with a proposal to activate the unused kitchen premises at BAK, with the hope that the project continues after Trainings for the Not-Yet concludes.
Additional collaborations take place throughout the training weeks, with among others: Afrikaanderwijk Coöperatie, Angel Bat Dawid (Le Guess Who?), Shumaila Anwar (Initiative for Diversity, Inclusion & Peace-IDIP), Utrecht in Dialoog, Habiba Chrifi-Hammoudi (U Centraal), Abdulaal Hussein, Stranded FM, Welkom in Utrecht, Gabriel Erlach, Mustapha Seray Bah (Stichting Mowad), and Extinction Rebellion Utrecht.
Training XI: A Week By & For: Designing Inclusive Spaces, Training with De Voorkamer at BAK, Utrecht. Photo: Tom Janssen
Community Futurisms, Training with Black Quantum Futurism: neighborhood walks, freestyle poetry, soundscapes, building a toolbox to help reverse gentrification, interactive lecture, and building quantum event maps and quantum time capsules. With a perform
