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'Assembly (The Grand Domestic Revolution Goes On)' at ACU, politico-cultural venue (3/9)  

Event, 28 Oct – 30 Oct 2010EN / NL – Print 

CHECK IN is a series of temporary communal occasions where key issues emerging from GDR research are discussed and re-articulated in close relation to specific domestic spaces in Utrecht, including the GDR apartment, the Rietveld Schröderhuis (RSH) and the house next door to the RSH. Each occasion highlights selected ongoing activities of GDR that create transgressive instances through performing their actions at the boundaries of private and public space. Hosted by past and future GDR residents/researchers and guests comprising artists, theorists, activists and other practitioners, the CHECK INs challenge per¬ceptions of everyday domestic activities as diminutive, isolated and unimportant work; but also go beyond romanticised notions of this sphere. The event, the spaces and routes between them also ‘speak to’ and inform each occasion. 
 
The term ‘check in’ functions here as a way to touch base, reflect and take stock of the GDR processes and progress; as well as playing with its meaning of taking up temporary residency in, for example, a hotel. 
 
CHECK IN 
'Assembly (The Grand Domestic Revolution Goes On)'  
Thursday 28 October 19.00-21.00 
ACU, Voorstraat 71 
By Agency 
 
Agency will summon things which speculate around the question: Can cooks be considered as authors? Thing 000848 (Healthy Habit Cookbook) and Thing 000851 (Great Tasting Recipes) will convene an assembly in order to bear witness. These things concern a controversy around the writing of cooking recipes. Agency invites a diverse group of concerned guests at ACU as the ‘translators’ for these things: ‘Bouillon Magazine’ editor Will Jansen, chef Dennis Steur, copyright researchers Tim Braakman and Marieke de Rooy (curatorial collective Trailer), Samir Allioui and Dirk Poot (Dutch Pirate Party) and others. 
 
Agency is the generic name of a Brussels based agency, founded in 1992 by Belgian artist Kobe Matthys. Agency constitutes an evolving list of things that ‘witness hesitation’ of the bifurcation of nature into classifications of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’. This ongoing list of things by Agency is based on controversies, affairs, lawsuits, cases and so forth around intellectual property, in which this bifurcation has been discussed. 
 
CHECK IN on weaving, gifting and activism 
Friday 29 October 19.00-21.00 
De Katoen Fabriek, Oudegracht, 382, nearby Twijnstraat 
Hosted by Travis Meinolf and Kirsty Robertson 
 
Self proclaimed ‘action weaver’ Travis Meinolf (Berlin) hosts a weaving workshop as a continuation of his GDR residency entitled Cottage Industry: Making Accommodations, while art historian and researcher Kirsty Robertson (London, Ontario) shares her knowledge through a conversation on the links between textiles, contemporary activism and networked technologies. Practised through experimental forms of exchange, modes of pleasurable production and appropriations of its stereotyped role as a conservative domestic activity, textiles are ripe with problems and potentials as subversive politicised action. Through weaving, talking and reflecting, Travis and Kirsty will contextualise the practice of ‘textiles as action’ with a discussion about its relationship to globalisation and alternative economies.  
 
CHECK IN on care, working and precarity 
Saturday 30 October  
15.00 Rietveld Schröderhuis, Prins Hendriklaan 50 
16.00 Apartment next door to Rietveld Schröderhuis 
Hosted by Ruth Buchanan and Marina Vishmidt 
 
Last year artist Ruth Buchanan presented a performance, Lying Freely I: Nothing is Closed, in the form of an alternative guided tour through the Rietveld Schröderhuis (RSH), mobilising the spatial structures and elements of the RSH with a script that evoked a relationship of openness between the private and public sphere. Continuing this investigation into forms of private dwelling, as well as her further involvement with GDR, Ruth creates a radio play to be performed at the RSH. This piece will explore the space between what is 'close' and 'familiar' in relation to precarious conditions of life against the backdrop of shifting 'urban-scapes'. The performance of the radio play is succeeded by a lecture by Marina Vishmidt connecting the notions of art, labour, care and the neoliberal economic processes they are subjected to, framing a discussion of alternative potentials for contemporary living. Dinner will be provided following the event. 
 
CHECK IN is organised with the support of Dutch Design Double and Centraal Museum and ACTION is realised in collaboration with SKOR. MIDTERM MANUAL is co-published by Casco and Bedford Press. Agency’s participation in GDR has been developed as part of Circular Facts, supported by The European Union Culture Programme.  
 
 
'The Grand Domestic Revolution GOES ON' is a midway manifestation of 'User's Manual: The Grand Domestic Revolution' (GDR), Casco's long term 'living research' project developed in partnership with Utrecht Manifest: Biennial for Social Design. Click here for information on the entire GDR GOES ON programme.