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Dirk van Lieshout

residency , public space ,Experimental , Community , Artistic research

I look for a direct relationship with the place or location where I work and investigate what the necessity is in that place. I am working this out into a new work. Concepts such as movement and performance characterize my work. Movement always refers to something to come; the future, coincidence often plays a role in this. With performance there is the possibility of direct contact with the environment and the possibility, the attempts to shift or change something in it. These concepts are translated into drawings, models and installations. My works do not offer a complete story or an unambiguous message. They are fragmentary staging of situations that can be interpreted in several ways.

'Untitled', Models in Studio, Rotterdam 2014-2016 - Various models in studio in Rotterdam.
Lodgers #4 Jaartal 2015/2016, Locatie MuHKA, Antwerpen - Drawings studies, scenarios for a future port. At the invitation of Bik van de Pol and the School of Missing Studies.
Tea Bike, Het Vijfde Seizoen, Den Dolder, 2016 - In the summer of 2016 I worked at Het Vijfde Season in Den Dolder, which is part of the Altrecht psychiatric institution in Utrecht. What was new about this residency was that I could immediately develop, apply and test my research on the patients and clients who visited me during the stay. All these separate experiences and forces came together in a new work Tea bike in which patients cycled together and made tea with me from tree bark and leaves.
Reisburo:Tembe Art Studio,Moengo voor het Marrowijne Art Park, Suriname in 2018 i.o.v. het Mondriaan Fonds - A condition for the stay was to collaborate with the local population and to leave a concrete work of art for the Marrowijne Art Park in Moengo. My plan was to work with the population in this isolated and difficult to access place to create a symbolic 'Travel Agency' for dreams, wishes and desires.
Soeveniershop; Moengo Festival of Visual Art- Tembe Fu Libi 11,Moengo,Suriname 2018 - Soevenirshop took part in a permanent retrospective exhibition of more than 30 international artists. The travel agency was also part of that. During the festival he gave a workshop with the population on making aluminum souvenirs.
The soil of Moengo, Daily Practice; Rotterdam, September 2020 - New ceramic work, cast clay in sand and ceramic objects. With poems by Furgill Raafenberg in the voice of a political poet to tell the story of Moengo from the inside.
Het theater van gebroken beloftes en dromen, Hilton Art Lab, Rotterdam, Dec. 2021. - The dilapidated Beatrix Theater in Moengo (SUR) was once a gift for the managers of Suralco (ALCOA) to the *'white staff village'. Now that the company has stopped mining bauxite, the theater could be a new stage for the local population, but it is neglected. This simultaneously shows the powerlessness and bankruptcy of the country. Dirk Van Lieshout met the young activist Furgill Raafenberg (FR), Moengo, SUR, 1991. With this work, Van Lieshout raises questions about soil theft, oppression and dependency, where the story is told from within in collaboration with Furgill Raafenberg (FR), who gives new hope and inspiration to young people with his texts. *Stafdorp (Wikipedia): is a neighborhood in Moengo that was built by Suralco, the Surinamese subsidiary of the American company Alcoa. You can clearly see the American influences in the architectural style of the beautiful bungalows.
Unca Tea Party,2023 - The context and conditions of a place are often Dirk van Lieshout's starting point. Play, movement and performances are characteristic of this, with which he seeks interventions that express themselves in installations and mobile studios. During Van Lieshout's recent residency in Arita (Japan), vulnerability and time began to become an important source of inspiration for his work, prompting him to create Unca Tea Party. For this installation, van Lieshout was inspired by the work Untitled (Tea-Party) (1972) by artist Bas Jan Ader (1942-1975) and Japanese Tea culture and tradition. Ader's work is set in the idyllic setting of a forest, where Ader drinks a cup of tea under a cardboard box, supported by a stick. The stick suddenly falls and the box closes, after which the artist disappears from view. From thoughts about consciousness and a fall from everyday reality, van Lieshout meets the tea pioneer Shunichi-Matsuo. During their exchange, new insights arise about peace and concentration for the moment. This inspires Van Lieshout to seek out the (re)experience of time, in which attention to the passage of time and the hyper-awareness of a moment are central.
Untitled (Light Boxes). Powerlong Art Center in Xiamen,China (until 8.3.2025).
Untitled (Lichtdozen). Powerlong Art Center in Xiamen,China (tot 8.3.2025). - Untitled is part of the group exhibition Under Construction at the Powerlong Art Center in Xiamen, China. The work is inspired by my work period at the CEAC in Xiamen and 2013 when I lived there for 3 months. The work reflects my view and relationship with the city of Xiamen where I lived at the time.
Frog City, Berlin, 2024
Frog City,Berlin,2024 - In a dark future, there will no longer be any hormone-free waters in which female frogs could develop. Only muscle-bound frog companions will still be lounging around, showing off their strength, in the swampwater bars, barren aluminum architectures, melted together from the remains of energy drinks and protein shakes.

residentie in Arita,Japan; https://cri-arita.com

Date:
Location: werkcentrum Arita,Japan;https://cri-arita.com/
In association with: EKWC

I would very much like to use a working period in Arita (JP) to investigate Japanese tea culture and tradition and to connect it with porcelain and performance. At the invitation of the Mondriaan Fund, I am given the opportunity to work for 3 months in the laboratory of the porcelain factory in Arrita (JP) and to develop and perform a public performance in collaboration with employees of the porcelain factory.

https://cri-arita.com
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