LEVENSLANG (exhibition, 2021)
Getting to know yourself as part of a bigger system in a society that is heavily individualized is the key to creating space for your own needs, is the argument in LEVENSLANG. To raise awareness for the system of prescribed social rules and their emotional implications for the individual, this exhibition is a social, spatial design to show how we create traps and how we can feel caged.
Based on anthropological research, an audio installation and a soundscape function as the main narrative of the exhibition that took place in an old and dark bike shed. As a walk-in essay, the visitor explores throughout the exhibition a scientific argument, more so than being focused on the work of the artists as isolated stories. Through a found footage film that captivates the experience of imprisonment through social systems, the installation hidden script - exploring ideologies -, work of other artists who break the normative frame - called flip the script -, a light installation going by the name public script - symbolizing a micro-version of society -, and finally take-away meditations to guide you into a deeper understanding of the nurtured Self, the visitor gets familiar with their own worldview and starts to understand the creation of normative frames through belief systems.
Check out our performance at the Pakhuis de Zwijger live show here.
LEVENSLANG opened in 2021 autonomously, was part of the line-up of ADE and is a project by Jikke Lesterhuis and Merel Raats. This project was funded by AFK, Gemeente Amsterdam, Ik ben geweldig by VSB and NJR and crowdfunding via voordekunst.
