Nomad
Roadmap
Day 1: Introduction
We talked about the programm, our guidelines and our own timelines and how we can connect those to each other. There was also tea and coffee
Click me!
This was a very nice day. not only because of the presence of Pongo. It was a safe space, no a brave space. It was cozy and just a very relaxing day.
I am very excited for Nomad!
Day 2: Maya Simisic
Today we worked with Maya Simisic. She is the creator of the "Restroy" method. Today she told us about her work and how she gets her inspiration. We got to get to know her and she us. The next two days we will work together with her.
Her work really inspires me. I was very suprised when she told us she studied fashion, because she is so great at making performance art! She tries to work with the issues she has with the world, and change them into something fun. Hoping that in that way people will look at the subject differently.
Day 3: Restroying
Today we worked on "restroying"
We started with researching a subject you want to restroy. I chose for the lectures in the cafetaria of ArtEZ. I hate this because I have to be quiet during my lunch break. You can open the PDF right here to see it clearly.
After the "restroying" we start working on our own method.
So i created... the Len method
I really liked working on my own method. It is not unique and not finsihed like this, but it is how I work. The subjects I am interested in and the things i expect from the actors and co-workers. It gives a clearer vision on things i can look back on when I am stuck.
Click me for the inspiration dump for the Len method!
Day 4: Lentertainment
This is the last day we work with Maja. Until now I have loved working with her. She is fun and very enthusastic about her own work. This gives me a lot of inspiration and motivation.
Today we continued working on our own method. And at the end of the day we will make a performance using that method.
I found out that my method is really based on the topics I like, such as Unfairness, Politics and minorities. I also have a big interest in us, humans. I hope that this also can be a start for Nomad.
Now it really is something that comes from me, it is time to explore the world and find stories from others.
Click here for the "Lentertainment method."
Day 5: Lonneke van Heugten
Today we started working with Lonneke. Lonneke works with Co-Creation. It means making art with others. Not your own story, but the story you tell together.
I really like this way of working.
Lonneke also works with poetry.
We started writing down everything we know about this school. this building. In a way we are co-creating with the buidling.
We have been researching the building, what feeling does it give you, how does it sound etc.
With this information we started co-creating.
Lela and I decided to make an audio podcast inspired by a podcast named "Bob" from audiocollective "Schik". We are going to do research about a story of a ghost in this building.
We are going to record our research. This is a method they use at audiocollective Schik. I really like this method and Lela and I are going to try and create our own version of a process while using their method.
Day 6: touchbase and travelbooks
The first touchbase. It was very nice to come together and talk about how Nomad is going so far. We discussed everything we experienced with Maya and what is scheduled for the next few days.
There was also space to talk about struggles with the new dynamic.
We also started to make a Nomad Glossary where we are trying to understand all the words we encounter in our Nomad travels.
Click the picture to open the new page!
Day 7: Elsje
On day 7 we started co-creating.
Lela and I wanted to do research about the old hospital. We are both very interested in the "research" part of creating and we wanted to document this.
So we took inspiration from the podcast "Bob" from audiocollective Schik" and started researching.
We had heard about a ghost story in this school, but for some reason we forgot about it and started exploring the school. We found a lot of new places in the school we had never been before.
It was a very fun experience.
But we were still lost on the subject of creating something. What did we want to tell the audience? Which story do we want to tell?
After getting lost in the school and exploring new places we came back to our home base. We discussed all the things we wanted to explore and for some reason the picture from the ghost came back to our mind.
And there our real journey began.
We looked at the picture of the ghost and... It was obviously a fake.
Why would the janitor of our school, tell students about a fake ghost and give them a fake edited picture of the ghost?
A new story came to live.
Lela and I never stopped documenting our research by recording it.
We talked to a lot of people about this ghost, and we found out about a name.
Elsje.
Day 8: Zines and the nightnurse
Day 8, the last day with Lonneke. I loved working with Lonneke. She gaves a lot of artistic freedom and was a very nice support.
We started this day with creating a zine, a small magazine. We all created our own page with all the material we created in the last few sessions.
It was a lot of fun to do and Lonneke made a beautifull Zine out of it!
After that it was back to ghost hunting for Lela and me.
We went back to where we ended yesterday.
We still had to talk to Rosalie (A student from 10 years ago who might have more information for us) and we needed to make a podcast out of our three hours of recorded audio.
So we started by making a Jingle.
After that we went editing. We choose for little "Snippits" of our material.
hoping that it would guide the listener enough through our journey.
If we had more time we would love to make it more guided, also for people who do not study at ArtEZ and have no idea who Janneke or Arjen is.
But I am very proud of what we created.
Audiocollective Lele is on the move.
And maybe... there is more to come.
Stay tuned, because Elsje her story... does not end here.
Day 9: Touchbase and train delay
Day 9, today started with train delay. Luckily I live in Zwolle so I could work at school.
I worked at school on my reseach question. I am getting closer to give my feelings words. It is somewhere in Human vs Non-humans and the disconnection between humans and nature.
I also started working more on my hotglue.
Then David joined us online. we started with the touchbase and that was very nice. it is nice to check-in with everyone.
After that we started researching about the artisteducator. we read an article about it. it was a difficult article but at the end I could get things out of it that inpsire me.
Day 10: Research question
We started talking about what Nomad should be.
We begin working and learn working from the context that is given. So Site-specific, context-specific, people specific, encounter, in-motion, partipatory methodologies, non-self referential.
With these categories we are going to find out what our own research question can be.
Starting questions for us to work with were: How to create from a personal or collective urgency without being self-referential. And is that even possible?
Then we started working about our research questions. I had a lot of trouble finding the right words for my research and I still have.
What disconnects humans from non-human nature?
No too big.
But then I came towards senses.
Hearing, listening.
How to create by listening in nature?
We also gathered our travel books:
Mommy?
The book is about a little kid that is searching in a house full of monsters to their mother.
What I find interesting about this book is the art-style. Milou recently reminded me of V.O.F de kunst and their Griezel cd.
This book reminds me of their songs.
Autor: Arthur Yorinks is a playwright, director, and author of more than thirty-five picture books for children, including the Caldecott Medal–winning Hey, Al, illustrated by Richard Egielski. His most recent picture book is Presto and Zesto in Limboland, illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Arthur Yorinks lives in Cambridge, New York.
Every mark its mask
The work of Chinese painter Zeng Fanzhi (born 1964) reveals a great deal about his homeland's rapidly changing society. In his Mask paintings, people wearing plain white masks confront the viewer with wide eyes and grotesquely exaggerated hands. In addition to these well-known images, this publication features works from all of his series, including the early Meat and Hospital cycles.
I chose this book because I really liked the art-style. It feels ominous. The masks but also the colors are very dark and mysterious.
I also like the trees that cover the faces of the people later on in the book.
Autor: Zeng Fanzhi (Chinese: 曾梵志; pinyin: Zēng Fànzhì; born 1964) is a contemporary Chinese artist based in Beijing. Zeng's works have been praised as possessing an emotional directness, an intuitive psychological sense, and a carefully calibrated expressionistic technique.
Tales of mystery and imagination
This collection of Poe's work contains some of the most exciting and haunting stories ever written. They range from the poetic to the mysterious to the darkly comic, yet all possess the genius for the grotesque that defines Poe's writing.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849) was een Amerikaans schrijver en dichter. Poe is een van de eersten die korte verhalen schreef en hij wordt gezien als de bedenker van het detective genre. Hij werkte ook als literair criticus en redacteur en was een van de eerste Amerikaanse schrijvers die van de pen probeerde te leven, waardoor hij het zwaar had. Behalve detectives en korte verhalen schreef Poe veel poëzie.
Day 11: Particpatory art
This day we worked with Particicipatory, Collaborative and relational art.
First we got a full explaination with examples from David.
He told us about things he encountered and showed us works from other artists.
I really like classes like this because I find it very interesting and inspiring to talk about work of others.
Why did they create this? And how?
I find it inspiring to see others works and I want to train myself more in looking at works from others and be able to say something about it that is not just, I like it.
So talking about different kind of arts and really deep dive into someone else's work was very inspiring for me.
After that we started working on our own project. I worked with Coen and Milou. We choose to make an Participatory art work.
You can click on this pdf and read about the project we created!
Day 12: Noordwijk
On day 12 I wasn't there. I was in Noordwijk because my father was in surgery.
I found this very ahrd because I am always there, even if I am a bit sick.
But now I really wanted to be there for my father.
The next few days of this week my father was still in the hospital. I will not talk about this, but it was a bit distracting for me sometimes. But I am glad that I could attend most of the classes and my father is safely home again!
Day 13: Theater of the Oppressed
This week we are working with George and Andrea.
We were working at HoP, in Amsterdam. It was very nice to be out the school for once and George and Andrea were amazing. the Brave space was clearly there and it was a lot of fun.
We were working from the theatre of the opressed. From the core of this way of working we did a lot of fun excercises that made us aware of the room, each other, opinions of others, differences, simularities etc.
It was a lot of fun and I was learning a lot of ways how you can work with someone.
Forum theatre is a type of theatre created by Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal. It is one of the techniques under the umbrella term of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO). This relates to the engagement of spectators influencing and engaging with the performance as both spectators and actors, termed "spect-actors", with the power to stop and change the performance. As part of TO, the issues dealt with in forum theatre are often related to areas of social justice, with the aim of exploring solutions to oppression featured in the performance. https://participedia.net/method/149
Day 14: Form theater
Our second day with George and Andrea.
We started working on Form theater and subjects that interested us.
So what themes do we care about? Are there problems in the world we want to see fixed?
Still we did a lot of fun games, but these games were, again, just like yesterday, not just because of fun.
Games make you aware of others, yourself and the surrounding.
Games like anna maria koekoek, make you connected with your body and focused.
Asking your actors after they did your game about why they had to do the game, will make them aware of this.
I never looked at Anna maria koekoek in the way George and Andrea let me.
This tree is the example or explanation olf theatre of the oppressed.
You see that in the core of the tree also is the world Games. This is something that works really good and Andrea makes great use of this.
Here is the explanation of the dramaturgy of Form theatre. We started working with Form theatre and we created our own scenes.
With form theatre you pic a subject that is something you want to change.
Then you make a scene of something that could have really happened. There must be a tipingpoint so that people see that something went wrong and they want to change it.
Day 15: Queerness
This day we dived into Queerness. We started with a scene about Queerness, or Queer hate that happend to me once.
I created the scene with Milou and Lela and we played the scene.
After this the audience had to say what theys aw. What happened? What went wrong?
Then they can choose to change the story. Do they change me, and identify with me. Or maybe Analogy? you understand what happends but you can't fully identify with me?
Or maybe you will play the friend in the scene? Or an extra person and act out of Solidarity.
It was very interesting to see what the others did with the scene, but it was also a bit difficult.
Seeing what others did in the situation I have really witnessed was sometimes difficult.
But it was also very interesting and I learned a lot from it!
I really like form theatre. I think it is a really good way to start a conversation. I have seen form theatre at the high school where I did my intership.
It was about sending nudes to others.
Form theatre asks the audience to be attentive and to give their opinion about the situation.
it is a conversation starter on subjects that most people try to avoid.
I think this might be a really interesting way of making art for me in the future.
After the Form theatre we made emotion machines.
We got a word, for example, anger. And started making a machine with it. But also words like Bio industry popped up.
it is a great way to make a problem visual and it is also a lot of fun.
Day 16: Basketbal
The first day of ICAF is finally here!
Today is the opening, so it will be a presentation and a little party after.
Sadly David had lower back issues so he could not attend, but with the whole Nomad group we decided to got Rotterdam a bit early and eat there together, starting off the festival together.
We were excited and thrilled to be there, we ate some pizza and drank some beers and after that we traveled to the Zuidpleintheater in Rotterdam.
We arrived at the Zuidpleintheater and we were overwhelmed by people. People from all over the world. We got the introduction and heard how many nationalities there were. There were people from all over the globe!
Then the performance Basketbeat started. Making community art while using basketballs to make music? That is a joke right?
No it is not. It was an amazing performance where they touched problems and themes while making it fun and they gave a lot of energy.
It was an amazing opening of the festival and I could not wait for the rest of the week.
Day 17: Emotional and
beautiful
We started this day early. We had a lecture, participate or else. It was very interesting but also sometimes a bit hard to digest. it was a lecture about if participatory art always does good. I found this a very intersting topic, because sometimes participation can make things worse.
It was a good lecture that, after weeks of talking about the great things of participation, now looked at the lesser bright side.
It gave me a new perspective.
We also had to discuss this topic in smaller groups. At first I was a bit hesitant. I am just a student, what can I bring to this festival?
But then we started talking, and I joined the dialogue. It was very reassuring that my opinion was heard, I was taken seriously by everyone.
After the lecture there was a free lunch. I really felt taken care for and the mood of the entire festival was eager but relaxed.
After the festival we had a workshop Instinctive performance.
It was us moving on the sound of music, dancing together and making connections with total strangers without using words.
It was amazing to get out of your head and into your body.
But after 45 minutes of dancing I was sweating over my whole body.
After the workshop instinctive performance we went to the Paulus kerk.
The Paulus kerk is an institution where people who experience homelessness can go to get some food, or to do a activity.
In collaboration with Hobson street theatre from New Zealand they started creating art.
Hobston street theatre is an institution that is like minded from New Zealand.
Together they made art with the people that experience homelessness.
It was amazing to see how happy the people were, and they were shining on stage.
It was amazing to see what art can do, how art can bring people happiness and how art can get people together.
It was a beautiful example of community art without a political statement. Just bringing something to these people was enough.
In the evening we went too a movie calles "Fall". It was a movie about the financial situation in Portugal, with a focus on students.
The housing in Portugal is very expensive and a lot of students do not have the funds to afford this.
It was a short movie, made with the community and the neighberhoud they filmed it in.
After that we had a talk with the director of the movie about how he made the movie using the community.
After the movie we went to a play called Gabo. It was a beautiful play with a care for disabillities and making them abillities.
The use of puppets and movement was touching and carefully done.
Although there were no words used, they took me through the world of caring and insecurities.
Day 18: Cabbage soup
This morning we again started with a lecture. Now we started with a follow up lecture on Participate or else. It was intense to continiou on this subject but also very inspiring. Mostly because we were now making it active.
We were talking about real examples of problems you can run into while making participatory art.
It was very interesting to hear other artist talk and discuss these problems. Hearing visions from other artists is something I really appreciate, and I was glad to be able to join the discussion and also give them my vision.
After the lecture we had a trip towards the showcase: "Cabbage field opera".
At first I was a bit hesitant, opera is not really my thing.
But then I saw the opera. In a pamflet you could read about the story, a story about war, forbidden love, sexual harassement and more difficult and beautiful topics.
It was an amazing experience and mostly because afte rthe opera we were invited to eat cabbage soup together. It was an amazing way to get everyone together and talk to each other.
It was a lot of fun and I really had a great time and some great soup!
After the Cabbage field opera we went back to Rotterdams wijktheater. Here we had a workshop about promoting mental health literacy in urban and rural Kerela.
This was again very inspiring.
How art can be used to bring awareness to subjects like discrimination on mental health was very interesting.
And mostly because it was about Kerela a region in southern India.
It was very interesting to hear and see how people there look at mental health.
That a lot of people there believe in rituals and not in medicine.
And that people do look differently at people with mental health issues.
That the support system is very low which is not good for people with mental health problems.
It was amazing to see their short movie about mental health, it made me tear up again.
It was really inspiring.
After the workshop I went to one of the evening performances. At this point I got really tired. The lack of sleep and the stress of the week before with my father in the hospital was getting to me.
I am doing to much and it is slowly destroying me.
The evening performance that I saw was a Onyesha Thamani / showing value. It was a dance about being together. Respect each other and a better world.
We were asked to get out of the chairs and sit on the floor down at the podium.
I really liked this because it gave me a feeling of being part of the dance. The dancers looked at us and even asked us at the end to participate.
It gave a feeling of togetherness. And that is esactly what they wanted.
Day 19: Last day of ICAF
This morning we started with a lecture about gender based violence. It was a follow up from an evening performance that I sadly did not attend because I was to tired.
But the discussion was still very interesting.
The performance I missed was called Whistleblowers and it was about gender based violence in South Africa.
It was really ninteresting to have a conversation about this world wide problem but with different perspectives from different nationalities.
After hearing how bad it is in South Africa I was really shocked.
Not that it means that it is good here in the Netherlands, this issue should not happen at all, but hearing how culture can influence these problems was shocking.
It also again felt like coming together. everyone in the room felt awful about the stories we heard and everyone supported each other.
It made me feel strong and ready to be an activist almost.
After the lecture we went to a long workshop.
This was the workshop embracing complexicity.
It was an amazing workshop and it was about, Form theatre!
It was amazing to have this workshop after our week with Andrea and George.
Every little detail fell into place and becasue I understood what Adrian was saying when he talked about theatre of the opressed, I understood everything better.
It was a fun workshop and I feel like I understand Form theatre even better.
We saw some Form plays which also gave me visual input.
It was a very nice workshop and I had a lot of fun, although I was still very tired at this point.
Because of that I went home after this workhsop.
When I got home I fell asleep into a deep deep, sleeping beauty, sleep.
Day 20: Fossil free culture
This day we started with a touchbase and after that Frida from fossil free culture joined us for her 2,5 day workshop.
She started with showing us her work. it was very intersting to see that with the use of art, fossil free culture managed to make almost every cultural institution fossil free. It was exciting for me to see how they used activistic art, a way of using art that I had never seen before.
Quickly it became clear for me how useful art can be when you want something to change. An art piece has way more impact then screaming while holding a sign.
I am not sure if this would be something I would want to do later vut the change maker in was getting very excited.
Day 21: Queerfobia
Today we started working on our own activistic art project. And that was kind off scary. It was amazing to think about a subject that I would want to change.
I worked with Lela and Anne-Fleur and I loved this co-creation. We decided to work with the subject about acceptence and awereness of the Queer community. There is still too much hate and lack of knowledge. We wanted to tackle this problem and we decided to focus on the pillar of education.
So we started creating and idea to tackle the education pillar. How could we by using art, make people aware that there needs to be better education about being LGBTQIA+.
This was a difficult brainstorm, we felt being held back because we knew we did not have a lot of possibilities in only one day. But in the end we came up with an installation about questions that students have about being Queer that do not be answered in class.
Day 22: Activism
This was the day, today we would make our activistic art.
We started with researching everything we could about education about the lgbtqia+ community in high school, what is already being thaught and what isn't.
We also researched about the consequences of lack of education, depression in the queer community and hate towards the community.
After that Anne-Fleur made a beautiful pamflet with all the information we found.
Lela and I recorded an audio fragment of questions we found online from teenagers that they have and that are not answered in class.
Then we went towards "de grote markt" in Zwolle.
There we created a little classroom of chairs with schoolbags on them.
In two of these schoolbags were audioboxes. Out of those boxes you could hear the questions. We were there for only a short moment and not a lot of people came to us to get a pamflet. Some did.
Some boys told us we were nasty and disgusting. And some people (Mostly Queer themself) came to us for a pamflet.
I did like it but I also felt scared. It came close to me and I was afraid that people would be hateful.
I really liked this week with Frida, it was a new kind of way to use art for me.
I saw how useful it can be to bring attention to a subject, to make a corporation aware of something.
I am not sure if it is something for me, maybe when I am able to distance myself more from the subject.
Now it came a bit to close.
But I learned a lot from it and I will keep it in my mind when researching other subjects I want to make a play about for instance.