Foreign Places
Global migrations, mass tourism and labour mobility dominate public debate today. We are increasingly compelled to see the world through the lens of our contemporary conditions of itinerancy. Many of the residents at Wiels know these conditions intimately, which inflect their work in myriad ways.
Foreign Places brings together eight artists, all formerly in residence at WIELS, whose work builds upon temporary but dedicated 鈥榓cts of attachment鈥� to a specific or imagined place. Even when on familiar ground, these urban explorers take to the streets in order to probe the city鈥檚 multiple concentrations and historical layers, and give them new uses, forms, or narratives. Some deliberately seek out remote, symbolic sites 鈥� from Athens to Accra 鈥� to research and produce their work in collaboration with local inhabitants and workers.
As a result, the exhibition emphasizes a host of practices that in a first stage do not rely on a traditional, or 鈥榝ixed鈥�, studio environment, but instead draw inspiration from the context in which the artists situate themselves. Foreign Places confronts their distinctive ways of imagining the city and their differing ethics of working with a place, from its larger social fabric to its seemingly marginal manifestations.
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Global migrations, mass tourism and labour mobility dominate public debate today. We are increasingly compelled to see the world through the lens of our contemporary conditions of itinerancy. Many of the residents at Wiels know these conditions intimately, which inflect their work in myriad ways.
Foreign Places brings together eight artists, all formerly in residence at WIELS, whose work builds upon temporary but dedicated 鈥榓cts of attachment鈥� to a specific or imagined place. Even when on familiar ground, these urban explorers take to the streets in order to probe the city鈥檚 multiple concentrations and historical layers, and give them new uses, forms, or narratives. Some deliberately seek out remote, symbolic sites 鈥� from Athens to Accra 鈥� to research and produce their work in collaboration with local inhabitants and workers.
As a result, the exhibition emphasizes a host of practices that in a first stage do not rely on a traditional, or 鈥榝ixed鈥�, studio environment, but instead draw inspiration from the context in which the artists situate themselves. Foreign Places confronts their distinctive ways of imagining the city and their differing ethics of working with a place, from its larger social fabric to its seemingly marginal manifestations.
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