Instructions for Placemaking: Assembling Land

About Assembling Land: Rehearsals towards Placemaking by de Appel COOP x Dutch Art Institute
Assembling Land: Rehearsals towards Placemaking is the cooperative study program of de Appel at the Roaming Academy, Dutch Art Institute (DAI). This 12-hour broadcasted event transmits the residues of a journey of collective study. During this journey, participants engaged in exchanges and learnings, resulting in a series of podcasts and a self-published pamphlet centered on themes such as housing, water, out/institution, and land. Building on the COOP’s fieldwork, Assembling Land focuses on Palestine to explore continuous and timely asymmetries of our respective geographies. As part of the event, a binding workshop will be held to hand-sew the pamphlets-testimonies of the COOP’s practice, as well as DIY pamphlets containing the exhibiting instructions for placemaking. The starting time of the workshop will be announced soon.

About Our People are Our Mountains: Instructions for Placemaking
In Our People are Our Mountains (quoting from Amílcar Cabral’s words on the Guinea-Bissau's liberation movement), artists and collectives in Palestine and elsewhere who work on questions around land from different perspectives, collaborate with majelis (assembly) Jakarta by sending instructions remotely. Utilizing instructions, rather than physically transferring works or facilitating travel, stems from ethical, political, and environmental considerations. The act of sending instructions is also a way to point to the physical and symbolic distances, particularly emphasizing the profound difficulties associated with moving in and out of Palestine, especially during the ongoing genocide. This initiative, therefore, is an act of transmission and trust—artists will transmit their creative directives to counterparts in Jakarta, who will, in turn, realize, contribute to, perform, or enact the instructions in place.

In the Amsterdam iteration, the instructions will be presented, whereas some of them will be activated throughout the coming weeks. Every week of the presentation span, a new video by the participating artists and others will be screened on loop for one full exhibition week. In addition a programme of performances, workshops and gatherings will take place throughout the project span. This broadcast facilitated by de Appel COOP x Dutch Art Institute is part of the program