On Thursday 24 April, the exhibition kicks off with an extensive public programme, which includes a sharing of research and discussion by the participating artists and curators (Noor Abed, Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Chad Cordeiro, Iswanto Hartono, Lara Khaldi and Pieter Paul Pothoven), a reading of the publication Stars at Midday by Noor Abed, and a live broadcast and listening session by Andrei Van Wyk and Dirar Kalash. The next day, the programme continues with a research sharing and study session with Miriyam Aouragh, Karl Moubarak and Omar Jabary Salamanca, and a talk by Mitchell Esajas. Food will be provided on both days.

4pm: Doors open

4.30-5.30pm: Sharing of research and discussion by Noor Abed, Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Chad Cordeiro, Iswanto Hartono, Lara Khaldi, and Pieter Paul Pothoven
The group has been meeting and researching using the method of the School of Intrusions, where they have focused each time on a particular question or text and chose a corresponding location for it. These meetings were recorded and are shared with the public in the form of a harvest, but during the opening the artists will share their process, questions, and archival material with the public.

6-7pm: Reading of Stars at Midday by Noor Abed & and responses and discussion by participating artists
Stars at Midday –نجوم الضُهر is a personal production diary in which the artist and filmmaker Noor Abed compiles visual and poetic notes from the production phase of her film A Night We Held Between, filmed in Palestine in 2023 with family and friends. Like the film whose production it chronicles, the book interweaves narrative fragments, song and diaristic observations, creating a fusion of natural and composed sequences of movement, of documentary and fictional elements. The participating artists will be in discussion with anecdotes and questions in response to the parts of the book she will read.

7pm: Break with drinks and bites

8pm: Live broadcast and listening session of discussion and sound material by Andrei Van Wyk and Dirar Kalash

3.30pm: Doors open

4-5pm: Introduction and Reading of script Surveillance Counter Surveillance by Pieter Paul Pothoven
The script is part of a larger project which is in part presented at de Appel, observatie contra observatie is a spoken monologue: a dramatized account of events surrounding the first attack that was claimed by the Revolutionary Anti-Racist Action group (RARA). This action took place on September 17, 1985, on a branch of the Makro in Duivendrecht (NL). This action and the three others that followed in the period from 1985 and 1987, forced the SHV, Makro’s parent company, to pull out of South Africa. Pothoven wrote the script for the character, who speaks from the perspective of several of the activists involved, and based it on interviews and historical documents.

5-6.30pm: Resistant Energies: Research sharing and study session with Miriyam Aouragh, Karl Moubarak and Omar Jabary Salamanca
Infrastructural resistance is the abolitionist work of breaking down oppressive infrastructures and at the same time imagining, organising and/or building up new structures and institutions. But what does this look like? How are infra-struggles presented visually as part of historical legacies? What visual lexicon and quotidian aesthetics could transform affective and political relations to infrastructures?

In this conversation, Miriyam, Karl and Omar will speak about the deep dive they are taking into the archives of IISH, The International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam), exploring visual evidence of creative strategies, community organising, publishing, and concepts for and of infra-resistance. The archives contain rich materials, including posters, flyers, stickers, photos, maps, diagrams, architectural plans, performances, banners, and objects. Based on the conviction that visual practices can energize the building of everyday infrastructures for communication, caring, learning, sharing resources and creative life otherwise; their research has focused on both the recovery of images that help situate, politically sharpen, historicise and create imaginative strategies for resistance against digital depletion, and on the violence waged by computational infrastructures collaborating with corporate and state actors on genocidal technologies and supply chains. They will share archival material and images specifically pertaining to the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.

The Resistant Energies research trajectory was initiated by The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest, a trans-practice gathering of activists, artists, engineers and theorists committed to articulate, activate and re-imagine together what computational technologies in the “public interest” might be when “public interest” is always in-the-making.

6.30-7pm: Break and bites

7-8.30pm: Talk Mitchell Esajas on The Black Archives, CAPExNL
Mitchell Esajas will speak about the transnational, collaborative project by The Black Archives, CAPExNL, a temporary intervention in the Camissa Museum. Nancy Jouwe and Elise Fernandez, on behalf of the Camissa Museum, explore the legacy of Dutch slavery in the Cape. The intervention presents unique archival material, historical narratives and artworks by Adrian van Wyk & Charles Palm, Bradley van Sitters, Farren van Wyk, Carine Zaayman and Neo Muyanga.

The events are in English and are freely accessible. Making a reservation is encouraged!

This exhibition is supported by het Cultuurfonds