It all started with an email, and given the ubiquity of work that has moved online over the past year, there can’t be a more fitting closing to the Our New Normal series – a closing which is simultaneously a cautious opening up towards the online. On Sun, 31 Jan 2021 at [...more]
“The lamb is not innocent. The lamb knows how to read the motion of the air and knows the air’s stillness. [..] how to read the quivering of the lamb nearby, how to become not one lamb but many lambs in the formation of lamb-like relation, each lamb-back moderately indistinguishable [...more]
Author: Carmen Salas Edited by Joe Mortimer The Covid-19 epidemic has dealt a massive blow to every facet of the art world, from live events and exhibitions to funding and creativity. But it is also an opportunity to take stock of our current situation; a chance for institutions and creators of [...more]
Spinach is growing from seed, peas are sprouting and random veggies are pickling even if it´s not the season. But then again: what are seasons anymore at this point? Alina Lupu, 27 March 2020 During the second half of March 2020, condemned to life indoors because of a worldwide pandemic, TAAK [...more]
By Friedrich von Borries This article was translated from German to English by Jörn Nettingsmeier. What is power? The people of today would seem to be the most powerful beings that have ever existed in this world. They have supplanted the entire planet: by now, there is [...more]
– an inventory I entered 2021 with a bit more thrill than expected. My partner traveled across the border for work for the first time in months. Since procedures changed and a lockdown was imposed, even more strict than the one we had in March in the Netherlands, he [...more]
Day 1 Michel Foucault was born on October 15th, 1926 in Poitiers, France. On the same day, in 2020, the internet was celebrating his legacy by transforming him for the umpteenth time into a meme and dispersing bite-sized nuggets of his knowledge across the digital realm. [...more]
the office of alina lupu · Our New Normal Day 181 – Tourism “Cause everybody hates a tourist.” Pulp, Common People, [...more]
I call this a performative intervention, but you can be free to disagree. We can just then together call it an attempt to remember. Or an intimate piece. A way to deal with the mental and bodily exhaustion of working as an artist within a capitalist economic system. Or [...more]
<span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;” class=”mce_SELRES_start”></span> Trauma is defined as “a deeply distressing or disturbing experience”. There is acute trauma – caused by a single incident. On May 14th, in Hoorn, potato grower Astrid Francis pulled her truck next to the parking lot of supermarket [...more]
<span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;” class=”mce_SELRES_start”></span> The next few text and sound pieces posted on TAAK´s website, of which this is one, will be subsidised by Netherlands based taxpayer money. Full disclaimer: as an artist I am also a taxpayer. Though the routes that money [...more]
Part Two Fitness Man worries that his favorite log of wood for doing exercises will end up on a barbecue. * Zebra crossing These are the clearest stripes by far. * [...more]
I spent the whole day yesterday crying this deep cry that I’ve been holding inside of me for the past two months. I felt like an enormous child. I couldn’t help myself. This sort of bodily cleansing and mental stop felt like: equal parts sadness, equal parts lack [...more]
Paulien Oltheten Paulien Oltheten is a visual artist who works with photos, performances, and videos to explore human behavior in public spaces. She studied at AKV|St.Joost and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and was a resident artist at ISCP, New York in 2013. In 2017 she worked at Cité des [...more]
TAAK is inviting artists to respond to a changing society during the COVID-19 pandemic. We share their reflections on our website as part of the programme In Quarantine. In 2020, our perspectives on the public domain have suddenly shifted. A pandemic spreads widely from person to person, [...more]
<span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;” class=”mce_SELRES_start”></span> the office of alina lupu · Our New Normal [...more]
Part One Neighbors A charming balcony scene of two neighbors who first meet because of the lockdown. * Baptist on Dam Square A clever way of handing out flyers while keeping a 1.5 meters distance. * Regulars Regulars staying loyal to their favorite pub in times of [...more]
Reference communist joke for laughs: “There´s a long line. One guy approaches the first person in line, an elderly lady, and asks: – Excuse me, what is being sold today? – I have no clue. I started feeling sick half an hour ago and leaned onto a wall. [...more]
I go out for a walk in the neighborhood, navigate the pavement next to polite strangers, lay down in a swing in an empty playground, take out my phone and film my feet reaching for the sky. I post the clip online and get an immediate reaction: [...more]
It´s 2:00PM and I’ve been awake since 8:00AM. I am caught up in an avalanche of page refreshes – mostly on news outlets, coronavirus map counters and Netflix´s main page, hoping yet another variation on a popular TV show is getting a chance to live out a short life [...more]
Spinach is growing from seed, peas are sprouting and random veggies are pickling even if it´s not the season. But then again: what are seasons anymore at this point? Alina Lupu, 27th of March In the second half of March 2020, bound to the indoors due [...more]