We Cannot Work like This

12-14 november 2021

Drie dagen lang kreeg Het Bos de sympathieke mensen van We Cannot Work Like This over de vloer. Gedurende deze intensieve driedaagse bijeenkomst van jonge artiesten en vrienden delen ze intersectionele ervaringen van people of colour binnen de cultuursector met als doel safe spaces te bekomen, veilige plekken die de sector nagelaten heeft te creëren.

We Cannot Work Like This is een collectief van jonge artiesten en vrienden die ervaringen uitwisselen met als doel duurzame, inclusieve en dankbare (kunst)praktijk.

Dergelijke initiatieven steunt Het Bos van harte.

We are ⋰⋰⋱⋱We Cannot Work Like This ⋰⋰⋱⋱ we are a collective of young artists and friends who share knowledge and support for sustainable, inclusive and grateful practices. Our collective aims to provide a safer space for the intersectional experiences of people of color in the arts and design practices - with an understanding of the historical and contemporary dimensions of colonization - a space that art institutions have failed to create. Our collective started inside such an institution, but now it is spreading its roots outside of it. We deliberately detach ourselves from entities that prove to be counterproductive to our work, places in which we cannot work. Our energy is now foremost invested in the support of our own communities. With this we would like to invite you to the workshop we are organizing in collaboration with Engagement Arts, taking place on the 13th and 14th of November from 10h to 18h, taking place at Het Bos (Ankerrui 5/7, 2000 Antwerpen) We want to create a space that functions as a horizontal ground with the possibility to share our experiences by exploring, creating, and nourishing new developments and ideas in design and art fields that come from places outside the Eurocentric monolith. How are we influenced by the visual cultures from our intersectional experiences? How do we reapproach our practices being aware of the erasure of diverse design expressions? How can we incorporate oral, ancestral and mythological knowledge in our work? How can we leave traces behind that could eventually guide those who go through similar barriers? Here is the basic structure from which we will work, build upon and possibly move away from. Nothing is set in stone and we welcome all organic growth:

Day 1: Introduction shortly introduce yourself and your practice, we start the workshop with collective reflection on the text; Journey of Errors: Finding Home in Academia by Ahmet Atay, the text is in the attachment, Feel free to read it before the start of this workshop. If you cannot, we will provide a short summary. But we encourage you to read it. :) During the workshop we will make a big mindmap using our reflections and thoughts on this text. You can also bring with you something (book, comic, video game, video, quote, etc..) that you would love to share with us, and that you feel like can relate to this text.

Day 2: Check-in, Mind-work; collective reflections and discussions. In the afternoon, we are screening the movie ‘It is Not Enough for God to be with the Poor’, 1978. A documentary about Hassan Fathy’s work and philosophies tackling modernism and its disastrous aftermath in North Africa. We will reflect on the movie in relation to our own practices and its relation in a broader contexts.

Warm wishes, WCNWLT team