links
Unfamiliarities is a space for artists of various disciplines to present their work in progress and to create a conversation subsequently. The project finds its genesis in the desire to design a space, where fragile, unfinished, and perhaps unfunded works can be witnessed and nourished. The aim is to create a momentum for artists, that stimulates their artistic processes by means of exchange. The event can be a potential meeting space, supporting the artists’ work process in addition to the institutional, educational or academic contexts. Each session hosts a maximum of 4 artists + an audience that can stimulate the creation process of the presented works by engaging into conversation. After each artists’ shared proposal, there is the possibility of feedback, in a manner chosen by the artists.The first editions followed a "pay-what-you-want/can" policy, with the sales going to the artist. There were small contribution of warm soup and drinks, that the audience could purchase during breaks, which supported the space/host. Unfamiliarities happened first in late 2019 at QRU Amsterdam, organised completely on volunteering basis. Its second edition was prepared together with Subbacultcha but had to be postponed because of Covid-19. The third edition is in its development.
Credits:
Unfamiliarities #1, collaboration in between Toni Steffens and QRU Amsterdam, October 2019
Participating Artists:
Annelieke Holland
Stefa Govaart
Eva Pel
Wietske Joan
Ellen Ogawa
There are more than 50 subspecies of the Australian jumping spider. Each one of them has their own unique dance routing, performed by the male spider under the judgmental eyes of its female chosen one. The female assesses the dancer and chooses to be either mounted, simply walks away with disinterest, or kills and eats the male dancing lover. At times, she even chooses for a combination of those scenarios. It is assumed that the dancing behaviour is genetically hardwired, rather than “learned”, making the jumping spider a natural born dancer. Certain studies show that female spiders of the jumping spider species Portia however also dance. They do so not in order to seduce their potential mates, but instead mimic the males dancing routine, to protect their nest or wear off other spiders. So while the male spider pursues dancing as a flamboyant act of seduction, with the hope to inseminate the female at the risk of life, the female spider learns, masters and even perfects the males dance routines, using improvisation and trick movements, like unexpected pauses in the routine to ensure her peace of mind, her own life and/or that of her offspring. Wether for war fare or intercourse, dancing comes into play as a decisive moment in a spiders life. A tool, a weapon, a communicator, a trickery and a mastery. While the male spider dancing its courtship dance has been plentiful documented, the female spiders dancing behaviour and how it came to do so is still subject to debate. May it be perhaps, that the female spider is the ultimate dancer in disguise? Is it not her who has the final saying over the life and death performance of her potential lover? And isn’t it though her perfecting the choreographic steps, enabling her to protect her own offspring, that she is elevated into being ultimate judge over wether his hardwired dance that she’s ought to pass on to the following generation, is even worthy enough of her own craftsmanship, and the way how she reverse engineered his dance moves to turn them from a flirt into a fight?
.png)
.png)
.png)
