Unfamiliarities

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.

Photo credit: Ricardo van Heuvel

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

When a tadpole is growing into a frog, its electromagnetic field already holds the information of its legs and body shape. In the essay ‘TransMaterialities’ , Karen Barad refers to a (cruel) experiment,where the electromagnetic field of tadpoles were changed by scientists, which resulted in them growing additional limbs, eyes in different places and other bodily mutations. Following this experiment, scientists concluded that tadpole bodies do not have fixed or defined borders. They carry their suggested futures, just as our DNA, bones and cells carry our inherited pasts, eventually manifesting anew in future times to come. The space in the air, for tadpoles at least, is sensible, intelligent, loaded with information and very much subject to intervention, interaction, and, as the experiment shows, open, porous, vulnerable and corruptible. Space is a part of the process of being, likewise it is part or the extension of beings. Space is oftentimes thought as filled with unlimited potential and possibilities. Yet the tadpoles are connected to space, as space is connected to them, from material (the body of the tadpole) to immaterial (the electromagnetic field of the tadpole) and across timelines. Space is specific enough to carry planted seeds for futures, while those are not necessarily fixed. For it to become a frog in the future, space needs be strong enough to carry information and at the same time remember how a frog is created. What is a future vision is also a memory. Such operation of space could be seen as a form of a creative, spatial training. When training starts in the brain, and something new (or old) is learned, neurones craft new pathways. The brain changes. Being enters the space, and the space enters being.

UNder armour

♲ Line,losing line ♲

Weaving Passages for the momentous

An Attendee

Orange Rest/Sacrifice

Spinner

Hope, Test

Metamotion for 270degrees

Night Flying Project

Movement

delineations

Unfamiliarities

PAST-Present-future

JUNE 11-14 : PLANETARY POETICS / SANDBERG GRADUATION SHOW AT FRAMER FRAMED AMSTERDAM, HEART BREAK RADIO, 12TH OF JUNE, 5PM, 13TH OF JUNE 1;30PM, PERFORMANCE UNDER ARMOUR, 13TH OF JUNE 6PM, 14 OF JUNE 4PM
SEPTEMBER 14: In collaboration with TONI BRELL at Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen, Performance at 4:15pm, Finissage Toen de dieren nog spraken
SEPTEMBER 20: BROKEN HEART DANCES, WORKSHOP DURING RE-NATURE FESTIVAL/ GRIEF SPACES, 2PM, FULL INFO: https://re-nature.org/
September + October 2025 : teaching movement research at the university for applied sciences, Osnabrück, BA theatre pedagogy
NOVEMBER 2025 : TEACHING MOVEMENT RESEARCH AT SNDO AMSTERDAM, BA CHOREOGRAPHY
11 DECEMBER 2025 : D.R.E.D.G.E. - in collaboration with ELISA ZUPPINI, Soraya Lutangu Bonaventure ( Music composition) and 2nd and 3rd year students of SNDO, Jakoozi, Amsterdam
15 DECEMBER 2025 : D.R.E.D.G.E. - in collaboration with ELISA ZUPPINI, Soraya Lutangu Bonaventure ( Music composition) and 2nd and 3rd year students of SNDO, W139, Amsterdam January 2026 : "UNDER ARMOUR", JAKOOZI AMSTERDAM, DATE TBA, LIMITED CAPACITY
06 FEBRUARY 2026 : COLLABORATION WITH TONI BRELL, BORING FESTIVAL, HAARLEM

Orange