Para-siting – Page 2

FLUSH #6: NO PARES (SIGUE SIGUE)

PRODUCE, HAVE FUN, IMPROVE AND SMILE! by Sergi Casero

Like hamsters on a wheel, we run in a race that has no finish line – because every now and then another goal appears on the horizon. This performance is for everyone who feels overwhelmed by too many responsibilities and activities. For those who are learning a new language, playing an instrument, obsessively setting goals and making to-do-lists, or in a constant quest for fulfilment, self-development and being a better version of themselves. Every second counts! In an achievement society doing nothing is a grave sin. But we are more than the sum of our achievements, or are we? How does the productivity obsession shape our desires, our bodies and our limits?

Through the structure of a spinning class, NO PARES (sigue sigue) confronts the hidden violence within neoliberal ideals of efficiency, self-optimization, and endless improvement.

How did we buy the neoliberal tale that we are the architects of our own fate?
Can we resist? Can we break free from the inertia of productivity and its seductive pull?

Join us for this participatory performance – an opportunity to reflect and endure.

Doors open — 18:30
Performance — 19:30
End — 20:30

The artist is supported by Amsterdam Fund for the Arts

FLUSH: a sudden rush of intense emotion is a flourishing collaboration between Espacio Estamos Bien and W139, located in the toilets of W139. FLUSH operates as a flexible form of organizing and creating, enabling various types of collaboration. FLUSH aims to foster inter-local relationships, viewing Amsterdam as a hub for facilitating diverse interactions and building connections that bridge distances. Joyful, friendly and decentralized connections extend beyond the Amsterdam art scene.

Curatorial Text: José Rosales
Production: Julia Nowicka and Espacio Estamos Bien
Design: Sergi Casero

FLUSH #5: Gates of Secretion

The Dutch call it “het privaat”, the English “privy”. The toilet in particular (the bathroom has a slightly broader meaning) is a space where you are mostly on your own, in full privacy. But not with a smartphone. The internet invades that sacred space at any given moment. Even if you think you’re alone, you are not.

Klaas Koetje transforms the toilet group of W139 into the ultimate private sphere. FLUSH #5 encourages the visitor—whether they are there for a sanitary stop, to withdraw from the crowd for a moment or for any other reason—to reconnect with the private self and reflect on the intrusion of technology in aspects of life as banal as taking a piss.

Klaas Koetje is a self-taught multimedia artist based in Groningen and a certified legend. We are honored that he agreed to be a part of FLUSH.

Text by Mauro Benavidez
Production by Julia Nowicka and Clara Rojas
Design by Josefina Contin

FLUSH #4: Bread Buffet

Come to Bread Buffet at FLUSH #4, eat some cucumber sarnies, and read with us as we think through and around the site of work, precarity and enjoyment.

Within affective labour economies and the history of service and hospitality, we can see a broader pattern of systemic inequality shaped by colonialism, capitalism, and neoliberal governance. These frameworks often perpetuate exploitation whilst cloaked under the guise of benevolence, setting up defined roles of “host” and “guest”.

Bread Buffet is an offering from artists Sophie Soobramanien and Shreya de Souza. It is an ongoing methodology which takes various models according to a theme. Through workshops, zines, reading groups and experimental performances, they collage and interweave theory, art, fiction, contemporary events and visual material. Trying to find ways to contextualize and present swathes of research and information that bypass the potential barriers of academia. We are motivated to co-create these shifting shapes with a public/audience, in dispersing and digesting various knowledges, connecting thought and form in the process. Included in the buffets is a source list of all the extracts, citation being a vital part of the process.

Please RSVP to breadbuffetservice@gmail.com if you would like to come due to limited space in the toilet.

Cucumber sandwiches will be vegan, let us know in your RSVP if you are gluten free.

FLUSH #4: La Toilette

Through the electromagnetic waves of the phone, Taylor tells me that they had heard (or read?) Karen Rose say: “The body is your spiritual antenna.” It’s been a while since I’ve thought about antennas. I google them and find: “How to maintain and protect your antenna from the ravages of time and weather?”

The motif of “la toilette” is a recurring theme in art history, representing moments of personal care such as dressing, combing one’s hair, applying makeup, or washing. Its universality spans different eras and cultures, reflecting notions of privacy and community, everyday challenges, aesthetic concerns, and transcendent ideals. FlUSH 4 invites us, in the stench of the most ineluctable aspect of our human condition, to some intimate moments of pictorial corporeality with Cosima zu Knyphausen.

FLUSH: a sudden rush of intense emotion is a flourishing collaboration between Espacio Estamos Bien and W139, located in the toilets of W139. FLUSH operates as a flexible form of organizing and creating, enabling various types of collaboration. FLUSH aims to foster inter-local relationships, viewing Amsterdam as a hub for facilitating diverse interactions and building connections that bridge distances. Joyful, friendly and decentralized connections extend beyond the Amsterdam art scene.

Text by Taylor Le Melle
Production by Julia Nowicka and Clara Rojas
Text design by Josefina Contin
Poster by Cosima zu Knyphausen
With publications of Lesbianas Concentradas

FLUSH #3: Regresar al Mundo

It is almost one year since the ongoing genocide in Palestine; it has been 75 years since it all started. In spite of it all, we want to gather; in spite of it all, we want to be together; in spite of it all, we invite you to be here with us.

For this occasion, FLUSH will be taken over by the Colombian artist AUSENCIA, who will present his project Regresar al mundo. In this project, he touches upon the question of displacement through the story of a group of birds forced to move. AUSENCIA will show both text and textile works. During the days of the show, we will sell prints of AUSENCIA made in collaboration with Not Shit Print, raising money for different initiatives that support people in Palestine.

Alejandro Moreno Marin (@ausencia.nada) has published books, made clothes, designed objects and painted streets. What interests him most is discovering the narrative possibilities of the image and the exploration of media and materials. Currently, he creates works from textile materials and uses techniques such as embroidery, weaving and patchwork. His work is nourished by his sensitive experience, by seeking the extraordinary in everyday life, by religious iconography, material culture and popular graphic production.

“¡Aves rebeldes! Hermanas, compañeras,
Cantamos por la huelga
Que sea ahora mismo o no será nunca más
Todas juntas, aves de ciudad
palomas, torcazas, pericos
A desplegar alas y cantos”

“Rebel birds! Sisters, comrades,
We sing for the strike
Let it be right now or it will never be again
All together, city birds
Pigeons, wood pigeons, parakeets
To spread wings and songs”

FLUSH #2: Empezar por algo

During the first live activation of FLUSH, Espacio Estamos Bien invited Kiss my knoblauch to use the toilet as the stage for the first toilet-concert at W139. Expect rapid words over DIY beats and synth tunes with trumpet doodles; an alarm to shake us out of our paradigm and a lullaby to soothe us into a new one. Keep your eyes wet and your fists big. Slugs, cockroaches, kliko’s, fritessaus and toxic armpits brought to you by Fishra and B.Ruiz in a stew of gothic utopias and stinky critique.

FLUSH will also launch their amazing merch, made in collaboration with Miguel Cruz and Artes Oscuras, and available in the W139 shop. They will also sell their very special vermouth, made together with Merceria Clara.

FLUSH is a new relationship flourishing between EEB and W139. FLUSH is located in the bathroom space of W139. This space and its programme generates inter-local relationships, understanding Amsterdam as a base and a place where different interactions can be facilitated, to create links that allow us to shorten distances. Connections that are joyful and decentralized, looking beyond the Amsterdam art scene.

19:00 — Toilet doors open
20:30 — Start concert by Kiss my knoblauch
22:00 — The last flush

FLUSH #1: Pega!

FLUSH: a sudden rush of intense emotion is a flourishing relationship between Espacio Estamos Bien and W139, growing from the toilets at W139. We envision this relationship as the mutualistic workings of microbiota, a symbiotic process allowing for different interactions to develop. The microbiome organisms (EEB and its co-operators) form communities within the host organism (W139), which provides space for the microbiota to inhabit and contribute in a big way despite its small format.

Located in the toilets of W139, FLUSH works as a flexible form of organizing and making, allowing for other types of collaboration. FLUSH aims to generate inter-local relationships, understanding Amsterdam as a base where different interactions can be facilitated, creating links that allow us to shorten distances. Connections that are joyful, friendly and decentralized, looking beyond the Amsterdam art scene.

Pega!, the inaugural exhibition of FLUSH, opens May 30th at 19:00. It’s the largest show ever hosted in a toilet, serving as a platform for experimental publication, which Pega! achieves using stickers. Created in collaboration with the anarchist and independent print shop Not Shit Print in Amsterdam, Pega! invites artists, activists, designers, and creatives worldwide to contribute their designs for the stickers that will be all over the bathroom.

We look forward to welcoming you in the toilets. Let’s flush together!

Visual identity by Miguel Cruz. Photography by Justine Ellul.