Aankondigingen aan de Bijen

September 5th - October 10th
Nieuw Charlois - C3, Rotterdam

The third chapter in EUSKATOPIA, Aankondigingen aan de Bijen is the result of British artist Tom Gallant's redefining of his practice through collaboration. This phase explores his considerable experience producing work for himself and other artists using digital and analogue techniques as an open foundation for experiments and prototyping. Using his visual research project into the object culture of the Basque country, titled EuskaTopia, the Argizaiola was chosen to be the focus for a range of interactions with artists he knew and recently met in Rotterdam. The title is based on the Basque tradition of announcing the death in a home by the closest female neighbour to the bees. Aankondigingen aan de Bijen is a play on the dutch word for bees, bijen and together, bijeen.

The Argizaiola is now only used in one church in Amezkata, Basque Spain. A wooden hand-carved anthropomorphic object wrapped in a beeswax candle, it is brought lit from the house of the deceased by the nearest female neighbour and placed on the family tomb inside the church, mimicking the corpse's position facing the sun. It answers a question of what people/s do or make in transitional periods; whether in mourning specifically or through themes of migration, creation, evolution etc... through personal interpretations and universal archetypes.

In the place of an exhibition, the gallery will act as an extension of Gallant's residency, a studio and space for continued creation and conversations; burning the candle for our existing connections and those lost, alongside the newly gained.

contributing artists:

Driessensvandenbaar
Iza van den Baar
Teresa Hunyadi
Jenny Konrad
Jasper Niens
Lieske van de Seijp
Zowie Smeets
Maja Pop Trajkova
Kamiel Verschuren
& others...

thank you to CBK R’dam for your generous support