VREUGDEVUUR SCHEVENINGEN
By Romke Hoogwaerts
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Film screening & photobook presentation
FRI.JUL.18
19:00-22:00
at THE BALCONY & Page Not Found
-> RSVP HERE
As part of the exhibition Extractive Imagination(s) - Chapter 2: The Perfect Loaf, The Balcony and Page Not Found are pleased to bring together an evening exploring fire as both infrastructure and communal ritual - something we gather around, both to survive and to belong.
We will begin at The Balcony with a guided tour of the exhibition, featuring works bycollective Atlas of Ovens, Arjun Das, and Bernd & Hilla Becher. This second chapter of the Extractive Imagination(s) cycle reflects on how the pursuit of warmth - physiological and social - has shaped our tools, architecture, and ways of gathering.
After the tour, we will move together to Page Not Found where the evening will continue with a film screening and a photobook presentation, followed by an open discussion.
There, we present Vreugdevuur Scheveningen, a 30-minute film by artist Romke Hoogwaerts, focusing on the New Year’s bonfire tradition in The Hague. With nuance and care, and with attention to the emotional, historical and cultural layers, the film traces the fierce rivalry between the coastal neighbourhoods of Duindorp and Scheveningen. This local tension is placed within the larger context of Dutch bonfire tradition, rooted in an ancient ritual, reignited after the end of Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in 1945, and continuing to evolve until today.
The screening is accompanied by a presentation of Romke’s photobook, of which limited copies will be available at Page Not Found. The book expands on the film’s themes through photography, offering an intimate look at the tension between heritage and transformation. It also opens up a broader reflection on collective rituals - bonfires as symbols of communal identity, political expression, and environmental concerns - closely aligned with the exhibition’s attention to what we ignite, how we gather, and what warmth comes to mean.
The evening will conclude with a Q&A joined by members of the local community, followed by drinks and informal discussion.
Romke Hoogwaerts is a photographer and filmmaker previously known for his work as an independent photobook publisher under the brand Mossless. He was born in Atlanta, raised by Dutch parents in South East Asia and graduated from the School of Visual Arts with a BFA in Visual & Critical Studies in 2013. He has lived in New York City since 2009.
THE BALCONY
Nieuwe Molstraat 14A2
2512BK, The Hague
Page Not Found
Boekhorststraat 102-104
2512 CT, The Hague
ANTOINETTE JATTIOT
Public Talk
SAT.MAY.17
ANTOINETTE JATTIOT
Public Talk
SAT.MAY.17
14:00-15:00
As part of the public program accompanying Extractive Imagination(s): Harnessing Energy, The Balcony will host a talk by writer and curator Antoinette Jattiot, who will discuss the works on show focusing on the practice of filmmaker Elsa Brès, with whom she's previously collaborated.
Antoinette Jattiot (she/her, lives and works in Brussels) is trained as an art historian (École du Louvre, Paris – Karl Ruprecht University, Heidelberg). At the intersection of writing, exhibition-making, and performative encounters, her practice explores the porous boundaries between visual arts and research, images and language. She is currently a curator at La Loge art center in Brussels. Since 2023, she has been part of the multidisciplinary collective—alongside Denicolai & Provoost, Nord, and Spec uloos—at the initiative of Petticoat Government for the Belgian Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024). In the past, she has worked as an editor, researcher and assistant curator, in the field of visual arts (WIELS Brussels, M Leuven, among others). Her activities also extend into pedagogy: she teaches at ESA Le SeptanteCinq (BE) and regularly participates in art school juries, workshops, and guest lectures. She frequently contributes to art magazines and exhibition catalogues. She is a member of AICA and c-e-a.
The visit of Antoinette Jattiot is made possible by the International Visitors Programme of the Nieuwe Instituut with support from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
MODÈLE SONORE
Sound Model Drawing Session
Saturday 15th March 2025
MODÈLE SONORE
Sound Model Drawing Session
With artists Léa Guillout & Orian Arrachart
SAT.MAR.15
Register for one of the two sessions:
→16:30-18:00
→19:00-20:30
Modèle Sonore is a workshop inspired by life drawing, except that here, we listen to the subject rather than looking at it. It is an invitation to shift the senses in order to observe and draw differently. At the end of the workshop, there will be time for discussion and displaying the works created.
In connection with the current exhibition, this sound model session site-specifically develops a sound score in relation to the works on view, transporting the public into the artists’ universe during a live performance.
→ All levels are welcome.
→ From writing to drawing, calligrams or just listening, experimentation is free.
→ Drawing materials will be provided, but feel free to bring your own favorite drawing tools.
ABOUT THE HOSTS
Léa Guillout is a visual artist, with a knowledge in set and costume design, who focuses on observational drawing and graphic research, particularly through life drawing sessions. With Orian Arrachart she curates Modèle Sonore, a sound-model workshop, previously performed at Espace Nonono (FR). These drawing sessions are spaces for conversational graphic experimentation, inviting performers, drawers and listeners to connect through various forms of language.
Orian Arrachart is an artist who uses sound to work on notions of listening, attention, relationship to the sensory and the present moment. His productions take a variety of forms, from sound creations for theatre and dance to compilations of sound recordings, installations in exhibition spaces, concerts and performances, curation of group exhibitions. He is part of the artist collective Non-Étoile in Paris and will score the sound for this session of Modèle Sonore at The Balcony.
This event is supported by The Balcony and Stroom Den Haag. Donations at the event allow us to support the program and organize more events in the future, thank you!
Screening curated by Collective First Cut
Saturday 11th January 2025
WITH FILMS BY Meriem Bennani, Francisca Khamis Giacoman, and Kiluanji Kia Henda
Get your tickets here!
The Balcony has invited the collective First Cut to develop a screening program responding to the exhibition on view: "Slow Drift(s) Chapter 2: Larry Achiampong and David Blandy".
Responding to the multi-layered research that gives life to Larry Achiampong and David Blandy’s trilogy, First Cut has curated a screening event that approaches the founding themes of their work with equally multifaceted perspectives. The selected films offer a non-linear exploration of the politics and psychopathology of colonialism, interweaving past, present, and future. As the Finding Fanon series turns its focus toward friendship, collaboration, and the possibilities of future generations, First Cut’s programme builds on this vision exploring community’s resilience and resistance to forgetting.
PROGRAM:
19.30—Doors open
20.00—Screening works by Meriem Bennani, Francisca Khamis Giacoman, and Kiluanji Kia Henda
21.00—Chat/Q&A/Drinks
Meriem Bennani lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Juxtaposing and mixing the language of reality TV, documentaries, phone footage, animation, and high-production aesthetics, she explores the potential of storytelling while amplifying reality through a strategy of magical realism and humour. She has been developing a shape-shifting practice of films, sculptures and immersive installations, composed with a subtle agility to question our contemporary society and its fractured identities, gender issues and ubiquitous dominance of digital technologies.
Francisca Khamis Giacoman is a Chilean artist from the Palestinian diaspora, currently based in Amsterdam. Through performances, installations, and audiovisual works, Francisca Khamis Giacoman is trying to recall stories of migration and unfold them at the boundaries of fiction and materiality. Her research touches upon language, knowledge production, and accessibility through narrative circulation, focusing on different ways of (re)membering ourselves and others. Actively involved in self-organized projects, Francisca is the founder and CEO of the “Museo del Perro * Honden Museum” in Amsterdam (2023-ongoing), co-founder of “Ediciones Rocas Shop” Cooperative Publishing House in Santiago (2017-23), and Espacio Estamos Bien, an art cooperative in Amsterdam that curates gatherings, publications, and exhibitions.
Kiluanji Kia Henda lives and works in Luanda. In his practice, he uses art as a means of transmitting and constructing history, exploring photography, video, performance, installations, object-sculpture, music and avant-garde theatre as ways of materializing fictional narratives and shifting facts to different temporalities and struggles. Using humor and irony, the artist represents the complexity of themes such as identity, politics, and perceptions of post- independence and modernity in Africa. Working in perverted complicity with historical legacy, he sees the process of appropriation and manipulation of public spaces and structures as different constructions of the collective memory.
First Cut is a platform based in The Hague curating screenings and conversations around independent/radical/experimental films by politically engaged artists. First Cut calls for transformative films that stem from socio-political inquiries. It aims to host artistic interventions and radical responses to our international society and its politics, bridging artists and local communities in The Hague. First Cut invites perspectives from multiple modes of production and backgrounds with which to read our political contexts and reshape a collective imagination. It especially encourages filmmakers with decolonial, feminist, queer and non-normative perspectives to submit their films. First Cut is founded by artists and researchers Cyan Bae, Hattie Wade and Cristina Lavosi.
An evening on Animal Crossing w/ Larry Achiampong & David Blandy
Saturday 15th February 2025
Join us on Twitch and Animal Crossing for a discussion with artists Larry Achiampong & David Blandy!
ONLINE EVENT & AT THE BALCONY
SAT.FEB.15. 16:00-17:30
As a finissage of the exhibition 'Slow Drift(s) Chapter 2: Larry Achiampong & David Blandy' at The Balcony, the artists invite you to join an informal evening of play and discussion. The event will take place online in the Animal Crossing game, where you will be able to join the artist’s island as they game and engage in conversation, but you can also follow the event via a Twitch stream. You can also join the live stream physically at The Balcony.
You've got several physical and online options to join the event:
→ Register via Eventbrite. You will receive a Twitch link upon registration.
→ Join the event on Animal Crossing: by signing up on Eventbrite, you will receive a Dodo Code upon registration.
→ Join the event at The Balcony, where we will live stream the game!