Notes from Areal IV: Mapping
Hosted by Annelys Devet at Studio Devet, Sint-Pieters-Leeuw
Areaal is a learning network focused on artistic practices outside the city. In 2022/23, Areaal will consist of the architecture and space platform AR-TUR, the outdoor network, the art space for co-creation, craft and diversity Manoeuvre & laboratory for contemporary transdisciplinary art nadine, the loose-fixed art collective Seasonal Neighbours, the practice for soft power and radical imagination DEVET, and the performance-spatial collective TAAT. In addition to the core partners of the network, artists participating in the Fieldwork Programme supported by Arts Platform PLAN B and those interested in the specific theme of the day are invited to participate in the meetings.
Each meeting is organised around a theme chosen by one of the network's participants. The aim of these meetings is to share practices and experiences with creating and supporting artistic work outside the city with each other and with the affiliated artists. This creates a fabric of shared knowledge about art and/in rural areas and hopefully generates more fertile ground for artistic practices in rural environments.
The third Areaal meeting was a collaboration with Devet, a studio specialising in soft power and radical imagination. In the setting of the studio located in the Pajottenland region, researcher and participatory designer Annelys Devet presented her practice, with the most important examples being her Subjective Editions, subjective mappings of cities or areas with a group of residents, and Disarming Design from Palestine, her design label for designs from Palestine. Based on these two practices, for which the studio in the Pajottenland region also serves as a hub, we zoom in on mapping as a practice and the mapping of practices.
MAPPING OF & AS A PRACTICE
During her PhD research at the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA), Devet investigates the conditions of design pedagogy to combat oppression and injustice through the act of designing. During that research, mappings such as the previous ones of practices became increasingly important.
How can we understand our practice by creating these maps? What connections do we make? What is important and what is not? How do ideas, money or people circulate within our practice? Mappings such as these help us to ask and understand these important questions. Based on these practices, all Veldwerk artists create a map of their research within Veldwerk.
ORGANISER
DEVET is a practice for soft power and radical imagination, founded by Annelys de Vet (1974, NL), a Belgium-based designer, educator and researcher. De Vet is currently a PhD researcher at ARIA, a practice-led doctoral programme at Sint Lucas University College of Arts and Antwerp University, where she is researching the conditions of design pedagogy to combat oppression and injustice through design.
https://www.bureaudevet.be