Today I understood something essentially about radical tenderness. I understood the importance of spending time together. It Portuguese we call that “convívio“ which could be translated with conviviality, the quality of making other people feel happy and welcome. The simple act of spending “quality“ time together. And this “quality“ can be measured by the absence of more demands and expectations. Spending time together in a space, that I can open for the participants, where we can be together, share our thoughts towards radical tenderness together, get to know us better. Or, in other words: A space where we can make each other feel happy and welcome.
 

Today’s insight, also remembers me of the conceptual clouds in Falk Hübner’s inaugural lecture for the professorship “Artistic Connective Practices“ at Fontys “In Good Company. Think we must.“ In his third conceptual cloud “connectivity“ it says: “Connective practices are not just meant as “practices to/that connect“, but rather seen as practices with clear values, and an agenda of learning, positive change and sustainability.“ (P.25). In one of the cloud’s parts you can read

spending time together - without a clear goal but on a clear common ground. Thinking about connectivity, maybe the idea of spending time together is not that clear then it initially seems. Where do we actually have time and spaces for spending time together without a defined plan, a defined framing or purpose? Spaces, where we have a common ground though, such as a context or a common interest (in this case radical tenderness). This time is not there for being useful or efficient or productive. It is a time simply with the propose of spending it together. Because of its unproductivity, some might even call it “wasting time together“. Further on, Hübner also mentions that “the notion of time in this has nothing to do with efficiency, one economic principle in time of neoliberalism“. It’s rather a process of slowing down, and what the process of slowing down brings with it, the not chasing anything, the simply being there, present and available to listen to, share and really get to know each other, “spending time together for its own sake, which produces a different kind of value and work“. (p.29)
 

And this makes me also think about the BOK 14, about Pascal Gielen’s “common city“. In an urban environment, where everything is fluid and changing and transforming all the time, the interruption that artists can offer, might be a social fabric of slowing down, or even of freezing the moment for a little while, in order to disrupt the measured “normal“. A normal created by a running time, by an overwhelming of information and demands. How to interrupt steady interruptions, characterized by constant change and transformation? With offering a slow space, which doesn’t follows any purpose except the one of spending time together, with no clear ground, but on common ground. A temporary autonomous space of spending time together, on the base of radical tenderness, as way to practice radical tenderness.
 

This is, why today I’ve decided to change the artistic experiment “tender solos“ into the artistic experiment of “tender slows“. I’m going to prepare an experiment within the next two weeks, in which I will not create more expectations for the already overwhelmed young participants. Rather, I will create a slow space, in order to interrupt their hasty routines, where we will simply spend time together and enjoy each other’s company.