The Artistic Research is inscribed in a growing archive of performative moments:

In the Catharijneconvent Museum in Utrecht, monastery material archives appear as the exhibited props and costumes of a Theatre. When looked at stripped from the historical religious context to which they belong,the gowns, dresses, headpieces and other accessories become traces and records of performative practices.

Making performance is making Place. As placemaking becomes the new suggested approach for shaping our urban environment, more attention is given to people's practices as generative of urban form. Drawing a parallel between the habitually practiced rituals of our everyday and the artistically directed performances, I suggest that the latter generates 'place' from 'space', giving symbolic significance and specificity to the abstract notion of an environment. What does it mean to consider performance making as placemaking? Performance makes place for discourses and bodies. These in their turn transform the space.

The chasuble, vestments, and other ornamented clergical clothing are exhibited as indicators of the city's Catholic heritage. As a result of their long hiding during and after the iconoclastic fury in the netherlands, the detail of these medieval pieces was highly preserved. 

The Catharijneconvent Museum also presents its visitors with video recorded demonstrations of how the medieval clothing was once worn. An old woman becomes the model for an catholic nun clothing and shares her own commentary on it.

Our practices remain inscribed in our maleable environments. The traces and records of our actions will define and locate our roles in the world. Can we reveal elements of ourselves by observing our practices from a distance?

I consider it necessary to recognize 'the performed' in what can be perceived as common practice. Only then can embodied structures be disclosed and challenged.

The study of performance then becomes a tool to render common practices as alien, as well as generate new rituals and monuments. 

"[...] However, even if human bodies are subject to aging, death, and dissolution in the flow of material processes, it does not mean that human beings are also in flux. One can be born, live, and die under the same name, having the same citizenship, the same CV and the same Web site, remaining the same person. Our bodies are not the only material supports of our being persons."

Boris Groys, In the Flow, Verso 2016.

William Kentridge, the South-African artist famous for his work tackling the topic of Apartheid, receives an honorary award by the Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Perspective fragment of the Apparition of the virgin Mary to a group of Dominicans, XVIth century, from the Catarijneconvent Museum collection. 

Photograph of the Women Lebanese Security Forces during the Military Parade on Lebanese Independance Day

Fragment of The procession of San Giovanni in Laren, 1897. 

Artaud describes the effect of electroshock which he had experienced in Rodez mental asylum. He describes the traumatic and transformative experience as black magic. One that prevents any who has experienced it to retrieve themselves, their 'self'. Audio and visual footage of Artaud during that period (late 1940s) present him as disfigured and exhausted yet provokingly expressive.