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Fellowship

Fellow 2018/2019

Patricia Kaersenhout performing The Thread and the Gap with Lukáš Likavčan during Propositions #8: I Wanna Be Adored (the Non-Fascist Remix) on 22 June 2019 at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, photo: Tom Janssen

Patricia Kaersenhout

Born in the Netherlands but a descendant from Surinamese parents, visual artist, activist, and womanist Patricia Kaersenhout developed an artistic journey in which she investigates her Surinamese background in relation to her upbringing in a west European culture. Her work raises questions about the African Diaspora’s movements and its relations to feminism, sexuality, racism, and the history of slavery. She considers her art practice to be a social one. With her projects, she empowers (young) men and women of color and supports undocumented refugee women. She is a regular lecturer at the Decolonial Summer School, Middelburg; Black Europe Summer School, Amsterdam; and at B.E.B.O.P (Black Europe Body Politics). Kaersenhout did a a community project with AGA LAB, GildeLab, BYBROWN, and WOW Amsterdam, all Amsterdam, titled Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Too?, 2018, quoting Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, only this time black women and women of color who are erased and forgotten by west European history are honored. By revealing forgotten histories, she tries to regain dignity. She has participated in: Manifesta 12, Palermo, 2018; Prospects 4, the New Orleans Biennial, New Orleans, 2017; among others. Her work is represented by gallery Wilfried Lentz in Rotterdam.

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Patricia Kaersenhout

Born in the Netherlands but a descendant from Surinamese parents, visual artist, activist, and womanist Patricia Kaersenhout developed an artistic journey in which she investigates her Surinamese background in relation to her upbringing in a west European culture. Her work raises questions about the African Diaspora’s movements and its relations to feminism, sexuality, racism, and the history of slavery. She considers her art practice to be a social one. With her projects, she empowers (young) men and women of color and supports undocumented refugee women. She is a regular lecturer at the Decolonial Summer School, Middelburg; Black Europe Summer School, Amsterdam; and at B.E.B.O.P (Black Europe Body Politics). Kaersenhout did a a community project with AGA LAB, GildeLab, BYBROWN, and WOW Amsterdam, all Amsterdam, titled Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Too?, 2018, quoting Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, only this time black women and women of color who are erased and forgotten by west European history are honored. By revealing forgotten histories, she tries to regain dignity. She has participated in: Manifesta 12, Palermo, 2018; Prospects 4, the New Orleans Biennial, New Orleans, 2017; among others. Her work is represented by gallery Wilfried Lentz in Rotterdam.

For further information click here.

Fellowship Research Trajectory

Visual artist, activist, and womanist Patricia Kaersenhout’s research focuses on women during the first International Congress of Black Writers and Artists in 1956 in Paris, the role of women in the Negritude movement in general, Black women’s historic use of the body in protest, and contemporary young Black women’s activism. Key to this inquiry are the bondage of solidarity between Black women, despite being erased from and ignored in History, and looking toward parallels within and connections to the current younger generation of Black female activists. With this in mind, Kaersenhout asks: To what extent can people still be inspired by or find new sources of inspiration in the ideas and thoughts of Negritude? Furthermore, how can Black female aesthetics contribute to dismantling dominant views of masculinity without losing its authenticity? And what seemingly innocent acts can convey key contestations of violence and epistemic disobedience? This research inquires into different strategies, speaks with young activists, and reclaims intellectual property of Black women.

Fellows in Propositions for Non-Fascist Living: Tentative and Urgent

BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht and MIT Press, Cambridge, MA and London present Propositions for Non-Fascist Living: Tentative and Urgent, the first reader in BAK’s BASICS series.      Print this page BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht and MIT Press, Cambridge, MA and London present Propositions for Non-Fascist Living: Tentative and Urgent, edited by Maria […]

Propositions for Non-Fascist Living: Tentative and Urgent Published!

BAK has published the first publication in a series on our research trajectory Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017–ongoing), Propositions for Non-Fascist Living: Tentative and Urgent (MIT Press, 2019). Moving from critique to propositions, the project attempts to articulate and inhabit methods of de-individualized living and to practice ways in which multiplicity and difference establish relations […]

Fellows at Le Guess Who?

  On Friday 8 November, BAK 2018/2019 Fellow Jeanne van Heeswijk and Utrecht-based experimental music festival Le Guess Who connect visual artist, activist, womanist, and fellow Fellow Patricia Kaersenhout with Chicago-based pianist, clarinetist, and composer Angel Bat Dawid for an event as part of Trainings for the Not-Yet (14 September 2019–12 January 2020). Both women tap […]

Objects of Love and Desire

Patricia Kaersenhout has a solo show, Objects of Love and Desire, at Wilfried Lentz Gallery, Rotterdam from 6 February–24 March 2019. Objects of Love and Desire shows Kaersenhout’s newest banner works showing black women scholars, journalists, poets, and activists of Caribbean decent in action as heroic figures, in the style of historic Chinese propaganda posters. […]

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Too?

BAK Fellow Patricia Kaersenhout, artist, activist and womanist, created Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Too?  a solo exhibition as a social monument, alongside a growing community of collaborators. The opening takes a place at De Appel on 4 October, 2019.

The Emotional Body

BAK 2018/2019 Fellows Jessica de Abreu and Patricia Kaersenhout, along with BAK, convene the January 2019 Fellows Intensive, focusing on the body as an archive, as a form of resistance, and the colonial legacies embodied today. Kaersenhout performs The Emotional Body (2018) for the Fellows, as well as guests from HKU University of the Arts, […]

Naomie Pieter: The Body in Black Women’s Activism

BAK 2018/2019 Fellows Jessica de Abreu and Patricia Kaersenhout, along with BAK, convene the January 2019 Fellows Intensive, focusing on the body as an archive, as a form of resistance, and the colonial legacies embodied today. Activist and artist Naomie Pieter leads the Fellows in a workshop on the use of the body as a […]

Arun Saldanha: Reontologising Race and the Post-Colonial Body

BAK 2018/2019 Fellows Jessica de Abreu and Patricia Kaersenhout, along with BAK and Curator of the BAK 2018/2019 Fellowship Program Whitney Stark, convene the January 2019 Fellows Intensive, focusing on the body as an archive, as a form of resistance, and the colonial legacies embodied today. Geographer and theorist Arun Saldanha joins the Fellows to […]

Program

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