Date
Location
HAL, Grote Markt
Audience
Adults, Youth
Poetic quest
On Friday evening the 21st of February and Sunday afternoon the 23rd of February, the Frans Hals Museum presents works by Heleen Blanken, Anto López Espinosa and Hala Namer (AKA LazerGazer). In the historic Vleeshal, performance, video, installation and sound art come together temporarily in this unique program. At the center is a poetic quest beyond binary systems like gender. In which the artificial boundaries between humans, nature and technology blur. Traditional human-centered views are challenged by emphasizing interconnectedness.
Search
On your return you offered me a hand full of voices is a fable-like lip-sync performance by Anto López Espinosa that tells the story of a deer (the performer) and hunters (the audience). Heleen Blanken's work refers to Abiosis (the absence of life). Her project is based on the primordial soup theory, which states that life - under specific conditions - can emerge from non-living materials. Hala Namer (AKA LazerGazer) creates a soundscape during this program by employing analog tapes andfieldrecordings. Thus, three diverse contemporary practices form a collective search for new ways of being.
Own collection
The Verwey Hal features the video What the Heart Wants by Cécile B. Evans from the collection of the Frans Hals Museum. This work is about the relationship between humans and technology and the increasing influence of technology on the feelings fostered and exchanged between the two.
Just forone weekend at the Frans Hals Museum.
Here and Now.
About the artists
Anto López Espinosa
The artisticpractice of Anto López Espinosa unfolds through performative works that encompass language, sound, and poetry. Central to the irartistic exploration is the possibility of unraveling queerness through the poetic. López Espinosa creates lip-sync-based performances that simultaneously challenge and captivate the viewer’s gaze, offering alternative expressions of gender. Through these works, they aim to cultivate a collective pursuit of love and belonging.
Hala Namer (AKA LazerGazer)
Hala Namer is an interdisciplinary Syrian-Kurdish artist based in Amsterdam. Her work explores design as a tool to critique systemic violence embedded in histories of oppression. By embracing instability and flux across sound, text, installation, and moving images, she investigates new methods of paying attention to violence and reflects on cultural and historical wounds. Through her practice, she focuses on a synesthetic approach to image and sound, intertwining and challenging the experience of hearing and seeing.
Heleen Blanken
Heleen Blanken is an interdisciplinary artist based in Amsterdam, whose practice spans installation art, new media, cinematography, scenography, and sculpture. Her artistic practice investigates the intricate relationship between humanity and the natural world, delving into how we perceive and engage with nature. By traversing traditional dichotomies such as organic versus artificial and analog versus digital, Blanken's work interrogates our understanding of the natural environment while imagining speculative, futuristic narratives.
