Join us for an evening of conversations, readings, and shared inquiry!
~ Nocturnalities: Bargaining Beyond Rest by Andrea Knezović and Agata Bar
~ The Mountain, The Mountain by Moosje Goosen
18:30 – 21:00
Talks start at 19:00
PrintRoom
Van Speykstraat 121, Rotterdam
Nocturnalities: Bargaining Beyond Rest by Andrea Knezović and Agata Bar delves into the politics of rest within the European art world and aims to contextualize themes of sleep, exhaustion, anxiety, and precarity within the realms of cultural labour, knowledge production, and cultural institutional operations.
What is the value of rest in the age of late capitalism? And who claims ownership over certainty in a reality that seems so precarious, where the non-stop pace of life often demands more than the traditional hours of daylight can offer? We are increasingly pushed into collective insomnia by the grips of the global economy, technological expansion, and information extractivism. Under the premise of tailored living and comfort-economy, clear constructs of work performance are removed and workspaces are hybridized, while at the same time our internal clocks are blurring the boundaries between autonomy and control, rest and productivity, automation and life.
~This presentation will be moderated by Natasha Rijkhoff.
Written contributions by: Andrea Knezović, Angeliki Tzortzakaki, Angels Miralda, Katia Krupnikova, Katja Praznik, Laura Mrkša & Sepp Eckenhaussen, Meghana Karnik, Rita Ouedraogo, Silvio Lorusso, Tia Čiček, Titus Nouwens, Eloise Vo and more.
Graphic design by Miquel Hervás Gómez, published by Onomatopee
The Mountain, The Mountain by Moosje M. Goosen is an edited version of a sequence of fragments written on postcards between May 2024 and February 2025, posted to the space of Manifold Books in Amsterdam. The writing of these postcards took place during The Sphinx’s Riddle, a year-long program of exhibitions and reading sessions organized by Maartje Fliervoet from Manifold Books, and coincided with the physical rehabilitation of the author, following an induced coma and extended time in hospital in the first months of 2024, due to a COVID infection. It combines (memories of) readings, most notably that of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, with (memories of) illness and hospitalization.
During the event, the original set of postcards will be presented alongside the poster publication of The Mountain, The Mountain, published by Good Neighbour Books and designed by Dongyoung Lee. Moosje, who won’t be present due to health restrictions, will read fragments from the text together with Maartje Fliervoet, who was the receiver of these postcards. The presentation of the postcards will remain on view at PrintRoom until the end of December.
