ABOUT THIS SITE >>> This site is a blog as well as an archive: It gives visibility to the continues working of radical_hope & radical_house and holds documentation of the research projects Distraction As Discipline and OTÇOE - works for passers-by.
radical_hope (since 2010) creates and holds frameworks for artistic research/es & co-creation/s.
radical_house (since 2020), next to being a long term project on notions of ownership, privacy and privilege, provides a physical place in Brussels: here people can tempralrily cohabit with the permanent users of the house in order to work, rest or find shelter.
Distraction As Discipline (2015 - 2019) is
an investigation into enactivist principles in art and education
(research trajectory at KASK School
of Arts Ghent 2016-19). It considers the potential of performance art and
pedagogy in general, in resisting the current and massive
desubjectivation, by critically reclaiming both, attention for the moment and participation in a process.
OTÇOE - works for passers-by (2012 - 2014) was the development of radical_hope's artistic practice in the city and questioned how and by whom this practice (and its bodily, social and economical aspects) is perceived. The title refers to the public of a city and to how we encounter and register most things on our way through the city: Out of The Corner of Our Eyes. OTÇOE.
SEASONAL REFLECTIONS
NEWSLETTERS
TIMELINE
MAIN PRACTICES
CO-CONSTRUCTED CONVERSATIONS
FERMATA
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This issue of our Seasonal Reflections derives from 2 years “doing less, and doing that with more precision”. After a period we called INTERVAL (2025), and during what we call FERMATA (2026), we eventually “got to define” the conditions for a possible continuation of our work at /withradical_house: These found the form of a project 4SEASONS by radical_house. On Sep 15, 2026 we submitted our plans to the Flemish Authorities (VG) and are excited to hear by January 2027, whether we will be granted the necessary support.
In a nutshell: With the two-year development project 4SEASONS by radical_house, filed by curator and cultural worker Alice Ciresola proposes a dramaturgical turn in the existing and ongoing project radical_house. It allows us, – Heike Langsdorf, Alice Ciresola, Simone Basani, Anthony Chang and Miriam Rohde, the current housekeepers, to develop and refine a working methodology as an integral part of their artistic/curatorial practice. It marks the second phase in the development of thisBrussels-based artist-run project.
After radical_house emerged in 2020–21, five years into artistic experimentation, 4SEASONS draws further on the experience gathered, proposing new directions for the practitioners shaping and keeping alive the ongoing work at radical_house: with the aim to become better understood in the collaborative role radical_house can play for partners in the field. The title reflects an approach that has shaped a way of working from the outset: building on seasonal thinking, the heart of the proposal consists of rendering visible the ongoing performative practices and protocols being developed at and through radical_house, by using them to create four public appearances, what we call now Long Weekends, per year.
The work will be organised around three interdependent functions that have become central for the housekeepers: the house as a bridge—a place for artists during challenging periods of their life; the house as a home for practice research—a space that supports the development of artistic practices in an informal yet dedicated sphere; and the house as a bonding agent—a response to a moment in which the relationship between artist-run initiatives and institutions is being fundamentally redefined. Embracing current institutional fatigue as an invitation to rethink the role artists can play within contemporary society, 4SEASONS challenges the often-assumed order of things. While artistic practices depend on supportive conditions to flourish, they also actively produce and sustain those conditions through the communities, spaces, and relationships they create.
What we want to share here as well are two items which we consider being “unintentional traces” of the last years. Unintentional because they were not planned ahead as documentation of our activities but they rather emerged though desire and necessity while organising our work and thinking process.
>>> our conversation with Ricerca X, dating from spring 2025, but only end-edited this year.