Sunshine Is Calling

If the world manifests itself as a disaster and becomes almost unthinkable as a result, how can we try to understand this world?

© Gosie Vervloessem
© Gosie Vervloessem

The effects of climate change in particular are driving the unthinkable to the forefront: we are becoming more and more aware that our lives take place in a world that is both human and non-human at the same time. We can no longer maintain the separation between these categories. How do we understand their intense intertwining? How do we navigate here and now in this world? How do we live our daily lives without being ridiculously optimistic or slipping into a severe depression?

Explore the mess with messy tools

Can the horror genre - as a place where the paradoxical idea of the unthinkable takes shape - help us with this?

Horror is the place where meaning fades and the belief in an ordering principle is put aside. The distinction between the self and the world, between what is human and non-human, becomes blurred. Horror is the darkness that comes to the surface. These seams are perceived as pure horror when they occur in our daily lives: the here and now then shows cracks behind which the obscure hides, it opens an abyss to a place whose meaning we do not grasp and which we prefer to walk past.

The investigation of the anthropocene as a geological era by a monstrous detective

The research I want to carry out dives deep into the cracks of the current geological period, the anthropocene. It is a geological investigation conducted by a monstrous detective. The detective is the most fascinating and complex character in the horror genre. It is an assemblage of different entities, simultaneously human, animal, plant, bacterium and thus exceeds different natural classifications. She is at her best when she lets her demons (i.e. the different alliances in the assemblage) run free. I want to explore and shape this character.

Creation & performance: Gosie Vervloessem Residency support: Workspacebrussels

Residencies

06.07.2020 - 02.08.2020

workspacebrussels