work-in-progress sharing: BREAKFIX

We are happy to invite you to the work-in-progress showing of BREAKFIX by Nada Gambier on Thursday the 26th of February at 14:30 at Les Brigittines.

BREAKFIX is grounded in the principles of kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing with gold. The work is guided by questions like: if breakage is necessary for change, how do we deal with its inherent cruelty? Is demolition only violent, or can it hold positive aspects? How does this relate to privilege? Could dysfunction offer a kind of freedom, and what are the limits of that view? What if hacking and reverse engineering are forms of repair? And if we move beyond seeing things as simply broken or fixed, what new language and forms might emerge?

The aim is not to make work about these questions, but to follow them as guides through the creative process to see what discussions and materials they generate.

BREAKFIX unfolds over four years (2024–28) in phases: preparation (2024–25), creation (2026), destruction (2027), and re-creation (2027–28). Following residencies in Kortrijk, Brussels, and Zurich, the creation phase begins in spring 2026. From January to June, Nada Gambier, Mark Etchells, and Vic Grevendonck will develop a staged trio, premiering in June 2026 at BUDA Kortrijk.

Nada Gambier (FI/BE) often works collaboratively, engaging in dialogue as a form of investment and love for the relational. Tired of having to tick the box to which category her work belongs, she nowadays calls it crash-disciplinary. The crash-disciplinary approach refers to a voluntary ignorance of disciplinary borders. The process determines the format. Often, Nada begins by working from a multitude of things—objects, images, texts, questions, concepts—and her processes are about finding the inner logic specific to the combination of elements brought together in the first place. This is an attitude that attunes to context and time. One could call it a kind of durational jazz.