19 Michel Melenhorst Eric de Leeuw We live in a world where, through hypertransparency, everything is accessible, without scale, without delay, without secrets. A world in which belonging slips away. The Korean-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han writes in The Crisis of Narration that ‘the gradual abolition of distance is the mark of modernity. Distance disappears in favour of distancelessness, which renders everything available. ’Yet we feel a yearning for distance, for the relativity that gives space, where front and back, large and small, body and place, regain their weight and meaning. What if we could imagine a place that honours distance? The Scheldt provides us with a distance, it is a threshold, a divide between two city shores, and a gesture toward the far horizon, the other side. To want to stand on both banks at the same time is be+longing. Longing itself is the first step towards Being. But how do we come from Longing to BeLonging? Our workshop moves between Kintsugi and riveting, using the Scheldt and its shifting banks to mark connections, to imagine ways of crossing, to think about how to meet the far shore. (Riveting, which in English also means: to captivate, to hold spellbound.) In the old technique of repairing porcelain or clay with a metal staple, riveting, the join remains visible, more important than the fracture itself. To set the staples, one must inflict a second wound: drill the holes and pierce the surface, allowing healing to take place. To find out where and how we belong, we need an intervention, a second wound, a staple to restore our need for distance. Belonging is a relation, a ritual; a ‘rite de passage’. The passage does not pre-exist; it comes into being through the act! How does your act look? 1. Inflict. Mark two points on either side of the river Scheldt. 2. Suture. Find a unit of measure that captures the distance between these two points, a unit that is specific to and uniquely suited for your location. 3. Heal. Translate this unit of measure intoan object — the measuring staff. 4. Reccover. The relationship between the two points in the city is expressed through a visual narrative (or ritual). This relationship is not predetermined but emerges through the process. 5. Reflect. During the workshop, the body is the point of departure. The body that moves, that longs, that wishes to pause or to act. The outcome may take the form of an object, piece of furniture, film, , or performance, but is always related to the body. TOGETHER All disciplines and scales come together in [N] Everness: in seeing, doing, making, thinking and analysing. The binding element between all these is the Body. The workshop concept can be converted into an integrated group project, or multiple locations can be found in the city for several smaller groups that follow the same methodology but have their own areas of focus.
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