FAIRSHARE

Participants

Guy Bleus ▱ Buenos Tiempos (Alberto García del Castillo & Marnie Slater) ▱ Sofia Caesar ▱ Ignace Cami & Ward Zwart ▱ Charlotte Caroux with Gahine Coeckelberghs and Laurent Tempels ▱ Anaïs Chabeur ▱ Charles Nypels Lab at Jan van Eyck Academie, courtesy of Jo Frenken ▱ Editions Ménard (Egon Van Herreweghe & Jasper Rigole) ▱ Günbike Erdemir & Luz De Amor ▱ Daan Gielis ▱ Adrijana Gvozdenović ▱ Sam Janssen ▱ Martín La Roche Contreras ▱ Mike Moonen & Jorg Theissen ▱ Dennis Muñoz Espadiña with Hocus Bogus Publishing ▱ Nowhere Collective (Emile Hermans, Cira Huwald, Eline Kersten, Alicja Melzacka, and Miriam Sentler) ▱ Oblomov (Rachel Daniels & Lotte Vrancken) ▱ The Pink House (Gijs Waterschoot & Ersi Varveri) ▱ Emmanuelle Quertain with Bartleby & Co. ▱ Maxim Renard, Roel Vandermeeren & Aaron Peeters ▱ Gunther Segers ▱ Rod Summers ▱ Troebel Neyntje & AARS ▱ Sanne Vaassen ▱ Sorghelose art space presenting Nick Geboers, Sarah Hermans, Bram Van Meervelde, Stef Renard, and Nanna Sofie Reseke ▱ Maud Vande Veire ▱ Kirsten Vanlangenaeker & Stijn Wybouw ▱ Damon Zucconi

Public programme

2.00- …
Adrijana Gvozdenović, ’7 Anxieties and the World’, an ongoing card-reading performance.

2.30- …
Martín La Roche Contreras, ‘Potential Catalogue for the Musée Légitime’, an ongoing performance.

3.00-3.40
Publication launch and panel discussion:
J. Parker Valentine: Special Interests with Weinspach, Cologne
Stefaan Dheedene: List with MER, Ghent

4.00-4.20
Sanne Vaassen, ‘National Anthems of the World’, piano interpretation by Dorian Kreso.

4.30-5.15
Miriam Sentler, ‘Mapping of a Disappearing Landscape’, an artist talk.

5.30-5.50
Sanne Vaassen, ‘National Anthems of the World’, piano interpretation by Pim Müller.

6.00-6.40
Sofia Caesar, ‘I am Welton Santos’, a reading performance.

7.00-7.20
Sanne Vaassen, ‘National Anthems of the World’, piano interpretation by Truls Stritzel.

7.30-8.00
Buenos Tiempos, Int. (a collaboration between Alberto García del Castillo and Marnie Slater), a remote presentation on their ongoing photographic portrait series ‘The Ages of Beatrix Ruf: A History of Power Transvestism’.

8.00-9.00
Damon Zucconi, ‘All things considered’, software loop.

9.00-10.00
Bruni Getsing, DJ from cold hell.

About
What is the future of publishing in the digital age? What can publishing, seen as an artistic practice, entail? How do artists self-organise themselves?

These are some of the questions addressed through the first edition of the annual fair organised by KRIEG, Hasselt in collaboration with B32, Maastricht, The School, Hasselt and CIAP Kunstverein, Hasselt. On the 9th of May, this event will transform the building of CIAP into a multiverse where different material, digital, and performative approaches to self-publishing overlap, converge, or collide.

Self-publishing ‘business’ is particularly interesting when seen as a motor for community-building. It is rarely restricted to the ‘self’ but relies on networks, frequently more concentrated and intimate than their ever-expanding online counterparts. Artists’ publications, zines, records, or bootlegs, and the very specific ‘scenes’ surrounding them, create intricate systems of networks. However, it is only on rare occasions that they intersect.

This is why FAIRSHARE’s primary aim is to create a platform for the existing networks to interact and new connections to arise. FAIRSHARE invites different artists – from local and national household names to incognito players – to present their books, zines, and prints, along with other experimental formats of printed matter. To traverse disciplinary borders and offer a broader perspective on self-publishing, it features also a selection of records, bootlegs, and other miscellaneous editions. In addition, some artists will perform their work in the space during the public programme. In this way, FAIRSHARE attempts to draw as much attention to the mechanisms of distribution and circulation, as to the nature of the distributed materials themselves.

Publishing means bringing something out to the world, sharing it with the audience that is, for the most part, less proximate than in the case of a performance or even an exhibition. Books, prints, records etc. often travel through different, more or less visible distribution channels, passing from hand to hand, getting further and further away from their makers. In response to that, FAIRSHARE presents an opportunity for an immediate encounter between the artists and their audiences, for a direct exchange of experiences, and last but not least for unbridled transactions (the work acquired during FAIRSHARE comes straight from the artists).

Selection procedure
The fair is directed at all artists adopting material (e.g. books, prints), digital (e.g. online zines) as well as performative approaches to publishing. In the first phase, the selection committee – consisting of five art professionals: curators, artists, educators – invited around 30 artists to participate. In the second phase, an open call for the remaining places was launched.

Organisers
FAIRSHARE is organised by KRIEG, an independent art space based on the premises of the PXL-MAD School of Arts in Hasselt, in collaboration with B32 (Maastricht), the School (Hasselt) and CIAP Kunstverein (Hasselt). Since 2016, KRIEG has been supporting artistic production and presenting a rich programme of exhibitions and screenings, bringing established and mid-career artists to Hasselt. Each year, KRIEG attempts to organise an event/exhibition directed at the local young art-scene, as a counter-weight to its usual programming.