Resonating with the theme of the exhibition, Tina Gillen, Christophe Gallois and a group of students and young artists are conducting a long-term research project at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. Entitled Forms of Life, it takes shape, among others, as a monthly seminar at the Academy and a workshop in Venice at the start of September 2022. Initiated in 2021, Forms of Life will culminate in an project at Mudam in the summer of 2023, as part of the Mudam Summer Projects organised by the museum’s public outreach service.
Dwelling in the world (…) is tantamount to the ongoing, temporal interweaving of our lives with one another and with the constituents of our environment.
Tim Ingold, “On Weaving a Basket”
Forms of Life explores the multiple resonances of a question animating all fields of contemporary creation, thought, and society: that of our relation to other forms of life, and the ways in which we inhabit the world. Our aim is to question the links that weave together the work of art and the world; images and the living; the forms that surround us and those we create – in other words, the fabric of life itself. The driving force of this project will be an exploration of the various meanings and transdisciplinary character of what we define as “forms of life” in the field of visual arts.
Forms of Life will unfold over the course of two years as a monthly seminar created as a time for exchange, reflection, reading, practice and encounters with international artists and thinkers from various disciplines. Several highlights will punctuate the project’s development, including a workshop in Venice during the summer of 2022 that will consider the city and its lagoon as a territory for reflection and artistic experimentation.
Forms of Life
Research project 2021–2023
Forms of Life is realised in partnership with the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp.