Please join us this Friday, June 9 — for the Art Science (KABK) Thesis Evening, with readings by:

• Christian Schwarz – “NetGenXYZ – The End of the Technological Drift”
• Jacob Wallett – “Out of Hand”
• Christine Grønborg – “Some Principles for Symbiotic Practices”
• Thordur Hans Baldursson – “States of the Art”
• Nina Paesmans – “A Home with 100 Windows Open”
• Myles Merckel – “Natural Archives: A brief reflection on climate proxies, the blue dot and time”
• Noor Azzam – “Only in Spring Stones Turn into Turtles, Did You Know?
  
• Alexander Köppel – “The thing in front of you”
• Finn Stevenhagen – “On Animation: The Non-autonomous Animate
  
• Nefo Zhang – “0 Infinite”

We see you there from 18:00! Free entrance!

Image: Art Science Thesis Reading 2022.

On Friday, May 19 we are unveiling the Open Letter by Maria Ilieva in our storefront window!

Open Letters is a public space project initiated by Page Not Found in 2021. Based on an open call it gives artists and writers from The Hague room to publicly reflect on the current turbulent times.This project was inspired by Paul Maheke’s short essay ‘The year I stopped making art. Why the art world should assist artists beyond representation; in solidarity.’ , which was the first letter published in our storefront and was followed by five selected proposals by the local artists in 2021 and five winning proposals in 2022.

This year’s open call came to and end the jury consisting of Page Not Found’s team members selected four winning letters from the total of 35 submissions. As the first in this year’s series, Maria Ilieva’s  letter “Consensus Fiction – extract” will be on view until June 25, 2023 and be accessible any time from the Boekhorststraat.

Maria Ilieva’s letter addresses the recent earthquakes that occurred in Türkiye and Syria. As the artist writes: “I watched and mourned from the position of the neighbor —  I am originally Bulgarian, and have multiple close connections to Türkiye. I believe however, that we are all neighbors, but not all sufferers —  we cannot fully experience the pain and troubles of the other. This comes contrary to a position I have often encountered – the one of claiming the full understanding of one’s grief, and trying to carry and embody it. From the intimate position of the neighbor, I gave into intimacy, guilt, and empathy. I refer to the traditional Bulgarian mourning rituals and herbal healing, in an attempt to reconnect and grieve, care and heal.”

Image : a photo of neighbouring families having a picnic ( from the archive of the artist’s grandmother.)

On May 26 in the framework of Hoogtij#73 Page Not Found will present a unique screening of Farah Al Qasimi’s film Um Al Naar (Mother of Fire), alongside a selection of printed matter by the artist.

In this 40-minute horror-comedy by Farah Al Qasimi, a fictional Reality TV network shadows Um Al Naar, a jinn, or spirit, from Julfar (modern day UAE). Um Al Naar narrates the region’s transformation from its occupation by Portuguese and British naval forces to its current adoption of a national identity based around constructions of global tolerance and cultural production, and she pays close attention to everyday changes like the gendered pastimes of the country’s youth, waning trust in traditional forms of spirituality and medicine, and the loss of history in an urgent bid for novelty. 

Working primarily with photography, video and performance, Farah Al Qasimi (b. 1991, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) examines postcolonial structures of power, gender and taste in the Gulf Arab states.

Al Qasimi’s recent works challenge the viewer to consider their own understanding of reality, aspiration, individuality and the reflected image. In series such as ‘Funhouse’, Al Qasimi demonstrates her skill with mise-en-scene in photographs that are richly detailed, evoking a tromp-l’oeil effect, which are at turns delightful, delirious and disturbing. Elsewhere, the artist creates works that confront commonplace notions of figurative photography and portraiture. Her recent commission with Public Art Fund, ‘Back and Forth Disco’, was on view at 100 bus shelters in New York City in 2019–20 and comprised of works offering a distinct representation of a subject without allowing the viewer full access to the person, highlighting the unique qualities that determine individuality and capturing the diverse essence of New York City.

Kino Nights is a new program series at Page Not Found, tailored to present the works by the artists, whose practice encompasses film or video productions as well as publishing. Film, video and other moving images are screened alongside a carefully curated selection of publications and other printed matter by the artist. The diversity of practices ​​of the contributors often escapes disciplinary categorization, therefore makes this series particularly layered and immersive.

The presentation will be on view from 19:00-23:00.

Friday, 21 April 2023, 18:00, Free entrance

We welcome you to the sixth session of Typographic Nights at Page Not Found, curated by Trang Ha and Paulina Trzeciak.

“Typographic Nights” are a space for graphic designers and the public to gather around understandings and misunderstandings of the graphic design process. Audience members are asked to bring texts which they would like to see transformed into visual works. These could be either small pieces of their own writing, borrowed fragments, or hand-picked inspirational quotes. The invited designers and typographers will materialise these texts into beautiful printed matter on the spot, demonstrating their skills and knowledge. Works will be printed the same night, ready to take home. Together we will reveal the curiosity, fun, improvisation and care that are part of graphic design, from choosing a typeface to applying analog materials, and much more!

This Typographic Night features live design performances by With Dun Lee, Miquel Hervás Gómez and The Rodina and is made possible thanks to the support by PICTORIGHT and Stroom Den Haag.

Dun Lee (South Korea, 1993) explores ways of utilising graphic design as a tool. As a tool of thinking, she remixes the pre-existing circumstances to discover unexpected currencies, the possibilities. As a tool of communication, she observes how people use language to write, say, and hear. She is studying at Werkplaats Typografie, NL. She graduated BA Graphic Communication Design at Central Saint Martins, UK in 2020.

Miquel Hervás Gómez (b.1985, Terrassa). Graphic designer and educator based on the WWW. Tutor for Disarming Design at the Sandberg Instituut and Preparatory Course at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. Workshop manager at the BB. Active member of fanfare and former Carne Kids.

The Rodina is Tereza Ruller (she/her), who identifies as a mother, communication designer, researcher, and educator. In her studio, The Rodina, Ruller investigates performative and critical approaches towards graphic design. Her transdisciplinary practice emphasizes the power of situation, playfulness, active spectatorship, and relations between human and nonhuman actors. Ruller’s work is deeply collaborative and consists of participatory events, spatial installations, virtual environments, and visual identities. Addressing critical issues of our time—such as ecological and social crises—she seeks to develop collective shifts in perspective.

Photo credit: Audience during Typographic Night V at Page Not Found (2022), photo by Benjamin Morrison.

The TIMEZONES podcast series plunges into the world of artists and their practices, asking: what does living and working in culture and the arts involve in different countries, cities, and contexts today? The artists’ thoughts on their moods, their social, political, and intellectual realities and their philosophies of life have been worked up into experimental audio collages. The podcasts run the gamut of formats and content, from straight journalism to experimental and documentary approaches, ethnography and fiction, sound art and improvisation. TIMEZONES is a project by Norient, co-initiated with the Goethe-Institut.

Fri 7 Apr 16:30 – 18:00

Sat 8 Apr 15:45 – 18:00

Sun 9 Apr 15:15 – 18:00

In conjunction with the release of the publication The Listening Biennial Reader, these two seminars at Page Not Found with artist and writer Brandon LaBelle focus on listening as a framework for nurturing expanded relationalities across time and territory. In what ways does listening move us, supporting connections with others? As many artists and scholars attest, listening is a transformative power that impacts onto processes of social recognition, care and mutuality. Over the course of the two seminars on Friday and Saturday, listening will be highlighted as a conduit for enabling recognition that also moves beyond human worlds and the logic of binary thought. Taking stock of listening’s power, we’ll collectively consider listening as a special form of dreaming, as what delivers messages from other worlds, and that acts as a type of possession transforming what we know of each other.

Brandon LaBelle is an artist, writer and artistic director of The Listening Biennial and Academy. His work focuses on questions of agency, community, collectivity and poetics, and results in a range of collaborative initiatives and activities. His publications include: Dreamtime X (2022), The Other Citizen (2020), Sonic Agency (2018), Lexicon of the Mouth (2014), Acoustic Territories (2010, 2019), and Background Noise (2006, 2015). His book, Acoustic Justice (2021), argues for an acoustic model by which to engage questions of social equality.

Fri 7 Apr 15:00 – 16:00

Sat 8 Apr 14:15 – 15:15

In framework of Rewire Festival and it’s programme at Page Not Found, sound artists and musician Liew Niyomkarn will open Rewire’s context programme on Friday with a listening session at Page Not Found. Through crowd-sourced field recordings by friends near and far, we will open our ears and tune into a series of sonic environments in micro and macro forms. 

Liew Niyomkarn is a sound artist and musician. Coming from experimental sound practice and performance, her work focuses on listening practices and conveying memories through sound and text. She uses field recordings to detect time, (non)-human voices, everyday routines, and engage in sounds of wilderness, archival sounds, and ambient music culture. She combines them with a sonic palette and the properties of sound itself, such as sounds of spaces, playing with long decays and harmonics. She often presents her work through live performances and sound installations. 

Fri 7 Apr 13:30 – 14:30

As part of Rewire Festival program, aspiring and early-career critics, writers, and researchers are invited to contribute to the Rewire Reflections series of essays, interviews, and short reflections that will be published in the weeks following the festival. Participants are given the opportunity to interview artists and speakers or to reflect upon the festival’s music, context, and film programmes. The group is invited to gather at Page Not Found to discuss creative and critical approaches to writing about music and sound, together with invited writers, curators, and researchers. 

Please send a short motivation letter to reflections@rewirefestival.nlbefore March 24th. 

20 March, 2023, 18:00 Online

Page Not Found initiated in 2021 a collaboration with the staff and students of the Master Experimental Publishing (XPUB) of the Piet Zwart institute, Rotterdam, which resulted in the publication of a “Special Issue” – the format the Master adopted for presenting their trimestrial research –, and its launch at Page Not Found.In 2023, the third chapter in this joint investigation will summon the ghost in the (game) machine. Role play is a prevalent and natural form in video games to embrace their artificial worlds. Even in its most traditional form, playing a game entails accepting its rules and willfully stepping in the magical circle of their storytelling — where the Real is suspended and the Imaginary rules. Magic resides where rules and rituals apply, as noted by Dutch historian Johan Huizinga: ”just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the ‘consecrated spot’ cannot be formally distinguished from the play-ground (…) All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart.”

However, this magic circle often lacks spirituality: most game worlds unimaginatively replicate the mechanisms of Capitalism — competitive materialism, capital accumulation and instrumentalisation of Nature, all justified by an overarching rationality. The same game worlds often mirror in their imagery the patriarchal exploitation of women. The XPUB students are thus invited with guest editor Lídia Pereira to explore games as gateways to alternative systems of belief and values. Central to this exploration are holistic relations to Nature, integrating care as an essential component of their practices, such as witchcraft and shamanism. Beyond the Nature/Technology duality, can games and machines contribute to re-enchanting the world?

To contextualise the publishing of this third Special Issue, Page Not Found invites guest speakers to contribute on this topic. Our first guest this year is artist Shana Moulton.

Through her performances, videos, and multidimensional installations, Shana Moulton creates worlds at the threshold of absurdity and truth, catharsis and cliché, the material and the spiritual. The artist positions herself in the role of an individual moving with worry and wonderment through environments designed from autobiographical experiences, subconscious associations, and fantasy. Ascribing healing properties to the banal trappings of everyday life, Moulton’s works elicit a potent empathy on the part of the viewer that allows for these narratives to continue beyond the immediate experience of an artwork. Shana Moulton’s video work has been screened and exhibited internationally, including at Art in General, New York, Migros Museum, Zurich; Contemporary Museum of Art, Uppsala; Rencontres internationales Paris/Berlin, Paris; Aurora, Edinburgh; Dark Light Festival, Dublin; Impakt Festival, Utrecht; Internationale Kurzfilmtage, Oberhausen; Broadway 1602, New York; and Gimpel Fils, London. Moulton’s performances have been presented at venues including The Kitchen, New York; PERFORMA 09, New York; Aurora Picture Show, Houston; Electronic Arts Intermix, New York; The Bluecoat, Liverpool; Socrates Sculpture Park, New York; among others.

Join us on Monday 20, starting at 18:00, here!

We kindly thank Stroom Den Haag for supporting this program!

Image credit: Shana Moulton, The Undiscovered Drawer, 2013, video.
© Shana Moulton/Collection Frac Normandie Caen

We are excited to announce the continuation of our Open Letters cycle in 2023! Page Not Found now welcomes submissions to Open Letters 2023: an open call for artists and writers in The Hague to occupy our large storefront with messages of urgency and vulnerability. Deadline for submissions: 16 April, 2023!
Please note that only artists and writers who live or work in The Hague are eligible to apply, as this project aims to support our local community.  

Open Letters gives artists room to publicly reflect on the current turbulent times.This project was inspired by Paul Maheke’s short essay ‘The year I stopped making art. Why the art world should assist artists beyond representation; in solidarity.’, published on the 18th of March 2020. In the essay Maheke channels voices of urgency from precarious figures who practice their art without structural support, ranging from the witch to the single parent to those struggling with mental health issues. “The Year I Stopped Making Art.” was the first letter published in our storefront and was followed by five selected proposals by the local artists in 2021.

Open Letters are published in the front window of Page Not Found’s project space using vinyl lettering, which can vary in size, color and font type. However, the execution does not need to stay limited to just that and we invite artists to share their message in additional ways that seem fitting to the cause.

The published work will be given the audience of passersby of the lively Boekhorststraat. Artists will receive a fee of €500 and production will be taken care of by the team of Page Not Found. The next presentation will be  unveiled in June 2023. Each presentation will last four weeks.

Your proposal has to be submitted no later than Sunday 16 April, 2023. Submissions will be reviewed by Page Not Found team and the selected artists/writers will be notified during the second week of May 2023.

Submission Form

This open call is made possible thanks to the generous support by Stroom Den Haag and Gemeente Den Haag.