THE RED BOX

A collaboration by Olivia Lennon and Jan van Schaik.

Introduction

An experimental installation and performance, conceived of in reverse.

The set and initial performance were shown in the L’Escaut collaborative artists residency in April 2024 for the Art Brussels OFF Programme.

The set remains in place for 12 months during which it will host exhibitions by a series of invited artists.

In April 2025 a second installation and performance will take place and bring the project to a finale in May of that same year.

Click here for an architect’s narative arc and scroll down for details on the set, caharacters, performance, project team, and suppoters.

THE RED BOX. Photograph by Albert Comper

Set

The set treats the built form of the L’Escaut building as if a found object. Its architectural elements are sampled, and then remade up side down, back to front, and mirrored.

Together the existing building and the remade components work to create a space of multiple architectural and elemental realities.

Photographs by Fabien Silvestre Suzor and Johan Poezevara

Characters

The characters are a response to the set’s desire to be occupied.

Their invention arises from a sampling of the emotional, political, social, and cultural conditions of the set’s location, seen through the antipodean lens worn by the artists whose practices are based on the opposite side of the globe.

Photographs by Fabien Silvestre Suzor and Johan Poezevara

Peformance

The performance is a part-improvised part-rehearssed activation of the characters within the physical and conceptual space of the set performed over a 90 minute period.

Performed at L’Escaut for the Art Brussels OFF Programme, 28 April 2024.