A Spectacle of So Much Glory
and So Much Shame
A research installation with a focus on the Poortgebouw, Rotterdam. Through this work I contemplate on the Poortgebouw as a building situated within the complex and intertwined dynamics of urban development, capitalism, colonialism, housing, and the financialization of the city. But beyond that also as an emblematic structure that represents the struggles for autonomy and access to space.
The research installation includes three speculators, a singing and talking leak, a farting and laughing creature on the floor, a table with screen printed archive material and a publication of how to change a lock.
The community is on a constant hunt for leakages and cracks, being haunted by possible eviction threats. The community and the leakage start having an affair; the leakage starts to crave attention and hopes to be noticed by the community. The leakage, as a result of neglected maintenance, is a tactic by the owner to slowly and invisible deteriorate the building in order to displace the community and safeguard their assets for a profit-motive. It represents the struggle of the community and the possible threat of eviction in the financial speculation by the owners.
If you listen closely you can hear the leakages talk
Something seeping through the cracks
Was it in the shower
Or in the bathroom
In the corner of the attic
At the brim
Sliding along the pipes?
This time it wasn’t me
This work was part of the The Hauntologists; a project emerging through experimentation and collective research within the 2021/2022 BAK Fellowship for Situated Practice.
The Hauntologists
10 September - 20 November, 2022
Participants include: Özge Açıkkol, Merve Bedir, Kerem Ozan Bayraktar, cell for digital discomfort (Cristina Cochior, Karl Moubarak, and Jara Rocha), Dika+Lija, Philippa Driest, freethought collective, Ilgın Hancıoğlu, Alexandra Karyn, Gayatri Kodikal, Gatari Kusuma, Yen Noh with Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Rifandi Nugroho, İlyas Odman, Marina Papazyan, Anitha Silvia, and Zone Collective (Megan Hoetger and Kirila Cvetkovska), among others.