Various Artists
— Everything is four (E=4) 2023
The collective of collectives Various Artists & Temporary Information Centre, Watou branch (consisting of a total of at least 26 artists) does not take part in Watou 2023.
The organisers of Watou Arts Festival 2023 have decided to exhibit a non-selected entry after all. This is because what this collective
– which took part in Patchwwwork 2022 – proposed simply could not be realised. Regardless of how interesting it would have been to include their work, which explores the boundaries of authorship, collaboration and local embedding and questions the future of the arts festival. The place it nonetheless receives, calls into question the making of choices.
The work an arts festival carries out behind the scenes includes poetry. It may be an opportunity for visitors to reflect on the refusal and rejection which, unfortunately, we all experience. How do you deal with refusal? And what role can our imagination play in dealing with refusal?
The collaboration between Various Artists and Tijdelijk Informatie Centrum, Watou branch is a collective of collectives. Various Artists (4) and Temporary Information Centre (IV) met in the context of the laboratory for contemporary art nadine in Brussels. Their first collaboration took place in the context of the Courts-Circuits biennial, in Comines-Warneton, which, like Watou, is located on the (linguistic) border. As a collective of collectives, within the context of Kunstenfestival Watou 2023, they explore the power of fiction as an innovative factor to fantasise about the multitude of possible futures, in the (art) world, but also in their own ever-evolving practices.