Residential Aliens // Trixie @ U10 Belgrade

Residential Aliens” is a collectively produced artwork by members of Trixie, shown at u10  Art Space Belgrade, June 22 – July 6, 2023.

For the first time since its establishment five years ago, the group has come together to collaboratively develop a work. This action has allowed  the collective to reflect back on its  past, while simultaneously considering what may be its collective future.  

This consideration was translated by the collective into a “patchwork”; a patterned network of relationships that constitutes a coherent whole. In this, patchworking is a metaphor for building relationships across scales; of individuals, groups and institutions, of forming a stable whole from patterns of individual components; in essence a necessary precondition for working and living collectively. 

By choosing to make a patchwork the collective translated this idea into a  physical patchwork; a monumental collaborative textile work occupying the centre of the gallery space. Supporting this central work are a series of collaborative paintings and audio and video works, similarly developed in the mode of ‘patchworking’. 

The techniques and methods used in the creation of the  individual elements are based on the individual practices and ideas of its makers, while the resulting “Gesamtkunstwerk” reflects its collective nature. This serves to relfect at once of the mulitfacted nature of a collective while elucidating the  diverese range of works and approaches from each individual in the collective whole. 

Patchworking is the action of bringing many elements together to become one, an ongoing process of forming and reforming to allow space for individual elements and a sense of belonging to the whole. Similarly, maintaining a Collective requires an equivalent to design and pattern finding; one made of actions such as compromising, listening, caring and co-creating, as a mode of bringing diverse people, each specialists in their own fields, together to a whole, a collective social system.

The exhibition’s centrepiece is an experimental collective patchwork, where artists’ works intertwine and evolve. Through collaborative creation, the individuality of each piece blurs as artists playfully vandalise and transform one another’s works. In this dynamic process, the author disappears and a vibrant patchwork emerges, embodying the spirit of experimentation and collaboration within the TRIXIE collective.
Mixed media sewn together in various ways, 1200 x 320 cm. The audio piece is a mix of sounds and voices recorded during the making of the patchwork. It is a ghostly soundscape of the making process that embodies the space: an echo that travelled here.
5 ’58’ audio piece, loops every 20 minutes. A circle of small objects is placed in the middle of the room. The pieces are either works by the participants or personal objects, which represent the individuals within the collective, conversing with one another.
Mixed media, 12 separate pieces The collaborative series of five paintings follows the ‘cadavre exquis’ concept, where artists playfully transform each other’s works. The final result depicts 5 separate creatures that intuitively attempt to portray the collective.
Ink, airbrush, pencil, felt tip pen & fabric dye on canvas, 100 x 70 cm each. The two oversized T-shirts blend verbal and visual communication through rebuses (a text & image puzzle), representing a playful exploration of semiotics. Each rebus corresponds to a line from the T.S. Eliot poem:The Hollow Men(1925), with one half expressing a sense of hollowness and the other evoking togetherness.
18XL cotton t-shirts, DTG print.  

U10 Art Space is an independent artist-run space dedicated to supporting contemporary art founded in 2012 in Belgrade.
With generous support of Stroom den Haag.

Date

22/06/2023
06/07/2023

With

Ruben Visser [NL], Joop Schoon [NL], Machi Ziosi [IT], Cemre Kara [TR], Clara Lezla [FR], Selina Landis [CH], Yannik Güldner [DE], Ariane Toussaint [FR], RJM Vanderheyden [NL], Thijs Jaeger [NL], Beng Yuenyong [NL/TH] and Jonas Raps [NL]

Curated by

Yannik Güldner

Organised by

Trixie The Hague & U10 Belgrade

Photographer

Marijana N Jankovic