THEATRE IN MOTION (TIM) acts as a platform for contemporary artistic research and reflection. TIM operates with 3 project poles: [LAB] supports and initiates artistic research projects and residencies,
with a specific interest in cross-disciplinary strategies. [HUB] explores alternative inter- or cross-cultural artistic exchange schemes that are both tested on the floor and discussed around the table, in
collaboration with international non-profit foundations and artistic organizations. Finally, [TXT] keeps track of all of the above with publications and discursive events.
TIM [LAB] is a mobile laboratory for the contemporary arts with a base in Beijing and Antwerp. LAB supports research projects of contemporary artists using cross-disciplinary information and/or research strategies, and initiates own research topics for which artists are invited to take part in cross-disciplinary debate on the case. At the core of LAB lays the question what cross-disciplinary interaction can learn us about the specificity and added value of artistic research in broader research debate, and what kind of new organizational forms can be established to accommodate this.
Performance and performativity is a reference on two fronts. First of all, as an artistic medium that accommodates direct interaction between artist and audience, in the form of an action in space and time that, when alternated or reconfigured, can be used as a research tool to understand the relationship between the above mentioned elements. It gives rise to a form of artistic information that is specific enough to test its potential contribution to academic , architectural , even corporate debate dealing
with similar concerns. Secondly, as we are part of what in essence is a global artistic village, artistic
mobility can also be read as a form of performativity. Space, territory and geography form the primary contextual platform in which the arts operate, interact (are mobile ) and thus should be understood; but they also make out the contemporary and critical substance that when performed free us from borders, ideologies and markets – hence their two-folded importance.
LAB runs a research station in Beijing providing artists and researchers with a point of departure to work on a research project in China. In collaboration with a custommade cluster of local partnerships - based on the content and needs of the research at stake - LAB provides artists and researchers in residence with infrastructure, access to information and a network in China. Partners in Europe and across the
Asian region - most notably Arthub Shanghai, Weld Stockholm and Wp Zimmer Antwerp – further “mobilize” projects and researchers by hosting them in their respective workspaces and art labs. In addition to selecting and supporting research projects proposed by artists, LAB also initiates own research topics for which artists and researchers are pro-actively invited to join.
Research projects show relevance in the Chinese context without being limited to it: LAB seeks to inscribe China in international research mobility and explicitly avoids one-dimensional, “China-tailor-made” projects. Rather than producing specific research about China, LAB proposes China as a provocation bringing about new perspectives and insights on global phenomena. LAB taps in on content generated in
China but also connects with the new contexts, artistic architectures and mobilities established inside and with China. As a result, LAB keeps closely connected to partners in the Chinese periphery and abroad. As a networked organization, LAB supports mobility of artists and researchers while staying mobile itself.
LAB strives for long-term commitments and continues to invest in artists and projects that have stirred LAB’s artistic agenda, by hosting not one but a few research sessions, if possible concluded within the framework of small-scale curatorial projects.
TIM/HUB acts as a connecting device, collaborating with non-profit foundations and artistic organizations worldwide, adding a crosscultural component to TIM’s cross-disciplinary agenda. HUB explores,
discusses and executes new collaborative models and alternative artistic practices in an increasingly globalized artistic economy. Operating from Antwerp, Belgium with a satellite in Beijing, China, TIM seems to
connect two worlds apart. However far from Antwerp, China is in reality all but a random destination. Anno 2009, and as a result of massive migration and globalization processes, the cross- or multi-cultural exercise is not only on international, but also on national and even regional agenda’s. Paradoxically enough,
the same agenda’s show an increasing investment in the celebration of national
identities.
In such a context, TIM takes a closer look at different cultural exchange schemes in an effort to define new forms of cross-cultural interactions in the arts. China profiles itself as the ultimate test case not only because herds of international foundations and governments rush to China with cultural festivals and ambitious exchange projects, but also because the Chinese government itself has discovered the
potential of the newly claimed creative industries as updated nationalist propaganda. As a result, Chinese artistic infrastructure and practice comes into being as a radical experiment sweeping away traditional borderlines between public, private, commercial and independent spheres and disciplines, with - as we claim it – possibly a global impact.
These ongoing experimentations with new forms of public-private and crossdisciplinary constellations in the arts – for the good, or the worse; with success and often failure too – and the effect this has on the artist and his practice, provides an extreme and radical environment to reflect upon, instigating a modus operandi that is in many respects an experiment in itself, questioning global artistic practice and
the role of the arts in general.
Under the frame of HUB, TIM organizes seminars, knowledge exchange and artists exchange projects with a firm interest in informal and alternative cultural exchange models. HUB does so, among others, with the Dutch and Flemish Theatre Institutes, and the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Architecture and Design. TIM/TXT summarizes TIM’s explorations in the form of publications and brings them in front of an audience with lectures and symposia.
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