Group exhibition and public program

Western-European cities have become melting pots of different minority cultures. Yet the Western ‘Enlightened’ values still reign. As a possible tool of resistance against an all-consuming liberal ideology, Eating Each Other presents the strategy of ‘reappropriation’, by which dominant patterns of thought and behaviour are mixed with one’s own knowledge, customs and rituals to create something entirely new.

The question remains: who is eating and who is eaten?

In 2018, Antwerp will for the first time have more residents with a migrant background than it will have native Belgian residents. This will make it a so-called ‘majority-minority city’, a city in which the majority is made up of a wide range of minorities. As such, the city will no longer be characterised by a distinct ethnic, religious and cultural homogeneity. In light of this, to look at ‘citizenship’, values and norms from a Western perspective is no longer a valid approach.

The exhibition and public programme ‘Eating Each Other’ looks at the strategy of reappropriation. The project is inspired by the 'Manifesto Antropófago' (‘Cannibalist Manifesto’) written by Brazilian poet and theorist Oswald de Andrade in 1928. In this poetic text, de Andrade proposes to cannibalise a dominant culture by eating it, digesting it and excreting it in an entirely new form.

Processes of reappropriation enable people to create a space that they recognise as their own. At the same time, they reveal an interesting power dynamic. They are simultaneously a tool of domination and a means of resisting domination. It is this dynamic that ‘Eating Each Other’ seeks to reflect. The ‘cannibalistic’ process is presented through artworks that themselves are proposals for reappropriation, as well as through groups of works that mutually reappropriate in various ways.

Listen here to 'Cahier #3: Eating Each Other'
INTERVIEW 1: Dirk Geldof
INTERVIEW 2: Heleen Debeuckelaere
INTERVIEW 3: Joachim Ben Yakoub
INTERVIEW 4: Karen Celis

Performance Weekend 20-21 April
Four performances, spread out over two evenings, take a closer look at issues surrounding borders and mobility, colonialism and imperialism, appropriation and assimilation.

'Breach!' - Re-opening 'Eating Each Other'
25.05.2018 — 01.07.2018
Reappropriation of the exhibition by Aneta Rostkowska & Jakub Woynarowski

Documentation

- 'Ik hoop met mijn beelden het blikveld van mensen te verruimen', interview with Mashid Mohadjerin by Janine Meijer (in Dutch)
- 'Hulde of roof' by Maryam K Hedayat in rekto:verso (in Dutch)
- 'Je moet mensen niet schofferen, maar samenleven op basis van verschil', interview with Michiel Vandevelde in Cutting Edge (in Dutch)
- 'Wie eet wie in Extra City', by Tamara Beheydt in Metropolis M (in Dutch)
- 'Nadenken over cultural appropriation', Kif Kif over 'Eating Each Other' en culturele appropriatie (in Dutch)
- 'Zou dit echt kunnen zijn?', by Lotte Beckers in De Morgen (in Dutch)
- Een woordenwisseling over ‘Eating Each Other’, by Maryam K Hedayat and Joeri Verbesselt in rekto:verso