P

As an area where cars or other vehicles can be left temporarily, the parking lot is a site that stockpiles potential. It is an aside to the road and to the romantic idea of travel, and a necessary counterpart to the modern preoccupation with speed. Its level surface and graphic pattern constitute a secondary place that often goes unnoticed, a landscape at the service of a department store, an amusement park, a factory, a journey. Once an ‘enclosed preserve for beasts of the chase’, it has become an increasingly questioned, regulated yet volatile landscape. It is a patchwork incessantly formed by aesthetic, functional, ecological, political and economic strategies. It is a place of temporary stagnation at the service of movement, a grid that gathers and structures objects, people and stories in a continuously changing puzzle.
The line that connects A to B, pauses at P. 

Starting in November 2018, De Cleene De Cleene curated a program that delves into the parking lot. These moments took various forms.

 

P1: Sam Weerdmeester – Stellplatz
P2: Maíra Dietrich – Spelling P
P3: Tjobo Kho – Can We Talk in Private?
P4: Robbrecht Desmet – Wat voor fiets met verchroomd stuur achter bij de aanlegplaats?
P5: Stephanie Kiwitt – Close In Open

In collaboration with 019

P1: Sam Weerdmeester – Stellplatz
10/11/2018 – 01/12/2018

The German website www.stellplatz.info offers user-generated information on parking spots for campers across Europe. Via that massive directory, and for the price of a parking ticket, a parking spot can turn into a temporary home. Sam Weerdmeester went to visit some of those Stellplätze in Germany and approached their occupants and their vehicles to document the phenomenon. In 019, Weerdmeester presents a fragment of these places, by turning the exhibition space into a temporary stock for the campers he photographed. Balancing between the ideas of mobility and stagnation, the exhibition Stellplatz offers a Calderesque transformation of the interior of the 019-building. 

P2: Maíra Dietrich – Spelling P
26/04/2019 – 10/05/ 2019

Spelling P is an installation that addresses language from the perspective of its units: characters and sounds. The act of spelling pauses the chain of meaning to closely examine one piece at a time. It opens up the possibility to insert another text between the characters.
During a residency on experimental writing, someone asked Maíra Dietrich to paint a sign on a facade. ‘Estacionamento’, it said – parking lot. Recounting this anecdote serves as the starting point to examine the linguistic patterns and rhythms underlying parking lots.

P3: Tjobo Kho – Can We Talk in Private?
28/09/2019 – 29/09/2019

Jacob Dwyer, Tjobo Kho, Bernie Reid, Charlotte Stuby, Suzie Van Staaveren and Emiel Zeno research the potential of the parking lot as an urban landscape and react to its standardized yet shifting nature. Between cars, trailers and vans on the parking lot adjacent to 019, objects appear that gently disrupt the parking lot’s day-to-day function. The occupied parking spaces will be compensated by turning the former welding factory that houses 019 into a temporary covered parking lot.’
‘Can We Talk in Private?’ was initiated by Tjobo Kho and was on view on view during Sorry Not Sorry Festival

P4: Robbrecht Desmet – Wat voor fiets met verchroomd stuur achter bij de aanlegplaats?
28/09/2019, 21h, screening

‘Wat voor fiets met verchroomd stuur achter bij de aanlegplaats?’ is a short audiovisual story about a young man who goes out to visit some friends one evening after leaving the cinema. How is it possible that they miss out on each other?

The new short film  by Belgian filmmaker Robbrecht Desmet will be projected onto the billboard against 019’s facade. A grandstand – the size of a car – occupies one parking space and provides the public with a seat in the middle of the parking lot.

‘Wat voor fiets met verchroomd stuur achter bij de aanlegplaats?’ was on view during Sorry Not Sorry Festival.

P5: Stephanie Kiwitt – Close In Open
03/10/2019 – 26/10/2019

During four weeks, Stephanie Kiwitt resided in 019, visited the surrounding parking lots on a regular basis, stayed to observe the dynamics within a very defined and universal space. Starting, halting, moving – presence, leftovers, absence.

 

http://samweerdmeester.nl
http://mairadietrich.com
http://www.tjobokho.com
http://www.robbrechtdesmet.be
https://stephaniekiwitt.com

P1 - Sam Weerdmeester - Stellplatz

P2 - Maíra Dietrich - Spelling P

P3 - Tjobo Kho - Can We Talk in Private?

P4 - Robbrecht Desmet - Wat voor fiets met verchroom stuur achter bij de aanlegplaats?

P5 - Stephanie Kiwitt - Close in open