A project by guest-curator: Catherine Hemelryk Catherine Hemelryk

Hotel MariaKapel, a portrait by Katie Jane

Who are our neighbours?

7 Eyl 2008
28 Eyl 2008
  • 16:00 -16:00
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Black Tower -

We are increasingly monitored – CCTV cameras, increased security checks when we travel, what we buy in shops is recorded by loyalty swipe cards and even our emails are under surveillance. The perceived threat of terrorism harks back to the Cuban missile crisis when families would build bomb shelters under homes to protect their families from plotting others – how real his threat was no one knew. The culture of suspicion that was rife in the Communist countries remains quietly present since the regime's collapse. Small towns have often been associated with twitching net curtains and nosey neighbours; the line between a healthy interest and something more sinister is easily blurred. In the personal realm, one's environment can become distorted for sufferers of bi-polar disorder or schizophrenia – intricate conspiracies triggered by coincidence can become the focal point for obsessive behaviour. Sometimes, however, the label of paranoia can shroud the truth…

In the small city of Hoorn lie curios from it’s heyday as a prominent port, such as the ceiling rose of secrecy. Today, the diary of Katie Jane embeds the works of ten artists in the city. Each work details aspects of strange or unusual behavior: from Hadassah Emmerich's phsychoanalysing hairdresser to the false actions spied by Claudia Cristovao, from the neighbour plotting to overthrow the gallery with Mladen Miljanovic to the obsessive Lustfaust fan and friend of Jamie Shovlin. Katie Jane writes about all of these and more in her diary, that has a companion diary from the escapees and continuing participants of the 13 Isolations project, which recently took place in a derelict prison in Hoorn. Their diary contains a variety of documentation, proposals for unrealised projects and more, from the days the artists spent unnoticed at the edge of the city proving that you don’t necessarily know what is happening next door

At the opening, there will be readings of Katie Jane's diary. Readings will occur in Dutch and English.

At opening day, a mystery geocache featuring locations mentioned in the dairy will be posted at geocaching.com Geocaching is a world-wide treasure-hunting game using GPS-receivers: caches are hidden with coordinates or clues given online.