freethought invites…. Laurence Rassel: On Radical Hospitality
A Bergen Assembly event with freethought hosted at Hordaland Kunstsenter

Saturday 5 December 2015
19.00 Communal supper served
20.00 Lecture by Laurence Rassel

Please join us for the fifth in this series of guest lectures organised byfreethought for the Bergen Assembly, which invites responses to the term ‘infrastructure’. A simple dinner will be provided and drinks will be available to buy from the HKS bar.

Laurence Rassel: On Radical Hospitality
How, within an exhibition context, could we open the doors for encounters?
In the years of curator Laurence Rassel’s public program at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona, conversation was at the centre of exhibitions such as ‘re.act.feminism’, ‘Retrospective’ by Xavier Le Roy, ‘FAQ: Zone of frequently asked questions’, ‘Allan Kaprow. Other Ways’, amongst others. Derrida proposes the concept of ‘unconditional hospitality’, which demands an abandonment of judgement and control with regard to who will receive that hospitality. The ‘absolute’ hospitality described by Derrida was impossible for Rassel and her team at Fundació Antoni Tàpies: while practising different modes of welcoming, they had to establish rules for how to use the ‘house’. But those rules can be readable, understandable, negotiated as children changing the rules of the game as they play: “Now, what if? And if? Now You, Now I.”

The lecture will be documented and made available here.

All welcome!

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About Laurence Rassel:
Laurence Rassel is a cultural worker who can act as curator, teacher, organizer based in Brussels. From 2008 to 2015 she was the Director of Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, an institution created in 1984 by the artist Antoni Tàpies to promote the study and knowledge of modern and contemporary art (http://www.fundaciotapies.org/). From 1997 to 2008, Rassel was member of Constant, a non-profit association and interdisciplinary arts-lab based and active in Brussels dealing with free software, copyright alternatives and (cyber)feminism (http://www.constantvzw.org/).

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About freethought invites….
freethought invites… is series of public events organised by freethought in the lead up to the 2016 Bergen Assembly. Guest speakers are invited to respond to and offer different points of entry into freethought’s research interest ‘Infrastructure’. These events are open to all and begin with a communal supper for everyone.

You can follow the freethought Infrastructure programme here: http://freethought-infrastructure.org/

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About freethought
Artistic Directors of Bergen Assembly 2016. freethought is a collective of six persons (Stefano Harney, Adrian Heathfield, Massimiliano (Mao) Mollona, Louis Moreno, Irit Rogoff and Nora Sternfeld) and came together in 2011 as a platform for research, pedagogy, and production.

Follow at @ft-collective and facebook.com/freethought-collective
Bergen Assembly: http://www.bergenassembly.no/ and facebook.com/Bergenassembly/

With thanks to Hordaland Kunstsenter for kindly hosting this event.

Hordaland Kunstsenter
Klosteret 17
5005 Bergen
Norway