USERS MANUAL: This Research Catalogue is an attempt to create a repository and a portfolio in one, to give insight to involved parties such as supervisors, into the progress of the research project Performing Working. On the left hand side are four columns that document concrete outcomes of the research. By clicking on the images you will be taken to pdf's with reports on workshops, co-working sessions or publications, or to video's in the case of performances. The fifth column is called sources and study, t's still very incomplete but the aim is that it gathers different types of sources that I'm consulting, including interviews I hold myself, books and texts that I read, performances, artworks or films by other people that I study. The sixth column loses its shape as a column, it holds visual works that I'm making and allows for spouting off to projects or collaborations in process, idea's I'm developing or articulations that open up specific lines of thought. To the right of this text is a document called Research Journal. Updated once a month, this is a journal has a writing score: before I begin writing, I choose which version of me is speaking. The cover image shows the legend of the different versions implicated and active in this research. 
Hover over the top of this page to find the abstract, and the map of the page, called NAVIGATION, with which you can navigate directly to each item by clicking on the map. A large screen is strongly recommended for comfortable viewing.

CO-CREATIVE WORKING SESSIONS

UMCU FOCUSGROEP 7-2-24

STRAAT CONSULAAT 9-11-23

STRAAT CONSULAAT 6-12-23

UMCU FOCUSGROUP 16-11-23

PD PRESENTATION 26-6-23

PERFORMANCES / PRESENTATIONS

ACCEPTED: HOW WE WISH TO WORK, JOURNAL PERFORMING RESEARCH, HOEGEN & SPRONCK, PUBLICATION IMMINENT

DELEN TUSSEN DE DEELTJES, WITTE ROOK, 9-5-2023

PUBLICATIONS

EEN INFORMELE HANDLEIDIING VOOR ZIEKTE 21-07-23

WORKSHOP 'RESEARCH IN PRACTICE', THEATRE EDUCATION, HKU, 5/6-09-24

COLLECTIVE CARE AND THE ECOSYSTEM, WORKSHOP, STUDIUM GENERALE AKV ST JOOST 30-3-23

15 Feb 2024: Interview with D. Z. on illness and work: the work of living with illness, the relationship between illness and the labour market. Her story is interesting because she although she was granted worrk disability, she chose to continue working, and after serious conflicts with the disability beniftits administration, she took a job there. Now she works for the UMC Amsterdam in the cardio department, where she is herself also a patient. So her doctor is her collegue. She has a lot to say about work, disability and dignity, or social exclusion.

MY MOTHER LAUGHS, CHANTAL AKERMAN

THE MYTH OF NORMAL, GABOR MATE

YOUR SILENCE WILL NOT PROTECT YOU, AUDRE LORDE

ON BEING ILL, VIRGINIA WOOLF, AUDRE LORDE, DERYN REES-JONES, LIEKE MARSMAN A.O...

Upcoming: 2 October 2024, interview with W. on the subject of homelessness and work. W. has a really interesting story to tell about the relationship between work and homlessness, on the one hand on the co-relation between work and having a home, on the other on how through homelessness he also found work, by voluntering in an array of different capacities for voluntary positions in in advocacy bodies, but also, for example, as an info point for people seeking shelter, and sitting on improvement pathway panels for the same shelter.

UNDOING WORK, RETHINKING COMMUNITY – JAMES A CHAMBERLAIN.

THE ART OF RECEIVING AND GIVING: THE WHEEL OF CONSENT – BETTY MARTIN

POSTHUMANIST PERFROMATIVITY: TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF HOW MATTER COMES TO MATTER – KARAD BARAD

IN A DIFFERENT VOICE – CAROL GILLIGAN

ARTIFICIAL HELLS – CLAIRE BISHOP

BULLSHIT JOBS – DAVID GRAEBER

ON FREEDOM: FOUR SONGS OF CARE AND CONSTRAINT – MAGGIE NELSON

THE SECOND BODY – DAISY HILDYARD

SPOON THEORY – CHRISTINE MISERANDINO

WERK IS GEEN OPLOSSING – MARGERITA VAN DEN BERG

WORK WON’T LOVE YOU BACK – SARAH JAFFE

THE CARE MANIFESTO – THE POLITICS OF INTERDEPENDENCE

ART AS EXPERIENCE – JOHN DEWEY

ATTENTIVE LISTENING AND CARE IN A NEOLIBERAL ERA: WEILIAN INSIGHTS FOR HURRIED TIMES – SOPHIE BOURGAULT

CAPITALIST REALISM – MARC FISCHER

THE EMPOWERMENT MANUAL - STARHAWK

UNTRAINED, UNPAID AND UNACKOWLEDGED: THE PATIENT AS A WORKER – CAROLYN WEINER

HOW TO BE A PERSON IN THE AGE OF AUTOIMUNITY – CARLYN LAZARD

UNDYING – ANNE BOYER

EVERY BODY: A BOOK ABOUT FREEDOM – OLIVIA LAING

RESEARCH JOURNAL: UPDATE 20 january 2025

PROCESS

UPCOMING PERFORMANCE CERC 2025, 23&24 JAN 2025

Title: Callisthenics: stories of support, aversion and love. (Working title)
Abstract:
A performance piece about being untrained, unprepared and unwilling for care giving and receiving.
The piece deals with unmentionable aspects of informal care, through the lens of intergenerational personal experiences. Drawing from the heavy emotional and physical load of caring for parents, partners or siblings, the narrative explores themes of conflicting needs and desires, paradoxes in care relationships and the interplay between love and revulsion. 
An experience of having to deal with the body of an old horse became a potent symbol for the weightiness of informal caregiving. One of the performers was faced with the task of lifting this horse’s body with limited resources, mirroring the labour of providing care with finite energy and time. Through this central chronicle, the performance unpacks a version of the “spoon theory”, illustrating the daily tension between the demand for (self)care and the limited capacity to provide it. 
 
The performance brings together a constellation of 3 generations of artworkers who believe in, and practice, art as a place of mutual care, artistic exchange and solidarity. Performance is the medium that connects us, both as method and as dissemination of our work and research. The performance is rooted in lived experiences of informal care, collaborative explorations and research-through-doing.  The performers embody various roles, including caregivers, care receivers, parents and the deceased horse, shifting between them fluidly to speak of the multifaceted nature of care relationships, and to explore through ‘showing doing’, the contrasts and paradoxes of these identities and responsibilities.
 
The stage is set with a central winch and pulley system (provided), embodying the physical and emotional weight lifting required in caregiving. The performers alternately carry and are carried, lifted, dragged, part by part. Silence and speaking also alternate. Texts are spoken and projected, and impacted by the movement of the bodies.

Charybdis. Another version, a female monster, potential alter-ego. Research question is: How to not be a worker ant? Method: 

Co-creating a script with Antye Günther: we are writing a script together through which we intend to develope our alter ego's – she is Data Diva, I am Charybdis. The performative writing practice will be a way for us to find our way into these alter ego's.

The collaboration with Sohrab and Ina: we are developing a workshop on the 'how to' of the alterego, departing from our own practices with a.e.. Developing Charybdis will be a case study in that process. Describing the ways in which I access and activate this alter ego will be material for the workshop.

The collaboration within the group of people with chronic illnesses whom I connected with through the UMC Utrecht, plus the team of former students was conceived as a form of participatory research with me as facilitator and researcher creating structures to ‘harvest’ stories and insights, with a team of assistants/producers. But from the very beginning, because of our way of working together which is explicitly co-creative, the difference between researcher or artist and participant became meaningless. We are clearly all creating, researching, questioning and making content. In that sense, we may actually have left participation behind, and entered into what might better be named a connective practice.

At the same time this throws the topic of work right back at us: who is working in this project? (All of us.) And who is being paid? (Me, some other people, but not everyone.) Shouldn’t everyone actually be paid? And if not, what are they getting out of it then? What are our shared values on this topic?

We hebben besloten samen verder te gaan door de onderwerpen die in de publicatie zijn aangestipt uit te werken in 4 kwartaaltijdschriften, elk met een eigen thematiek, en met een diverse inhoud: beeld, interviews, essays, rubrieken enz. Doel is om 4 tijdschriften uit te brengen, deze binnen het ziekenhuis op alle afdelingen beschikbaar te stellen en om ermee naar buiten te treden binnen de contexten van zorg, educatie en (artistiek) onderzoek.

Collage, Hoegen, 2024

27 Feb 2024: Conversation in the shape of a collage, with artist and researcher Renee van Oploo, who is researching the notion and practice of Place Making. We connected strongly through the concept of conviviality, –her word, a central concept in her project – which is helpful when thinking about the conditions for 'good work', good gouvernance and maintenace work, and she suggested that for my research I should look into prefigurative politics, as she suspects that I might be practicing that (without knowing it).

check out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_Is_Black

https://www.fortyandeight.org/carville-star/

https://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/741376/10776213/1297874157807/The+Star+Oct_Dec+2001.pdf?token=l77YMhS86Eogh5RS79fY8rOwN9M%3D

July 2024: We got funding! From a private fund, 20.000 euro for 3 years, to work on the contract and publish one or more magazines.

For this reason we are working together with Debbie Straver on applications for funding. Agis rejected. VSB?