Workshop: Listening to images

What does a photograph sound like?

Sign up for this workshop where we will ‘listen’ to archived photographs from the colonial era. The aim is to take a fresh look at these images, contextualise them and integrate them into the hero.inn.e collection, which is designed for the future.

With a dose of introspection, a sensitive approach and speculative methods inspired by Tina Campt's book Listening to Images, we will collectively explore the contextual data. We will also use imaginative practices (inspired by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay) and meditation (after Resmaa Menakem).

8 participants per workshop

Wednesday 19 February 16.00 - 19.00 OR
Thursday 27 February 16.00 - 19.00

Send an email with your motivation to info@bna-bbot.be to register!

Leon Rogissart (born 1995) is a Belgian theatre director who graduated from the Academie voor Theater en Dans in Amsterdam in 2021. Theatre, music and Virtual Reality are at the core of his work. During his residency at BNA-BBOT, he explores the interaction between urban sounds and the human voice with VOICE WITH NOISE. With this performative experiment, he invites the audience to resonate with a new hybrid creation.

Doors: 19h30

Start: 8pm

Quickly book your free spot by sending an email to info@bna-bbot.be

Troubled Archives invites you to come and listen with us to excerpts of the conversations recorded by the participants as part of the New Heroines sessions. During these sessions, we each asked an activist to bring 5 of her heroes to Silvano Magnone's photo studio. They photographed each other on collodion-wetplates - a technique akin to images from colonial photography - and discussed heroism, activism, a look at the past and a projection into the future.

31/01/2025 _ 18:00 - 20:00, FREE.

On 26 January 2025, BNA-BBOT and This is US This is Brussels are launching their Listening Tour, which will last 20 months. Every last Sunday of the month, from 5.30 to 6.30 pm, a public listening session will be held in a café, bar, canteen or tearoom in one of Brussels' 19 communes, featuring themed sound recordings based on personal testimonials.

Listening Tour #1: KOUL, Quai du Hainaut Henegouwkaai 7, 1080 Molenbeek. Theme: gentrification and inequalities. Free admission, 1 free drink.

OPENING 7 DECEMBER 2024, 15:00 – 19:00

For Vitrien #9, Troubled Archives invites the public to discover the connections the collective has made between heroism, contemporary activism and healing, in the light of their delving into photographic databases from colonial times and their relevance to today's control systems.

Troubled Archives will present the The Recognition Machine (Antje Van Wichelen and Michael Murtaugh_ICV) and shed light on the New Heroïnes project, which is accompanied by a audio creation (Rokia Bamba).

In the following weeks, members of the public can get involved in TRM and have their thoughts recorded and integrated into the BNA-BBOT database.

TRM _ meet your match from colonial databases

The Recognition Machine questions colonial photographic databases as systems of control, revealing parallels and resonance with contemporary practices in the age of facial recognition.

The Recognition Machine invites visitors to take a self-portrait. The photo activates an existing search engine that pretends to see connections between the visitors recorded pixels and those in a database of re-photographed images colonized people from the 19th Century. It thinks it can read your emotional state and theirs.

Once a match is made, the machine prints a ticket with your portrait alongside the faces the algorithm associates with it. You can collect your ticket when a member of the collective is present @ BNA-BBOT. While you're there, we invite you to join us for a conversation about the various themes we we're exploring.

Antje Van Wichelen is the BNA-BBOT artist in residence until the end of 2025. She brings with her the collective Troubled Archives (TA) collective as her curatorial team.`

Antje explores experimental methods of collaboration between nature and 16mm film emulsion, engaging with people from different backgrounds to promote dialogue, togetherness, and meditation. Since 2010, she has been investigating the collective trauma of colonial classification by translating archival photographs onto 16mm film, effectively putting the archives to work.

Troubled Archives is a collective of artists and researchers who critically engage with colonial photographic archives. The collective seeks ways to re-dignify the individuals depicted in these colonial photographs and to investigate their potential resonance today. They are currently developing experimental research methods, inspired by the work of Ariella Aïcha Azoulay ("Potential History"), Tina Campt ("Listening to Images"), and Resmaa Menakem (“My grandmother's hands”). The research explores the (colonial) photographic context, imagines its sound in the archive, and reflects on how we can heal relationships distorted by historical inequalities that persist today.

The long-term project, New Hero.in.es, highlights contemporary heroism and activism while examining future possibilities. In parallel, the project brings anonymized figures from colonial archives into focus, and recognizes them as hero.ine.s. This work delves into the complexities of activism, drawing attention to the vulnerability, hope, and resilience that shape the lives of those involved.
As part of this initiative, Brussels-based activists are invited to experience the deliberate slowness of collodion photography and raise questions about the nature of heroism. The portraits created as part of this project will be displayed and listened to in the vitrines of BNA-BBOT.

Troubled Archives is Rokia Bamba, Brenda Bikoko, Loes Jacobs, Peggy Pierrot and Antje Van Wichelen.

PHOTO Credits: Troubled Archives, Silvano Magnone

De 14h à 17h

L'installation "Bruxelles invisible" est le résultat de nombreuses rencontres avec des personnes malvoyantes qui partagent leurs perceptions et leurs ressentis sur Bruxelles et ses quartiers, mais aussi sur leurs déficiences. Ces rencontres ont eu lieu à l'Institut Royal pour Sourds et Aveugles (IRSA) et à La Ligue Braille.

A travers le son et les récits, partez à la découverte des lieux de Bruxelles via leurs regards.

Rencontre: 14h30 - 15h30

Au cours d'une rencontre d'une heure, vous pourrez découvrir le projet mené par Claire Ducène et BNA-BBOT à l'Institut Royal pour Sourds et Aveugles (IRSA) avec de jeunes adolescents et des bénéficiaires de La Ligue Braille.

L'occasion de rencontrer également l'enseignante Bérénice Gervais, mais aussi un des participants, Gérard Barillot.

Ce stage permet aux jeunes de découvrir le monde de la radio et de fabriquer, selon leurs envies, leurs enquêtes sur le terrain de la Cité Querelle. Ils/elles découvriront les outils pour créer un reportage et des bruitages, ainsi que le montage final de leurs enregistrements. Ils/elles pourront se mettre dans la peau d’un·e journaliste, d’un·e enquêteur/trice en s’informant auprès des différentes sources sur les sujets qu’ils/elles auront choisi. Ces moments leur permettront de s’exprimer et d’émettre leur avis. Une expérience que les jeunes pourront partager avec leurs ami·e·s lors de la diffusion d’une émission radio réalisée durant le stage. Ces productions seront également disponibles plus tard dans un installation sonore qui sera construite sur le site de la Cité Querelle.

INFOS PRATIQUES

Du lundi 8 au jeudi 11 juillet 2024
Horaire : de 9h30 à 16h
Lieu: Chez Habitat & Rénovation, Rue des Tanneurs 89 à 1000 Bruxelles
Prix de l’inscription : 10€ par enfant pour les 4 jours, repas de midi et collations inclus.
Infos / inscription : info@bna-bbot.be
Pour bloquer l’inscription, le versement des 10€/stage/enfant doit être fait dans les 5 jours ouvrables suivants la confirmation de votre inscription

BNA-BBOT invites you to come and discover the work of its artist in residence Wiet Lengeler.

From Monday to Friday between 1pm-5pm
 

Each year, BNA-BBOT invites an artist for a two-week residency to create a new work from our archives. In 2024, it's Wiet Lengeler.

Wiet Lengeler is a musician and audiovisual artist based in Brussels. Under his artist name Sagat, he has been producing techno since 2008 and has worked with labels such as Vlek Records, Private Stress and Lexi Disques.

On 30 May at 6.30pm Wiet Lengeler presents a video work that explores the links between recording, archiving, memory and imagination. Using games, video synthesis and A.I., he creates an installation based on media archaeology on the one hand and stochastic processes on the other. By attempting to form images and sounds from random finds in the BNA-BBOT sound archive, the installation becomes a metaphor for the way in which contemporary AI processes data.

The voice does not mask... It communicates the uniqueness of the one who emits it, and can be recognised by those to whom one speaks

- Adriana Caverero

During the cultural season 2023-2024, The Post Collective is invited by BBOT, to contribute sonic stories to the institution's programme Narrating Diversity and Brussels' sound archive. The Post Collective is an autonomous platform for co-creation, co-learning and cultural activism, created by people with different means and access to artistic production and education due to their legal status.

Walking inside the pro-Palestinian manifestation on Sunday 22 October, our being together in a common desire resonated with the voices that surrounded us. Rarely one hears in everyday life, the intermingling of mismatched sounds as a transformative roar. At Schuman square, we walk together in mutual struggle, acknowledging our power, amplifying our voices and the stories we share.

As Hannah Arendt explains: Stories do not just show who we are but also what we have in common with others; not just who we think we are but also what shared circumstances shape our lives and our interdependent destinies.

As part of our work within BBOT, we The Post Collective will share on 11 November our common story and the experience of working within the landscape of Art institutions. This experience and ongoing reflection are formalised into a working document: the Paperless Art Alliance Contract (PAACT), a set of mutually agreed conditions from which we would like to work within and beyond the collective. We invite you to enter our common space and contribute to this reflection by sharing yours.

The working group of The Post Collective are: Taziri Al Omrani, Fareed Aziz, Marcus Bergner, Maarten De Vrieze, Firewyni Getahun, Sawsan Maher, Hanan Maher, Mirra Markhaëva, Golnesa Rezanezhad, Lazara Rosell, Elli Vassalou and Souheila Yildiz.

The event is free, please reserve your spot here: https://forms.gle/fs2MTWq86pojqTJi6

11/11, 8pm @ BNA-BBOT
Lakenstraat 119, 1000 Brussel