Conversation
NLWorks licensed under Creative Commons license
Building Conversation concluded 2022 with a radical choice for collectivity and participation. We celebrated 10 years of Building Conversation with our book The Scripts. Making our work was a first step in our journey towards a more collective way of working together.
We recently took a new step in this: several works including Conversation without Words, Digital Silence and Parliament of Things are now licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This means that from now on everyone is free to share, copy, and redistribute the work in any medium or format -and to adapt, remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
CC is an international nonprofit organization that empowers people to grow and sustain the thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture. They advocate for better sharing: sharing that is contextual, inclusive, just, equitable, reciprocal, and sustainable. They developed the first version of the CC-license in 2002. The license now offers a standardized way to give anyone permission to use creative work under copyright law – from individual creators to large institutions.
A well-known cultural institution that has licensed much of the work in their collection under a CC-license is The Met in New York (USA). This means that, for example, Vincent van Gogh’s image of Wheat Field with Cypresses is free to use.
By licensing various of works of Building Conversation in this way, we invite you not only to participate in our work, but also to create and grow yourself.
Book launch 10 years of Building Conversation – The Scripts
“If we try to enumerate the materials Building Conversation has used, as you can with the steel concrete and glass of regular buildings, it would be 968 conversations, a trillion words, even more thoughts and emotions and afterwards 1,001 visions. In all those years not that many texts appeared. We mainly focused on conversations and live experiences. Now, after our first decade, there is a book.”
Building Conversation celebrates and shares the work they have developed by publishing the scripts of several performative conversations in book form, making them available to all. The scripts of Conversation Without Words, Parliament of Things and Thinking Together – An Experiment, among others, can be found in Building Conversation – The Scripts, a publication marking 10 years of Building Conversation.
The festive book launch is on December 8 at 7:30 p.m. in the Tolhuistuin in Amsterdam. We invite you to join us, sign up through this link. As of December 8, the publication can also be found online at buildingconversation.nl
Building Conversation chooses collectivity and, as of 2023, will continue as a platform
After countless performative conversations in The Netherlands and abroad, inspiring collaborations and constant self-reflection, Building Conversation is undergoing a momentous change and will continue as a platform from 2023. With this transition, the organisation is making a radical choice for collectivity and participation.
Transition to a platform
The artistic team (Daan ‘t Sas, Peter Aers and Lotte van den Berg) of Building Conversation has opted for a new, more collective organisational structure in the form of a platform.
Ten years ago, Building Conversation – as part of Third Space Foundation – was created from the question what it means to participate; in a conversation, a work of art, a society. What does it take to realise true participation? With the transition from foundation to platform, Building Conversation takes the next step in this process by allowing the public to participate not only in the performances, but also in the way it is organised.
Artists Daan ‘t Sas and Peter Aers will shape Building Conversation’s new direction together with a group of dedicated artists, philosophers, researchers, and participants. Theatre maker Lotte van den Berg is stepping down to make way for new blood and greater diversity within the heart of the organisation. Separate from Building Conversation, in her own practice, she’ll be creating space for new work, focussing on research and teaching.
The future
The Performing Arts Fund NL considers the announced change of course too far-ranging and fundamental for it to sustain the subsidy support for Third Space/Building Conversation. Regrettably, our proposal to explore other, more collective forms of organisation and the possibility to continue our work as an a platform, together with the Performing Arts Fund NL, has not been met with a positive response. We regret that the Dutch structural funding system of the performing arts does not support this type of pilot, at a time when collectives and non-hierarchical organisational forms and practices are being celebrated throughout the arts sector, Despite the lack of structural funding, we move forward towards the future in full confidence of our plans and activities in the years ahead.
10 years of Building Conversation: the book
Building Conversation celebrates and shares the work they have developed by publishing the scripts of several performative conversations in book form, making them available to all. The book will be presented at a launch party at the Tolhuistuin in Amsterdam on Thursday 8 December.
20 – 23 October The Gathering in Amsterdam
The Gathering consists of four days during which we will work with international guests, artists and the audience. During the first two days, we will shed new light on existing work in different in-depth working groups. This is followed by a two-day public program with performance and debate.
Building Conversation encourages participants to adopt an artist’s mindset to explore how we talk and could talk to each other. But even at Building Conversation we have blind spots and persistent patterns that need to be examined. Where do we reinforce and confirm ways of thinking that we actually want to change? During The Gathering we turn our gaze inwards to question ourselves. Whose stories are we telling and how do we tell them? How do we handle sources of knowledge and inspiration?
The programme of The Gathering is centered around two issues; we look at the fine line between inspiration and appropriation and explore the relationship between the free conversation spaces we developed earlier and the current need for safe spaces. Read more.
— Premiere RIZHOME 20 november during Jonge Harten Theaterfestival — Join us at a try-out
This autumn we are working on the creation of RHIZOME, a nomadic work of art which takes us to various deserted and overgrown industrial sites across Europe. Here we begin to search for a new form of dialogue regarding the people and things which surround us. We bring the rizomatic thinking and speaking into practice and existing relationships in motion.
The first place we visit is a former starch factory in Ter Apel (Groningen). Here we are working toward the premiere that will take place during the Jonge Harten Theaterfestival on 20 November 2021.
Until then, we will be holding try-outs on several days in October and November, and we invite you to join us
The try-outs are on:
28 October 13:00 – 17:00h
5/6/7 November 13:00 – 17:00h
Each day, 10 participants can participate in the try-out. You can sign up by sending an e-mail to rizoom@buildingconversation.nl. Please include your name and phone number in the email.
RIZHOME will premiere on 20 November 2021 at the Jonge Harten Theaterfestival. Tickets for the premiere and 21&22 November will be available at the beginning of October through the Jonge Harten Theaterfestival.
The Experience Archive
Building Conversation is working on an upcoming reflection project called The Experience Archive. In Building Conversation, we believe and respect the importance of the participants, since it is a platform made for and by them. Our mission is to activate people to approach their own conversation culture like an artist and reflection is an important part of that. This project’s main focus is writing down a profound collection of reflections from people that had attended (physical and online) performances of Building Conversation. The Experience Archive aims to extend the conversations and to open up new dialogues about our work. We are currently taking interviews from participants starting from the online conversations.
If you have any questions or if you are interested in participating in this project, you can contact us on reflectie@buildingconversation.nl
The North Sea Ambassy
On June 1, 2018, the Embassy of the North Sea was established at Lange Voorhout 19 in The Hague, based on the starting point: the sea is by itself. Representatives presented the North Sea as an independent entity, as its own political body with self-determination from 2030. From now on the North Sea is a political discussion partner, with a support base running from France to Norway, from seabed to atmosphere. From microscopic users such as plankton, to large users such as people and whales. From far-reaching horizons and tides, to local waves and currents. Preparations for a sovereign North Sea will be taken and negotiations will take place in the next twelve years.
At the Embassy of the North Sea, things, plants, animals and people in and around the North Sea get a voice. From 1 March to 30 June, the Embassy is building and working on a Plea on behalf of the North Sea. The process can be followed on this website. At the end of June 2018, the Plea is presented in The Hague.
Research into our relationship with the sea
We live together with the sea. She marvels and feeds us, once we came from her. At the same time we feared and tamed partly the big mirror of our country. The sea always stirs, in all sorts of ways. What is our relationship with our largest public space in 2018? What does the sea have to tell us? How do we improve our relationship with the North Sea, in favor of human and non-human life and the lives of future generations? Especially in the year in which the national government is working on a policy vision for the sea for the period up to 2030, we want to contribute to the dialogue by making as many voices, ideas and insights as possible: what would the North Sea itself say? What are the interests of fish, birds and algae? What do windmills, fishermen and ports say?
Parliament of things
The Embassy of the North Sea is an initiative of the Parliament of Things and is being built by Stroom Den Haag, De Noordzee Foundation, Building Conversation, The Ponies and Waag Society, with support from Creative Industries Fund NL, Mondriaan Fund and Bank Giro Loterij Fund and collaboration of Daan ‘t Sas, Tjallien Walma van der Molen, Studio Alloy, Jasper van den Berg, Partizan Publik, Andrea Simmelink and Jasmine De Bruycker. The photo images on this website are from Udo van Dongen, Juan Cuetos and Mart Smit.
Calendar
05 Mar – Announcement start Embassy of the North Sea
05 Mar – 10 April – Collect motions
16 to 26 April – Program around De Dingen in Stroom The Hague
16, 17 and 26 April – Working on the Plea of the North Sea in Stroom
01 June – Opening of the Embassy
June 16 – Embassy during Border Sessions
01 July – Presentation of the Plea of the North Sea, at the beach in The Hague
Rotterdam in conversation
From March 26 to April 16 we will in co-operation with Theater Rotterdam organize four conversations at four special locations in Rotterdam. Building Conversation gives attention and care to the way we speak to each other with different forms of conversation. Just outside daily reality, the political topicality, apart from existing tensions, urgency and effect, we create a space in which we want to practice ourselves in conversation. There is no audience, there are no actors, there are only participants. Each interview takes place at a unique location in Rotterdam. In advance you will be received at the location where the meeting takes place. You walk together to the room where the conversation takes place. We conclude every conversation with a joint meal. We cordially invite you to participate in:
Conversation without words
Mon 26 March – 19:00
The Conversation without words is based on the annual meeting of the Inuit, in which tribal chiefs sit for hours together, look at each other and say nothing. The intensity that arises when you look at each other, but says nothing, is huge. This conversation shows us and experiences what is the basis of human contact and brings together groups in a very direct way.
Location: still unknown
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Parlement van Dingen
Ma 2 april (tweede paasdag) – 14:30 uur
We zijn eraan gewend dat de mens spreekt, niet alleen namens zichzelf maar ook namens andere entiteiten: het heelal, het regenwoud, de dieren, de stad. Parlement van de dingen is geïntroduceerd door filosoof Bruno Latour die een pleidooi houdt voor het recht van het object. Tijdens het Parlement van de dingen onderzoeken we wat het voor ons Westerlingen betekent om als de dingen en vooral ook met de dingen te spreken.
Locatie: Zandwacht, Maasvlakte 2 (i.s.m. Observatorium)
Voor deze locatie is een bus geregeld. Vertrek: 14:30 uur vanaf Theater Rotterdam, Schouwburg
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Agonistisch gesprek
Ma 9 april – 19:00 uur
Het Agonistisch gesprek is een gesprek geïnspireerd op de theorie van Chantal Mouffe en de praktijk van de Maori. De agonist is de tegenstander, niet te verwarren met de antagonist, de vijand. Tussen consensus en oorlog ligt een groot scala aan mogelijkheden waarin we elkaars tegenstanders kunnen zijn, daar moeten we gebruik van maken. Hoe brengen we gefixeerde standpunten weer in beweging?
Locatie: still unknown
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Samen denken – een experiment
Ma 16 april – 19:00 uur
Samen denken – een experiment verloopt volgens de theorie en praktijk van de Amerikaanse kwantumfysicus David Bohm, waarbij wordt uitgegaan van de zelfregulerende werking van een groep mensen. Het gesprek heeft geen leiding, geen voorzitter, geen taboes en geen onderwerp. Een gesprek waarin chaos, frustratie en irritatie gezien mogen worden.
Locatie: still unknown
Building Conversation in De Balie for Forum on European Culture
The artist collective Building Conversation challenges you to start a conversation with your European fellow citizens. Do you dare break out of your daily bubble and take part in a genuine conversation?
The increasingly divided European society is crying out for renewed attention to the need for conversation between people. Nowadays, people who disagree with each other hardly ever meet in real life. How can we get people to really talk with one another? What are the right circumstances in which people dare to discuss complex subjects in today’s polarised society?
For the Forum on European Culture, artist collective Building Conversation challenges you to start a conversation with your fellow European citizens in the form of an Agonistic Conversation. This session will focus on European issues and the challenges that Europe needs to address. For example, should Europe close its borders to immigrants or not? Should The Netherlands stay within the EU or not? It’s up to the participants to bring in the topics that will be addressed during the conversations on the 1st of June.
The Agonistic Conversation is a conversation between opponents, developed in response to philosopher Chantal Mouffe. She believes that the political arena needs conflict and that the arts can contribute to the development of the agonistic space. Building Conversation combines the theoretical framework of Chantal Mouffe with the practice of the Maori, who have an impressive way of dealing with conflict in their own communities.
Do you dare break out of your daily bubble and take part in a genuine conversation?
De Balie /Podium / vr 1 jun / 10:00
Building Conversation + Forum on European Culture
Building Conversation is going East
From 2017 to 2020 Building Conversation is situated for a longer period in Amsterdam. We call it our #conversation marathon. We truely make time and space for the conversation between people who do not naturally meet each other. Every year we visit another part of the city where we take the time and challenge people to take part in the experiment with us.
In the past year, we held more than 25 talks in Amsterdam Noord. This year we can be found in Stadsdeel Oost, the east of Amsterdam. Here we organize a long weekend full of conversations. Three times a year, each time in a different neighborhood. We do this with local partners, multiple forms of conversation and various themes. We start in the Indische Buurt. Do you live there, you want to take part or have good ideas how to work together? Let us know.
More information about Building Conversation in East will follow as soon as possible. Do not want to miss anything? Keep an eye on our newsletter and follow us on Facebook. Then we’ll see you in East!
Prologue to the evening program with Bruno Latour
Since 2015, a growing community of artists, scientists, philosophers and writers is building The Parliament of Things. Inspired by the work of Bruno Latour they raised a public platform and started a speculative research in which human and not human actors and actants can meet to discuss each other’s interests and positions. Can we envisage a politics beyond humans? Can we speak on behalf of things? Can we speak as things? And: does this make sense? What can this approach add to our political institutes and the processes of public opinion?
On the occasion of Bruno Latour’s visit to Amsterdam and prior to Latour’s presentation of his new book Facing Gaia Building Conversation and The Parliament of Things hosts a special Assembly. During this assembly, the Parliament of Things, we investigate what it means for us to speak on behalf of things, on behalf of nature. Will this remain a dualistic relation between people and things, or is it conceivable that a different relation will unfold, that we will give ourselves a different place in the universe?
Date: 28 November 2017
Time: 16:00 – 19:00 (diner included) – SOLD OUT
Location: Veem House for Performance Studio