Off-Comics presents an extraordinary history of the comic strip. Word and image come together in work that flouts all the rules. Heroes like Tintin, Captain America or Tex Willer appear in personal fantasy worlds and new protagonists come to life.

On the occasion of the expo, Grafixx is curating a special day programme at Museum Dr Guislain in Ghent on Saturday 23 March! Come and listen to the book club with Martha Verschaffel, Gabri Molist and Kaylan Saro, join the workshop with Kim Troubleyn, or be tempted to buy in the zine fest, with self-published works by artists from all over the world.

Programme

13h - 17h: Zine fest
A fresh portion of delectable small press will be served at the zine fest. Bookworms and image hunters will enjoy a carefully chosen selection of picture books, comics and zines from international authors and exciting publishers.
2pm - 5pm: workshop
Kim Troubleyn will teach you to etch with home, garden and kitchen tools! Join the table at any time.
15h - 16h: book club
During the book club, Martha Verschaffel, Gabri Molist & Kaylan Saro, together with Obi Mundorff, open their bookcase, and with it a piece of their creative soul. They will talk about their own recent publications, reveal their fondest sources of inspiration, and scrutinise favourite publications.

FREE EVENT + REDUCED ENTRANCE EXPO OFF-COMICS

Title: Disalienation: Politics, Philosophy, and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France

This talk maps the intersections of politics, philosophy, and radical psychiatry in twentieth-century France.  It focuses on a psychiatric movement called “institutional psychotherapy” which had an important influence on many intellectuals and activists, including François Tosquelles, Jean Oury, Felix Guattari, Frantz Fanon, Georges Canguilhem, and Michel Foucault.  Anchored in Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis, institutional psychotherapy advocated a fundamental restructuring of the asylum in order to transform the theory and practice of psychiatric care.  More broadly, for many of these thinkers, the asylum could function as a microcosm for society at large and as a space to promote non-hierarchal and non-authoritarian political and social structures.  Psychiatry, they contended, provided a template to better understand alienation and offer perspectives for “disalienation.” 

Bio:
Camille Robcis is Professor of French and History at Columbia University.  She specializes in Modern European History with an emphasis on gender and sexuality, France, and intellectual, cultural, and legal history.  She is especially interested in the intersections of politics and ideas.  She is the author of The Law of Kinship: Anthropology, Psychoanalysis, and the Family in France (Cornell UP, 2013) and of Disalienation: Politics, Philosophy, and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France (Chicago UP, 2021).  She is currently working on a new project, The War Against Gender.

Practical Info:

When: December 14 - 8:00 pm
Where: Museum Dr. Guislain
Free registration HERE 

Practical Info:

When: 9 NOV - 8:00 pm
Where: Museum Dr. Guislain
Free registration HERE 

PROGRAM

English will be the main language during this event.

During his KAOS Talk, KAOS resident Stéphane Roy will talk about his current research, exploring in particular the psychological phenomenon of resilience in the creative process in contemporary art. He will present several situations, works and experiments, including his exploration of the world of work through the series "10 Weeks" created following the abusive dismissal the artist suffered in a previous job.

Accompanied by two guest artists, Katherine Longly and Céline Cuvelier, the Talk will discuss several examples and selected stories, highlighting resilience as a tool for research and creation.

Practical:

22/06/2023, 20:00

@Museum Dr. Guislain, Jozef Guislainstraat 43b, 9000 Gent & online

Free, English spoken

‘Huskrooms', a KAOS Talk with (Ellen) Lili Vanderstraeten, Rona Kennedy and Geert Opsomer. 

(Ellen) Lili Vanderstraeten is artist-in-residence in the psycho-social center St. Alexius in Brussels. She moves between the atelier located in the Opperstraat, the living room in the center St. Alexius and one of the shelter houses where Lili stays over and lives with eight other people. When spending time in one of these three locations she works on textile pieces Lili named ‘Huskrooms’: a growing archive of duvets that carry carefully composed found objects and cloth. 

For this KAOS Talk at Museum Dr. Guislain (in Ghent and online) she invited two other people, Rona Kennedy and Geert Opsomer, to have verbal and non-verbal conversation together with the visitors that attend the talk around topics such as ‘making art in the context of care institutions’, ‘the meaning that arises when building an archiving’ and ‘the constant need to recompose/decompose materials that are abandoned by others’.  

Rona Kennedy builds worlds, creating cracks: temporary autonomous sites for experiment and agency. As an artist she uses performance, interventions in public space, audiovisual installations and workshops as ways to start conversations. 

Geert Opsomer is a theater scientist and critic, educator, mentor, social worker, academic and philosopher. He worked at the university for twenty years, founded a new department in Brussels theatre directing at RITCS and was artistic director of the Nieuwpoorttheater for eight years.

KAOS-coordinator Mike Michiels will join and moderate the talk. The talk will be in Dutch. Very welcome to join, listen and also share your thoughts! Don’t hesitate to bring some cloth and textile scissors.

Practical:
KAOS Talk, 02/03/2023, 20:00
@Museum Dr. Guislain
@online HERE
Free entrance, register Online ticketing

Collectief Alleen (Collectively Alone)

"A place to be alone together"

Merel Stolker is artist-in-residence at KAOS, where she conducts artistic research on the theme of loneliness under the title Collectief Alleen. During her residency, she spends a lot of time in a communal space within the Psychosocial Centre St-Alexius Brussels. A place where everyone can walk in and out freely and there is always someone there for a conversation or to just be together in silence. One of the patients who often comes there describes it as "a space where you can be alone together". So this place with its rituals and customs of the people who gather there has become part of her artistic research. This with the idea of using the space as an example to create a place for collective solitude herself.

For her KAOS talk, she invited two artists who both, in their own way, built a place where you can "be alone together". Elly Van Eeghem is an artist and founder of Campus Atelier in Nieuw Gent, a collective studio for public space. Malou van Doormaal is an artist and founder of the Drag Up Family, a learning community that comes together around drag culture. Together with Merel Stolker, they will engage in conversation this evening around the theme of loneliness. The conversation will be moderated by KAOS coordinator Mike Michiels.

Practical:

KAOS Talk, 02/02/2023, 20:00

@Museum Dr. Guislain (Jozef Guislainstraat 43 b, 9000 Gent)

@online Youtube

Free, register Online ticketing