Weekly ※ Friday 12.05.23
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Friday is weekly: a summary of what the team has seen, read, listened to and wants to share with you.
L’enfant sauvage
We can see you over there, film fans. But no, we have no intention of offering you a critique of the eponymous 1970 feature film directed by François Truffaut, based on the true story of a child living in the wild who was eventually captured by peasants. L’Enfant Sauvage is also the name of a gallery dedicated to photography at the very centre of Brussels. A recent discovery, and already a firm favourite. Premises which are 100% self-financing, L’Enfant Sauvage supports and promotes those who produce images, covering every type of photographic technique. By means of its exhibitions, the publication of books or fanzines by the photographers who show their works in its spaces, the gallery aims to stimulate the local, but also the national and international photography scene, and is also developing cycles of urban encounters and walks focused on the photograph, introductory workshops on the cyanotype printing process, the creation and the self-publishing of photo books, and taking in almost forgotten methods of producing pictures such as the wet collodion process. If these terms stir the curiosity of the dormant photographer within you, we would refer you to L’Enfant Sauvage’s website, where you will find the information required to register for whichever workshop(s) you are interested in.
At the present time, the exhibition ‘Relaxing Chamber’ offers a series of constantly evolving photographs. In it, the Belarusian artist Aleksei Kazantsev explores consciousness in both humans and animals.
L’Enfant Sauvage
Rue de l’Enseignement 23, 1000 Bruxelles
Open from Friday to Sunday, between 14.30 and 19.00
Bagarre Érotique
‘Prostitutes, that’s what they in a kind of way represented for me, the quintessence of male desire. I think that, basically, I wanted to become part of the fuckable women gang. Prostitution was for me the gateway to this club whilst also being a way out of my financial difficulties. But what I subsequently discovered behind this door was a thousand times more than the validation of men. I discovered the pride in belonging to the prostitute community. And also a new outlook on feminism,’ writes Klou dans Bagarre Érotique, Récits d’une travailleuse du sexe, published by Anne Carrière.
Klou, aka @klou_bagarre for Instagram followers, is a sex worker. Non-binary, aged 25, they are also the illustrator and author of this incredible graphic novel named Bagarre Érotique. Published in 2022, one has the sense that today it is beginning to gain traction beyond just the sex worker and militant milieus. Across its pages, Klou narrates their life’s journey, how they use the heteropatriarchy to make money whilst simultaneously critiquing it. They deconstruct the clichés surrounding the world of prostitution, the arguments for its abolition, call out the glamourisation of the sex worker profession, adopting an approach which neither establishes victim status for nor generalises the diverse life stories of sex workers. The graphical influence of the Swedish comic book author Liv Strömquist can be felt within the work. A hard-hitting and militant narrative, but unapologetic and necessary in order to move the dial on the ways in which the profession is seen. Because whilst it has been legalised for over a year in Belgium, sex work is still subject to massive administrative, legal and social discrimination.
Nosfuturs.net
Established and produced by the Brussels Video Centre, nosfuturs.net is a low-tech and evolving website – each new edition incorporates the previous one – which has since 2021 been endeavouring to get to grips with the world of work by means of offering transmedia content: photographs, videos, podcasts, documentaries, etc. While we have for several years now been witnessing mutations in our work models, and no longer solely as regards Generation Z, the first chapter of this multimedia work, published in May 2021, looked into the fragmentation of work. This includes, inter alia, the Uberization of services, the robotisation of tasks, self-learning algorithms or the platform economy. It is within this context in particular that the Belgian journalist and photographer produced the documentary Shift, on one dispatch rider’s battle against Deliveroo.
On line since May the 1st, International Workers’ Day, the second part of these multimedia accounts focuses on the collective reappropriation of work and raises several essential questions along the way: what if democracy was no longer barred from entering the doors of a business company? How are we to enable more solidarity and autonomy when faced with the constraints which are a part and parcel of capitalism? What can be done to ensure that the workers are no longer limited to subordinate roles but are also a part of the decision-making process on the matters which concern them?
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