Soon after we took over the Pink House (an artist-run space that we were responsible for and programming, 2017-2020) we decide to translate all Pink House activities into self-made editions (zines) creating a living archive. On Jan. 2018 we got a photocopy machine and we started publishing our own editions under the name Pink House press, placing self-publishing into the center of our activities and programming, transforming publishing into a process-based and collective practice.
Through this experience, and looking ahead towards the future, the making of as well as the publication as a medium becomes a suggestion for a portable artist-run space that triggered to explore further through this research project, making PHp (pink house press) a dynamic laboratory of sharing ideas and research methods.
PHp published 80 titles of zines and works from approx. hundred-twenty artists through series of magazines (PHp), touching upon subject matter as hospitality, reciprocity, shared-authorship, idea of the commons and shared our editions become spaces that both hosts and transmits different voices, a diversity of approaches and disciplines. It is a sustainable endeavor of bringing things and people together.
We operate all our activities as an independent organization (without external funding), supported through our own network of friends and based on peer-to-peer relationships and especially with a very strong do-it-yourself attitude of exchange and free contribution. (See also: PHp editions)
One space becoming…
Our Pink House residency in Antwerp will stop in Feb. 2020, since the physical house will be de- molished due to a rapid gentrification process in the area where the house is located. As the Pink House will no longer be our base, we see it as a transit moment. We have been asked to imagine as well as negotiate the nature of the space we seek for the future. In the prospect of continuing our activities, we embrace this sudden change, and are very positive about adapting to new grounds. We are very curious about our yet-to- be-defined artist-run space in the near future and keeping up the dynamics that have been generated within the walls of the Pink House through our Pink House press.
This transit moment gives us the possibilities to reset all and everything, and hereby re- considering new strategies and future plans. One space becoming another. An important question to raise: Do we actually need another stable home base to house our activities. If not, how can we continue our work within a mobile, nomadic context? How will hos- pitality functions in a situation where there is no physical building? Can we consider the self-published/ self- made zine as a -hospitable- portable artist-run space? Knowing that the Pink House building will be demolished, herewith also taking down and erasing a strong historical legacy of artist- run initiatives inhabiting this house and that goes back two decades now, as well as seeing other artist-run spaces in Antwerp (made by mostly young artists) struggle to survive like for example Forbidden City (that just got stopped) or ABC klubhuis, HOF, factor 44, etc.
This is very much a sign that we urgently need to reconsider other models of artist-run spaces, and so that urged me to further investigate: What kind of space do we need to act now and potentially for also being able to continue our work in the future? This -urgent and necessary- space might not be physical or even tangible. Perhaps there is a strong need to reconsider new strategies and models of artist-run initiatives to test and research different possibilities. What is the role of educa- tion in this process? How are we related to bigger institutions as academies, museums, art centers, libraries,… and the different public domains in our society? What kind of ‘public moments’ are we
portal – Italielei63
Published space
One space becoming another aims to state that an artist’s publication is a medium beyond the one defined through art history: namely, as an alternative exhibition, the container of works or a catalogue. PHp sees the publication as a boundless, portable artist-run space, that I believe is a strong tool that can be multiplied and distributed, it is more sustainable as a physical space since nobody can close it or turn it down. The book can survive, able to cope with things that don’t get supported.
For me publishing is interwoven with zine-making. Zines known as radical, playful pamphlets, con- nected to punk 80s and 90s, that borrow elements(in context and aesthetics) from DADA and Flux- us movements. Recently these forms of publishing revive (like xerography and risograph for ex.), one can say as an alternative to internet’s immateriality of communication – distribution. For me xerox printing is not a nostalgic method but a relevant, timeless way to create a book in a direct and independant way (without a publisher or editor), fast to copy and distribute, able to generate space on the making.
In conversation with Pat McCarthy, a (US) artist, he said that ‘I have to make zines, else I can’t see things growing further’. This is something we have in common, to add in this that the core of a research process makes for me zine-making as the only adaptive and fast way connected to my practice able to document and reflect, instantly, stating that research is happening here and now, doesn’t hesitate but acts.
For this project, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp will become involved as a frontline playing partner and testing ground in expanding the PHp activities to learning situations, that can com- plement the schools’ intention to experiment with different modes of self-organization. One space becoming another aims to counterbalance the existing publishing peer-to- peer academic journals and cashiers or research projects in the arts. Stressing on the imaginative power of what is possible with a fresh page!
• One space becoming an other is connected to the previous research project becoming a space. Becoming a space is a research project initiated by myself (Ersi Varveri) to follow and document my experience living and working in the Pink House. Seeing how this particular house can become a platform to test, under which conditions we share working and living space, and eventually get self-organized. What is our reflection for the future, for education. Into this process this house is becoming a space. Becoming a space also used zines, testing self-publishing as an exceptional tool for an adaptive practice of (self-)reflection and creative archiving.
one space becoming another
Ersi Varveri & Gijs Waterschoot Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp 2020-2022
links:
•one space becoming another (R.A.F.A.): https://www.ap-arts.be/en/research/one-space-becom- ing-another
• becoming a space: https://www.ap-arts.be/en/research/becoming-space
•pink house press publications: https://the-pink-house.wixsite.com/pinkhouse/publications
• personal website: ersivarveri.com
moving out February 2020
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