STEFAAN VAN BIESEN
Utopia, [just around the corner?]
A performative walk and statement.
“I got tired of hearing some people complain, over and over again, about the ugliness of some neighborhoods in their own city or village, but without wanting to do anything about it themselves. Because you can change the energy of a place with very small gestures and cheap things. That is why I started a new initiative with befriended artists and inhabitants: reading a space specific letter in a neglected place and leaving an in situ artwork behind. Kind of a love gesture for a place that is not looked after. The Utopia book emerged from that. A book that travels and that its owner can show in places that, due to their social, societal, aesthetic dysfunction, show a sign of commitment and compassion.”
[Utopia and walking] : a book and a place, about the word Utopia as a gesture, how books open, walking as being together and transformation of a space, being the place, about flow, exchange, drift as a method of letting people and the environment come to you. About playing the city, about change of perspective, about inner knowledge, words and nature, words as giving attention and carrying around the word Utopia, as a gift. The book travels to many places by the intention of the travelers. Braga, Nicosia, Limassol, New York, Brussels, Athens, Brasilia, London, Ypres...
Since 1990, Stefaan Van Biesen has made walks which he documents and displays in drawings, installations, photography, models, texts, videos and photographs. He regards the act of walking as a kind of subjective thought process in the urban fabric and in the landscape. He spends an important part of his artistic creativity on exchanges and collaborations with other artists, scientists and experts from various disciplines. His work is in direct dialogue with his environment. One of his current international projects is the 'Spaziergangwissenschaft', in which walking, starting from urban and social observation, is an artistic instrument. He worked as an artist in Belgium, Netherlands, France, Germany, UK, Poland, Italy, Serbia, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Serbia, Brazil, USA and China