‘The Converging Views of an Iranian and a Belgian Artist’

The Converging Views of an Iranian and a Belgian Visual Artist

Meet the Artists: Sebastiaan Willemen (chépas collective) (BE) and Pantea Rezaee Shayesteh (IR)

For the second edition, AIR Antwerpen and BOZAR collaborate in setting up a residency exchange for visual artists from Belgium and Iran, in collaboration with Kooshk Residency Tehran and EUNIC. On Wednesday 13 March a conversation will take place, departing from the actual experiences of artists in residence this year: Pantea Rezaee Shayesteh and Sebastiaan Willemen (chépas collective). During residencies of one month in Tehran for Sebastiaan and one month in Antwerp for Pantea both artists engaged with the local socio-cultural context. Both present works, gestures and interventions, which took place during the residency. The conversation will depart from the question of  the necessity to participate in such a residency and more universally speaking, of the role of art in these specific surroundings and society. Boths questions arise the issue of how an artistic practice can feed imagination and how imagination and creativity can have an impact in reality ?

Pantea Rezaee Shayesteh is a choreographer and dancer. In her works she departs from the specific role of the woman in the contemporary society in Iran and the restrictions of expression in a place where public space is ruled by the authorities. Pantea collaborates in her performances occasionally with live musicians, who create a soundscape that coincides with her own body language.

Sebastiaan Willemen is initiator and member of the multidisciplinary chépas collective together with visual artist Lola Daels. Sebastiaan focuses on the physical and mental perception of space and the urban phenomena behind the metabolism of the city. During his residency in Tehran Sebastiaan focused on structures in public space that control the movements of pedestrians, and the way that is dealt with traffic. He does this by the introduction of interventions, installation and the use of video and photography.