Romance Utopia is a research project that has gotten out of hand; spilled over into a digital archive, a radioshow, a videowork and a collection of essays.
On Instagram I collect imagery and texts on hearts and romance via @romance_utopia
Excerpt from 'Omegle, or The Accidental' in Ka Du Gjer På? (2020)
'I wanted to be with you so I said I dreamed of you' (2019), 5min11
In this video we see a collaborative exploration of what happens when you tell someone you had a dream about them.
w/ Mariana Jurado Rico, Alice Slyngstad, Frides van de Ven, Jacinta van de Ven and Mira Thompson
Screenings:
18.01.2019 @ Fanfare, book launch "A friend of a friend: Gossip, Rumour and Anecdote"
06.02.2020 @ Sandberg Institute, Critical Studies department Open Day
Excerpt from 'margin(anal)ia' in SNAKY ZINE #2: movement
In this workshop, participants are asked to share a story or memory about their personal romantic objects and subsequently remake it with clay.
Agenda:
15.10.2020 @ Sandberg Institute's Critical Studies department
29.10.2020 @ Het HEM, Sandberg Institute graduation show
31.10.2020 @ Het HEM, Sandberg Institute graduation show
Excerpt from 'Interrupting chronos: I wanted to be with you so I said I dreamed of you' in A friend of a friend: Gossip, Rumour and Anecdote' (2019)
romance_utopia is a radioshow in which I cover all the flattened feelings that come with romantic love and let them sit with us, talk about books, read poetry and play music. Broadcasted on PUB Radio's Pillow Stream, No Bounds Radio and Radió Meduse MagiQ. All recorded episodes can be found here.
'Scarf Body' in DAISYWORLD (2020)
'Once again, inside a romance utopia' (2020), 9m50
In an attempt to cut the associative chain between romantic expression and intrusion, I asked four friends to tell me about their romantic objects. In the conversations that followed, there was a transformation in each of them somehow; a feeling of detachment while talking about their object. A practice of remaking their objects with clay seemed to carry the potential to revalue their memories and approach its romantic sensibility with heartiness again.
w/ Joy Brandsma, Maan Meelker, Suzanne Cleerdin & Toni Brell. Colour grading by Mateo Vega, sound edit by Harm Coolen, music by Romy Day Winkel
Screenings:
15.10.2020 @ Sandberg Institute's Critical Studies department, research colloquium
29.10.2020 @ Het HEM w/ reading, Sandberg Instituut Graduation Show
31.10.2020 @ Het HEM w/ reading, Sandberg Instituut Graduation Show
29.10 - 01.11.2020 @ Het HEM in a video installation, Sandberg Institute graduation show
29.10 - 16.11.2020 @ www.homecinema.video
Excerpt from 'Once again, inside a romance utopia' in SNAKY ZINE #3: magick (2021)
'A baroque longing' (2021) in LIKE,
'Once again, inside a romance utopia' (2021) in SNAKY ZINE #3: magick
'Inside A Romance Utopia' (2021) in Love Spells and Rituals For Another World
'Scarf Body' (2020) in DAISYWORLD vol.1
'Omegle, or The Accidental' (2020) in Ka Du Gjer På?
'margin(anal)ia' (2020) in SNAKY ZINE #2: movement
'Interrupting chronos: I wanted to be with you so I said I dreamed of you' (2019) in A Friend Of A Friend: Rumour, Gossip and Anecdote
One of my love tokens in 'Love Spells & Rituals For Another World' (2021)
'A baroque longing' in LIKE, (2021)
Art critic Jorne Vriens has written a short piece about my ongoing research project ‘Romance Utopia’ in the graduation special 2021 of contemporary art magazine Metropolis M.
In this workshop, I invite participants to join me in making a love token, and to use this object as a starting point for their personal reflections on romance (in all its guises). Through a short reading of the history of this gesture, participants are asked to enter a guided room-walk in search of a romantic object in their everyday surroundings. They then work with their found material, think and speak about ways to imitate their object's meaning, and finally incorporate it in the making and writing of a love token.
Agenda:
February 14 2021 @ Terrarista TV, an artist-run online streaming channel based in Kassel
March 20 2021 @ Read My World festival, as part of a workshop series on Feminist Journal Writing
April 18 2021 @ Shimmer Rotterdam
In the first text, I set out my main methodology and argument. Throughout the rest of the book you will find visual works by artists Dagmar Bosma, Mafalda Costa, Mónica Mays and Becket MWN, in whose work I have located an aesthetic of romantic ruination. The second text is an interview with writer and artist Geraldine Snell, whose book ‘overlove’ (2018) interested me deeply as its protagonist performs a type of obsessive romantic pursuit. In ‘A gesture: I had a dream about you’ I investigate the possibility of dream sharing as a romantic gesture. The fourth text in this book is a writing prompt and essay about love tokens that I have written for Terrarista.TV in Kassel and afterwards altered for Read My World festival’s feminist journal writing workshop series. The aim of the prompt is to leave you with a (written) object that will meander beyond the words and images of this publication.
It is for sale at Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum (Amsterdam), San Serriffe (Amsterdam), KIOSK (Rotterdam), Claire de Rouen (London), Tender Books (London), Good Press (Glasgow), Rile Books* (Brussels), and via their respective webshops.
