Call of the Mall
Hoog Catharijne
20 juni–22 september 2013
Shoppingcenter Hoog Catharijne is situated in the heart of the Netherlands. It is a place where many streams of traffic converge, move alongside and over each other. The architecture of the mall is built like that. More than 26 million people traverse the shopping centre every year, and the many exists and entrances are an intrinsic part of this concept of movement.
Most of the people pass each other without meeting. However, a society can only be if meeting is part of it. Only then can a process of accumulation and change occur.
This performance works with the architecture of the very specific public space of the Hoog Catharijne area. As a space that is created and comes into being through the practice of use, a space of experience is created. While this space is existing because of functionality and productivity, the result or productivity of public space is uncertain; (public) space itself is nothing, it is a place that is becoming by activation.
French philosopher Athusser argued that an encounter between individuals and groups is the only way in which exceptional things may happen.
Bik Van der Pol developed a performance in which this potential is reinforced in collaboration with different groups of social associations, from music groups to debating clubs, forming these streams of movement. Encounters and clashes will happen between groups and individuals, and perhaps something new is thus created.
Performances on Saturday 6 July and Saturday 21 September from 11.30-14.00 hrs.
