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L’exposition Haute Nuit ouvre ses portes le 13.02 à l’Institut ! Découvrez-y des œuvres signées Tatiana Bohm, Julien Celdran, Hanane El Farissi, Pierre Liebaert, Mouhcine Rahaoui & Haleh Zahedi. Vernissage le 12.02 dès 18h.

Dans le cadre des préparatifs de l’exposition Haute Nuit, Julien Celdran vous convie à deux immersions de “Cancel-Sculptures”. Ces œuvres sont destinées à annuler une idée, un concept, une déclaration publique… Chargées d’un texte poético-politique qui joue le rôle d’incantation ou d’imprécation, les “Cancel-Sculptures”, une fois plongées définitivement dans l’eau, diffusent le texte qu’elles portent comme du thé dans une théière, mais à l’échelle géographique.

• Samedi 24.01 – 15h Bassin de Biestebroeck, rendez-vous au coin formé par la Digue du Canal et la rue des Bassins.

• Mercredi 28.01 – 16h, rendez-vous passerelle Fatima Mernissi.

Dear friends of ABA. Happy new year!

This newsletter comes with news from the ABA Residency – we have recently welcomed new residents Marissa Lee Benedict & David Rueter, and Elisabeth Prehn. Here a glimpse into their practices. We look forward to working together and to welcome you to upcoming resident events – further news incoming soon!

ABA RESIDENCY

Marissa Lee Benedict & David Rueter

Through videos, performances, site-adapted sculptures, and drawings, Marissa Lee Benedict and David Rueter imagine scores for intercepting and redirecting infrastructural systems and bureaucratic processes. The duo’s work lodges materiality, voice, intimacy, and at times their own bodies, into the midst of seemingly banal technologic operations. With gestures that simultaneously index and fictionalize the conditions they study, the duo picks up the art-historic tools of institutional critique and romantic conceptualism to dig into colonial legacies sedimented into official worlds. Teasing at the peripheral vision of historical objects and records, their process based work speaks at intimate volumes and project across vast distances. The duo currently lives in Amsterdam (NL).

While in residence Benedict and Rueter will be developing a monograph, and finalizing post-production, on their most recent document performance (Metrica): a score that invites professional psychotherapists to conduct intake sessions with the “psyche” of administrative archives in the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Germany. The resulting written “talk” therapy sessions, mediated by an AI agent scripted by the artists, are as revealing of the history of psychotherapeutic techniques and practices as they are of the archives’ “memories,” which are derived from regional and national historic land registries from the 12th – 20th centuries.

Supported by Mondriaan Funds

In residency from January–April 2026
 

Elisabeth Prehn (Germany/Netherlands) is a Sandberg Institute alumni working with sculpture, found objects and moving image. Her practice examines how social roles, neutrality and authority are materially produced and reproduced through everyday objects, spatial arrangements and institutional formats. Through material interventions and repetition, she creates installations that foreground processes of fabricated neutrality. Her work investigates how the “neutral” or “universal” operates as a cultural norm, shaping what becomes visible and what remains unseen. Objects in her installations carry material rhetorics, traces of persuasion, embedded in form and use. At ABA, she is developing a video-based project that examines neutrality as a strategic performance, using Bertolt Brecht’s 1947 hearing in front of the House Committee of Un-American Activities as a case study.

Supported by WerktuigPPO

In residency from January–April 2026
 

BOOKSTOP

Vitrine

Submissions welcome

(Bookstop Vitrine at Haus der Statistik, Photo: Aleksander Komarov)
 

ABA BOOKSTOP is an open-to-the-public reading space and collective archive of artist’s books, poetry, and artists’ writings, among other materials. Following the logic of an online platform and functioning as an analog version of file-sharing, visitors are encouraged to browse through our curated reading materials and actively participate in shaping the archive by commenting, adding to the collection, copying, collaging, and cross-connecting.

Most recently a new public platform was introduced for presenting research as part of the BOOKSTOP programme. The newly installed Vitrine, located at Haus der Statistik, offers a space for ABA residents and collaborators to use this mini-space for sharing their research — inviting passersby to engage with the work on display.

We are currently welcoming submissions to the vitrine – be it image or text based. Please get in touch at with the materials you wish to showcase.
 

ABA BLOGS

between two cities

Excerpt from Sahar Salah’s blog contribution

I write to keep the road alive between two cities: one that taught me how to wait, and a country that taught me how to belong. I write to say that leaving does not end love, and that exile can be a bridge, not a rupture. In lines of warmth, I return each time to Sudan—if only through a word.

Read on

[dutch version below]

Hi!

Our first newsletter of 2026—hooray!

First of all, we’d like to wish you all the best for the new year—may it be filled with extraordinary sonic adventures, exciting projects, and many moments where our paths cross in one way or another. Last year was one of transformation and change, opening up new perspectives and horizons to explore. We couldn’t be more excited and grateful to share what’s coming (very!) soon.

December ended on a high note with a full house, as Clarice Calvo-Pinsolle, Anouk Llaurens, and Melissa Ryke joined us for a residency. Clarice Calvo-Pinsolle continued developing her work Symphonie d’une Combustion, a co-production between STUK, Centre Wallonie–Bruxelles, and Overtoon.

Anouk Llaurens dove deeper into the realm of her project Tremor, while Melissa Ryke conducted research for her ongoing project Last Summer’s Yield.

Starting anew wasn’t easy, but it has been phenomenal to hear about the shared belief in Overtoon and to feel the necessity of what we do. Thank you for that.

Talk soon,

Overtoon

〜〜〜

Hallo!

Onze eerste nieuwbrief in 2026, hoera! 

Het afgelopen jaar stond in teken van transformatie en verandering, met nieuwe perspectieven en horizonten om te ontdekken. We zijn dan ook ontzettend enthousiast en dankbaar dat we binnenkort (heel!) veel met jullie kunnen delen.

Maar eerst en vooral willen we jullie het allerbeste wensen voor dit nieuwe jaar — moge het gevuld zijn met buitengewone klankavonturen, boeiende projecten en vele momenten waarop onze paden elkaar op de een of andere manier kruisen.

We sloten december af met een full house met Clarice Calvo-Pinsolle, Anouk Llaurens en Melissa Ryke als residenten. 

Clarice Calvo-Pinsolle werkte verder aan Symphonie d’une Combustion, een coproductie van STUK, Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles en Overtoon.

Anouk Llaurens verdiepte zich verder in haar project Tremor, terwijl Melissa Ryke onderzoek deed voor haar lopende project Last Summer’s Yield.

Opnieuw beginnen was niet eenvoudig, maar het was bijzonder om te horen hoe sterk het gedeelde geloof in Overtoon leeft en om de noodzaak te voelen van wat we doen. Dank jullie wel daarvoor.

Tot snel,

Overtoon

LEFT: Anouk Llaurens, Tremor ©️ Anouk Llaurens.  RIGHT:  Melissa Ryke, Last Summer’s Yield ©️ Joeri Thiry