Visibile Parlare. Banderole conversations

‘Visibile parlare’ shows a selection of eight Banderole Conversations that Erik Hagoort held in recent years with different conversation companions: Alireza Abassy, Barbara Neves Alves, Tasha Arlova, Ksenia Galiaeva, Valentine Kempynck, Ying Liu, Griet Menschaert, Ad van Rosmalen, Heidi Vogels, Murat Yildiz.

In his art practice, Hagoort invites his companions to join him in exploring other than usual ways of speaking, writing, and thinking. Inspired by Ukrainian philosopher Volodymyr Yermolenko’s call to “think differently in dark times”, the motto’s of the Banderole Conversations address aspects of war, a.o. shielding, sapping, detecting, fearing, the front, and dying in combat.

During the Banderole Conversations, the companions improvise on the motto by making variations with each other’s lines of thought. The conversation unfolds by writing and speaking simultaneously, in the slow tempo of writing down one’s own words. In this way, by ‘writing out loud’, there is more time for speaking and more space for thinking.

Each conversation companion follows one’s own column of a graphic composition, that has been sketched on a horizontal banner of notebook pages. Eventually the conversation creates a visible score. Most of the Banderoles measure more than one meter. They were scanned, reduced in size and printed, and aligned horizontally to form together a leporello that can be studied from both sides.

Support “Protect Ukraine”, a Dutch organisation that supports the defenders of Ukraine, initiated in 2022 by writer Jaap Scholten and friends, by donating via: www.protectukraine.nl

design: Jean-Michel Meyers & Erik Hagoort
paper: Munken Lynx Rough, 300 gr.
printing: ZwartopWit, Antwerpen, edition 200
text partly in Dutch, partly in English