In Our Real Life (Embers) by Jason Hendrik Hansma | Toast Project Space

Wednesday, February 12, from 7.00 pm to midnight | Building B9
In this event, deeply connected to the places we inhabit, the Public Program phase of residencies begins, exploring the public potential of artists and their work environments.

 

 

Wednesday, February 12, from 7.00 pm to midnight, Toast Project presents In Our Real Life (Embers), a solo screening by Dutch artist Jason Hendrik Hansma.

The event marks the beginning of the second phase of the Pubblico project, which will culminate in an exhibition investigating the artist’s active relationship with their environment—both in a physical and metaphorical sense—exploring how artistic research intersects with the people, places, and situations we all inhabit.

“Through a manual scraping process, I collected videos from amateur sources uploaded online with a syntax of tags and metadata. This lengthy operation led me to reflect on translation and the excess of naming from Walter Benjamin’s perspective, on the imposition of language as a means of control. These collections seem more like ‘flows’ of participation with the ‘unnameable,’ or with what ‘cannot be named’ because it is in a state of continuous transformation. Perhaps there are things in our lives that are too ‘real’ to be assigned a fixed category or denomination.”

A slowed-down version of Close to You by Rihanna (2016), remixed by Belgian DJ Ssaliva, serves as the soundtrack for Embers, where the editing focuses on wildfires. From Australia to Morocco, passing through various unknown locations, the gaze moves through the ashes of a fire that seems to extend endlessly.
From the artist’s perspective, it is care and justice—not water—that extinguish the flames.

Jason Hendrik Hansma

Jason Hendrik Hansma (Lahore, Pakistan, 1988) studied at the Piet Zwart Institute and the Jan van Eyck Academy. His work has been presented at UNESCO, Bauhaus Dessau, Maison van Doesburg, KADIST, Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, Art Basel Hong Kong’s Satellite Program, Eye Filmmuseum, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Contemporary Art Centre Vilnius, Centre Georges Pompidou, Parc Saint-Léger Centre d’Art Contemporain, Hordaland Kunstsenter, Centre International d’Art et du Paysage de l’Île de Vassivière, Center for Contemporary Art Futura, Manifattura Tabacchi Firenze, Jan van Eyck, and De Appel, among others.
Hendrik Hansma has been a tutor at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, The Hague (KABK), the Masters of Artistic Research at the University of Amsterdam, and the Brno University of Technology Faculty of Fine Arts. He has also been a researcher at Rietveld/Sandberg. Additionally, he serves as an advisor to the Mondriaan Foundation committee and is the co-director and co-curator of Shimmer (alongside Eloise Sweetman), an exhibition space and curatorial studio. Shimmer has showcased over 150 artistic practices, including those of stanley brouwn, Raqs Media Collective, Ellen Gallagher, Charlotte Posenenske, Theo van Doesburg, Marcel Duchamp, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and Lawrence Weiner. He has lived and worked in Paris, Bangkok, Tokyo, and Amsterdam, and he currently resides and works in Rotterdam and Berlin.