Casting Call: The Αngry, The Fool, The Healer/Caretaker, The Ghost, The Innocent, The One Whose Words Penetrate Brains, The Puppeteer, The...

With Eleni Kamma’s ‘Casting Call’ (2017–ongoing) Kunsthal Gent presents a temporary solo exhibition amid the Endless Exhibition for the first time. 'Casting Call' is an investigation into the concept of parrhesia: the courage to speak one’s mind and stand up for your own opinion, from a comedic and excessive perspective.

The exhibition takes the form of an installation of characters (drawings, videos, costumes and props) that moves through the Endless Exhibition like a parade, inviting the visitor to participate in a sensory experience. The period of the exhibition will also be used as production time for a new character, developed in collaboration with a group of performance students from KASK (supervised by Hans Bryssinck).

Eleni Kamma employs performative strategies and fictional characters to playfully ask serious questions about living well together and the role of public space and time in contemporary Europe. The characters in 'Casting Call' use texts and sketches commissioned by the artist on seven social concepts that lead to heated discussions and disagreements: Democracy, Prosperity, Solidarity, Europe, Languages, Migration, Pluralism. Kamma borrowed these from the BELvue Museum, which uses them to help the visitor discover Belgium and Belgian society. Reflecting on these concepts, Kamma’s parade of characters is rooted in entertainment, populist jokes and excess.

'Casting Call' operates between a dark, cultural allegory of contemporary Europe and an invocation of an old, comedic parrhesiastic community.

https://kunsthal.gent/en/exhibitions/casting-call