ZORAS

ZORAS (FI/BE/DE/UK) is an interdisciplinary artists’ collective. Our current project ‘Rooting hope’ explores what activists and artists can learn from each other. How can we imagine a more socially just and ecological future, and what are the methodological avenues that could move us towards these changes?

During our residency we explored interconnectedness between practices of individual artists and activists as a catalyst for change. We explored what the relationships are between activist and artistic practice. We saw activist practice as ‘intervening in and disrupting the logic of something we want to change’ and artistic practice as finding time, space and ways to digest the world, make, create and give aesthetic form to what we want to share with others. We explored both the similarities, overlaps and differences.

We spent time researching in an embodied, sensuous way, what reciprocity means in the doing. A significant part of our explorations were invitations that emerged during this month at Saari Residence and were carefully crafted to invite each other into each other’s practice, into a question or into an experience. We digested and documented these experiences separately and shared our sketchbooks and recordings as part of our routine. All of this was collected in an (im)material archive.

This material from our residency period will serve as a starting point for a dialogue which will form a basis for an issue of the Kuti magazine. We will invite artists and writers from other countries to respond to our archive and create content for the magazine. The aim here is to broaden our perspective on the relationship between artistic and activist practices and share these insights with a wider audience.

Zoras collective is:

Sanna Hukkanen, comics artist / illustrator / community artist (Finland)
Rona Kennedy, artist, theatre and performance-installation maker, writer (Belgium/UK)
Inez Louwagie, visual artist / graphic storyteller, activist (Belgium)
Silvana Mammone, transdisciplinary artist (Germany)
Charlotte Peys, visual artist, illustrator, writer (Belgium)