EXPLO #4 - a sense of place - unfolds as a parcours through various spaces of the Gosset site and MILL: the working spaces of Needcompany in Brussels. The architecture of the building and its hidden (non-)spaces are activated through site-specific interventions by Shatha Afify, Grace Ellen Barkey, Sid Dankers, Koen Kloosterhuis, Siebert Mispelon, Shervin/e Sheikh Rezaei, Adam Russell, Dries Segers and Bo Stokkermans.

'the experiential and expressive ways places are known, imagined, yearned for, held, remembered, voiced, lived, contested and struggled over […]’ —  A definition out of ‘a sense of place’ by anthropologists Steven Feld and Keith Basso

In EXPLO #4, we wander around inside the Gosset building through a sequence of spaces that move between the public and private sphere; from the underground car park, to the corridors leading from the stairwell to the artists’ studios and workspaces of Needcompany. Via various interventions of the invited artists, an alternative route is generated. The experience of spatiality is explored through physical sensations such as seeing, listening, sensing and the act of moving as a game with perspective.

Simultaneously the spatiality of imagination and time is being evoked. Memory as a remnant of a personal relationship to a place; the traces that remain, the history that resonates, and a future that is emerging.

Where lie the borders of these places; where does the physical, tangible space transgress with the virtual, imaginative, mental space?

A voice from the underworld invading the safe environment of the house, a horrifying prediction, the contemplation of a conflict from a bygone time or place; displacement as a possibility of playing with scale, creating a reconstruction, or proposing an alternative.

The artists’ personal connection to the site is a key starting point for a sense of place. It is as a result of developing a routine and inhabiting a certain environment for a lengthy period, that a sense of place develops. Several of the artists that are invited to react to the architecture of the building within this exhibition, are associated with the collective artist studios Level Five, Next Level and Needcompany, which are housed on the Gosset site.

Invited by EXPLO #4, Brussels-based screening initiative Blue Screen curated a film programme to conclude the exhibition parcours, extending the sense of wandering through different (virtual) environments or mental spaces. The programme comprises of four video works that deal in a specific way with constructed environments that redefine spatiality through time and memory. The films by Janis Rafa, Eva L'Hoest, Graham Kelly and Thomas Swinkels are screened in a loop.