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Quasi Museum, Haren Brussels (2021-2023)
Project by: Ief Spincemaille
Co-curated by: Anouk Focquier
Commissioned works by: Adrien Tirtiaux (B), Bart Lodewijks (NL), Maëlle Dufour (B), Daems Van Remoortere (B), Elnino76 (B), Ousama Tabti (ALG), Karina Beumer (NL), Katrien Oosterlink (B), Kristof Van Gestel (B), Sep Verboom (B) & Ief Spincemaille (B).
© photo: Adrien Tirtiaux, Daems Van Remoortere, Sep Verboom, Bart Lodewijks, ELNINO76, Karina Beumer
Conceived as a long-term, site-specific art integration project, Quasi Museum explores how contemporary artistic practices can operate within a carceral context, not only aesthetically, but ethically and structurally.
Co-curated by Ief Spincemaille and Anouk Focquier, the project engages both the visible architecture and the invisible systems of the prison: its rhythms, its relationships, its logics of inclusivity and exclusivity.
We invited artists to develop new, permanent works that are not simply installed in the prison, but rather entangled with it, works that are conceived to exist within a space of regulated visibility, where the audience is limited to those who live, work, or pass through the institution. What does it mean to create for such a circumscribed public? What kind of reception, resistance, or resonance can art generate behind walls?
Quasi Museum asks how such a site positions its neighbors. What does it mean, socially and psychologically, to co-exist with a new prison in your backyard? How can art mediate, complicate, or render legible this uneasy proximity?
Quasi Museum is not an exhibition in the traditional sense. It is a situated, durational practice that brings together detainees, artists, staff, and local residents within a deliberately ambiguous framework—one that resists closure and embraces friction.
