Nicoline van Harskamp: ENGLISHES

‘Englishes’ (2014–16) explores the widespread use and modification of the English language by its non-native speakers.

Nicoline van Harskamp’s first solo exhibition in Ireland, features five of the eight episodic films from her ‘Englishes’ series (comprising interview, performance, and scripted fiction, exploring the myriad variations of English spoken between people as a link language), and PDGN, a video installation that puts forward a desirable (if unlikely) global link language for the future. This video work is subtitled with Irish subtitles which have been specially produced for this exhibition. In an accompanying video work, projected in the main foyer of Project, lines from the script for PDGN are being remade again and again in different possibilities and distortions. ‘Englishes’ (2014–16) explores the widespread use and modification of the English language by its non-native speakers, or ‘Englishes’.

Researched and produced in collaboration with a range of art institutions and universities, each video work engages a particular area of linguistics such as phonology, pragmatics or translation. Van Harskamp has worked together with, among others: language teachers, linguists, language inventors, multi-lingual children and actors in order to study and explore ‘Englishes’ and the particulars and conceptualisation of this transient type of language. Inspired by the fluid and dynamic nature that is fuelled by the intentional, deliberate and functional changes introduced by their speakers, the artist envisages the dissolution of English into varieties of future ‘Englishes’, a common and ever-growing linguistic resource.

In conjunction with the exhibition, we’re delighted to announce that we will also be commissioning a live performance by the artist which to be staged in October 2018 for which Nicoline van Harskamp conducting research and two public conversations.

Find out more by downloading our Englishes Gallery Guide here.

Watch trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-EV6cTkY5s

Upcoming events:

Artist talk and public conversation #1: 16 Feb, 7pm – 9pm, Studio 6  at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios

Public conversation #2: 21 Feb, 7.30pm – 9pm, Studio 6 Temple Bar Gallery + Studios

Relatively Speaking tour: 23 Feb, 1pm, starting at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios

Images:

PDGN, single channel video, 2016 (still)
Photo courtesy the artist

Englishes’, exhibition view witt PDGN, single channel video, 2016‘
Englishes’, exhibition view with A Romance in Five Acts and Twenty-one Englishes, single channel video, 2015, 6’30 (excerpt)
‘Englishes’, exhibition view with Wer Mae Hao, single channel video, 2015, 7’44
‘Englishes’, exhibition views with Portrait of an Englishes Collector, single channel video, 2015, 22’29 (excerpt), Project Arts Centre, Dublin, 2018
Photos: Ros Kavanagh, Photo courtesy: Project Arts Centre

Nicoline van Harskamp is an Amsterdam-based artist whose work considers acts of language and communication in relation to ideology and solidarity through video, installation, and scripted performance. Recent solo presentations and live events include: Some Name Some Noun Simply, live performance at Archive Kabinett Berlin, DE (2017); Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam, NL (2017); Tenderpixel, London UK (2017); Englishes, solo exhibition at BAK, Utrecht, NL (2016); solo show at C3A, Cordoba, SP (2016); A Romance in Five Acts and Twenty-One Englishes
live performance at KunstWerke, Berlin, DE (2015); live event at Extra City, Antwerpen, BE (2015); solo show at Onomatopee, Eindhoven NL (2015); solo exhibition at Kunstraum, London, UK (2014); English Forecast, live performance streamed online for BMW Tate Live Performance Room, London, UK (2013).
She participated in Biennials such as the OFF-Biennale. Budapest, HU (2017); Sydney, AU (2014), Eva International, Limerick, IE (2014); Moscow Biennale, RU (2013); Gothenburg, SE (2013); Shanghai, CN (2012); Manifesta 9, Genk, BE (2012) and Bucharest Biennale, RO (2010) among others. Van Harskamp currently works as professor for Performative Art at the University of Fine Arts in Münster.

The exhibition is kindly supported by Mondriaan Fund, Amsterdam.

Special thanks to Temple Bar Gallery+Studios

Project Arts Centre is proudly supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Dublin City Council.