Exhibition, Public Programming

27.8 – 7.11.2021
Curators: Nikolaus Hirsch, Matylda Krzykowski, Cédric Libert
Scenography: Jan de Vylder & Inge Vinck, Pierre Labergue
Civa Brussels

The exhibition Institution Building displays and questions the different elements of a museum – not only the most visible parts (such as the exhibition) but also the less public, often hidden components (such as archive, administration, maintenance). Following a sequential logic of 10 institutional components the exhibition will grow week by week, adding another element and eventually present the institution as a cadavre exquis – a permanently changing organism, constantly on questioning and legitimizing its raison d´être.

Situated at the beginning of a phase of transition between the CIVA as it is in 2021 and its new home at Kanal in 2024 Institution Building is a self-reflection of an institution in transformation, a questioning of the role of cultural institutions as such – and of the CIVA in particular – and hence instigating a process of reinventing itself for the coming years. In a sequential logic each chapter aims to reimagine one component of the architecture museum: Hospitality (26.08), Format (02.09), Collection (09.09), Audience (16.09), Agency (23.09), Pedagogy (30.09), Emancipation (07.10), Environment (14.10), Preservation (21.10), Idiom (28.10). The exhibition and collateral events will include more than 150 architects, artists, historians, designers, writers, activists and citizens.

Images:
– Multiplexe by Diego Thielemans & Benjamin De Backer
– Performance What Attention Forms by Jacques Ligot with Eimi Leggett, Timothy Nouzak, Mary Szydlowska, Mooni Van Tichel
– Cave Talks by Bicoli Club, Blurbs and Women Cave Collective
– Set-up of Villa Thunberg by Accattone and Plant en Houtgoed
– Exhibition view with Deliveroo Man
– Exhibition view of Negotiating Ungers by Cornelia Escher & Lars Fischer, Making History by Ania Jaworska, Activism in Brussels by Cinéma Jolia in collaboration with Lieven De Cauter and Gideon Boie. Image by Sepiedh Farvardin
etc.