LAND

Ongoing 2024

Politicised Artistic Commons

Ethics Infrastructure

Open Source Lexicon

These are the three pillars of Intra-Dependant Land 2024 (working title), a research track made possible as the first awardee of the new Groningen Visual Arts Stipendium Land 2023 (for the working period of 2024).

The artistic activities are shaped as a set of practices rather than a project, in order to alleviate the outcome-oriented mindset of artistic work and to advocate for artistic labour as a durational, urgent practice within society.

Objectives, Phase 1:
Politicised Artistic Commons
Starting: September 2024

Set up a politicised artistic commons in the form of a coalition in Groningen. Use the material money of the individual stipendium to invest in co-selected common resources as an act of artist grant de-centralisation. Collectively invest in, and frame, the politicised layer of the group: commoning needed resources, such as legal advice, peer support, mental health services and knowledge sharing, form an essential foundation of the group members' ability to thrive as healthy, local actors. Alongside this, the group choses to activate its political agency, voice and willingness to learn and act, by means of co-education and co-engagement in actions that have broader political implications. This could entail setting up local petitions, keeping each other updated about the new Dutch coalition's developments and policies, holding institutes accountable to any unfair or unethical practices or stances, demonstrating public solidarity and action for marginalised and stigmatised groups and regions, challenging local or national politicians on unconstitutional rhetoric or policy plans, creating propositions of better frameworks for the culture sector, such as a basic income for artists plan, challenging institutes to not take neutral stances on local and global injustices, genocides and occupations (this list is not exhaustive).

Watch this space for updates about when and how the politicised artistic commons will be formed, how to join the group, and what types of activities it will both initiate and partake in.

November / December 2023

This residency period involved a four week stay with the Tampere Art Museum, Finland, under the 2023 AiR on the Edge programme.

In order to develop new material and working methods, an existing social practice was embedded within a new context and environment, which demanded a reflection of groundwork-considerations.

The self chosen research thematic centred on the abstraction and reclamation of economics, whereby intimate encounters where exchanged in particular with the city centre NGO Kölvi.

The working method included dialogical engagements, committing time, and highly context specific workshops on exchange, reciprocity and the migrant as gift-giver.

City of Empathy is a test out, world-lab structure of the self-initiated Developing Cultures of Empathy research project, 2022 / 2023.

This project is funded by Provincie Fryslân and art organisation VHDG Leeuwarden. VHDG are an artistic partner in this trajectory.

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What is City of Empathy?

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It is a proposed framework where cultures (practices, habits, values, systems) of empathy play a central role in re-embedding good intentions back into the core of how many things are practiced and undertaken. It is not a badge for a city to wear, but a challenge for a city to step into, and as a project it aims to formulate a fresh and useful structure of up-scaled neuro-mechanisms of empathy.

What am I looking for?

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The cooperation of local government to work in a together focused, non-judgemental, critical and skill sharing way, which should prove useful, energising and integrative.

If you are a policy advisor in the Provincie Fryslân, I would love to hear from you and to fill you in on what is possible. My time is funded via the Provincie's stimuleringsfonds voor onderzoek, so I am yours to use, and I will come to you.

2021 - ongoing

(Formerly Women’s Group) Women’s Space is a weekly / biweekly engagement for women living in an AZC (asielzoekerscentrum / asylum seekers centre) in a Northern Netherlands location.

This is a private, adult-only moment for residents of the AZC, held and organised by Katie, now featuring a growing programme of self-facilitation hosted by the womens’ unique and various skills and knowledge.

The space is intended to offer enough time for deep participation when needed, enough autonomy and comfort for opt-in and opt-out moments, and is specifically designed so that women can choose with agency how long they wish to stay and what they need or want on the day itself.

A typical day starts with a twenty minute warm-up walk just outside the perimeter of the AZC grounds (to chat with another, have some fresh air in silence, or share an accountable moment for a self-check); followed by tea / coffee / snacks, hugs, catch-ups and lively chats; a somatic exercise such as guided intentions, gentle body activation or short sleep sessions; an activated workshop or semi-facilitated activity such as alternative baking or bread-making; collective re-organising and planning; and a shared wind-down lunch. Couches and cosy spots are available to take ownership of one’s time and chill if preferred over the day’s activities.

The room is open for on average four hours per session and follows a flow of varied access points and types of energy, and is bound by intentions of regeneration, reflection, connection and decompression. Regulating the central nervous system is a core aim of the group, where all emotions are welcome and to be dealt with in a suitable way, from more in-depth sharing circles to simple acknowledgement / being seen. Participants usually describe the sessions as their weekly date with themselves.

Women’s Space is an autonomous space in collaboration with COA.

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CHECK OUT THE NEW CPS INTERACTIVE WEBSITE AT complexpublicservice.com

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• Phase 1: May - December 2021

• Participatory Track: Weekly

• Deep Participants: 8

• Participation Style: primarily 1:1; occasional group configurations

Complex Public Service is an attempt to use an artistic practice, a festival and an art institute to open up an accessible way to be involved in both private-life and social-public conversation. The project uses a participatory approach to bring personal value and experience to the forefront, alongside critical discourse and action around futuring. With circular systems and empathy as curiosity starting points, this long term project will embark on a complex, multi-layered trajectory of participation and collaboration, where one can both meet themselves and think together.

Complex Public Service engages participants from Leeuwarden city public and from WTTV festival visitors in a process which challenges what a civil service could be. How can people be involved in the community they exist within, through joy, being and deep experience, shifting the focus from progress, integration skill-learning and cultural adaption. In July, the process will meet as a tangible moment at the festival through Empathy Village for open discourse, and will continue along, unfolding via a transparent participatory decision process.

Complex Public Service is a project by Katie Ceekay in collaboration with WTTV festival and kunst initiative VHDG.

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Empathy Village is a physical meeting moment of Complex Public Service, facilitated by a platform, shelters, a kitchen unit, places to sit, participants, collaborators and Katie. It assebles for the first time at Welcome to the Village Festival 2021.

F I B R E C L U B

fibreclub.com

Fibre Club is a health-education initiative started by socially-engaged artist Katie Ceekay. It is a co-created project born in collaboration with illustrator and designer Julia de Jong and the Leeuwarden based art initiative VHDG.

How did this concept come about?

Katie started an artistic research path in March 2021 during her artist residency in the city of Leeuwarden. Using the abstract concept of an imagined Human Right to Dietary Fibre (Het Recht op Voedingsvezels) as an investigative lens, she stepped into the worlds of nutritional science, and health access. From there, Katie began to investigate a plethora of links—little fibrous threads—connecting social, political and economic issues with one of our most basic human needs: food. She brought Julia in early on in the process, specifically with the request “not just to design, but to pack this out together” and from there the two started their big fibre journey.

What is the club?

Fibre Club is aimed at being an educational and perspective-conscious resource, trying to tie up some loose ends when it comes to that little confusing but apparently very important thing: fibre. The Club takes shape as its first version in December 2021, one that stretches to a selected number of topics, in the knowledge that there are so many more questions, voices and relations to be made. In this, we want to make it clear that our material has no commercial or corporate agenda, and positions itself in that awkward but important tension between the realms of arts and culture, the political and the educational. Our aim was always to find balance between relevant, context-specific information, alongside a global perspective to amplify the issues and conditions which we found.

Fibre Club is free for all to use, and in fact, is not a club at all, but a space for anyone who might need it, enjoy it, or find relationality with it. We think that more efforts can be made to solidify health equity, and this in turn is our small nod from our artistic perspectives. We hope that the topics, references, interviews and other material provided offer some good food for thought and a springboard for engaging in two very important pillars to the Club: personal health and community health.

As we are not health professionals, we want to disclaim that any advice given is done so for research and educational purposes only, and that while we have worked with a registered dietician, you should check with your doctor or a nutritionist if making the suggested changes.

As part of a new collaboration between Welcome to the Village (WTTV) festival, kunstinitiatief VHDG and myself, Complex Public Service summer 2021 has begun.

The project is a long term work which deals with participation from members of both Leeuwarden's city public, and visitors of the WTTV festival.

Did we recently meet in the city? Maybe you’ve landed on this website through an encounter we had, particularly as I walk around and approach people close to the Waagplein square in the city centre. You might be wondering what this project is about, or what it is that we will do together if you text the number I gave you. This project is like a surprise, it’s based on humans seeing each other and making new connections, it’s based on your desires or your needs. Through these we build a track together for a number of weeks where we can set-up casual coffee discussions, fun activities, more active community-building sessions, or a combination of the above. I invite you to have a think and ask yourself: “how could a city artist act as a public servant, and how could that benefit me?”

Places are limited as my time is best spent on quality experiences, however all are welcome, regardless, fundamentally, of how society might define you.

I look forward to hearing from you and taking this chance together.

2018

Together with 4 participants from Visio de Brink, centre for the blind in Vries, Drenthe, Katie has engaged on a journey of self discovery through the use of food as a preliminary discourse tool. Participants of Smaak Identiteit have the opportunity to work with texture, themes, intuition, colour (for the partially sighted or deaf clients), taste, otherness and more. This is a fluid and experience based project which offers the participants new perspectives, otherly experiences and a new way to consider food as an artistic tool. 

Smaak Identiteit is an inclusive project, engaging with a range of wonderful intellectual abilities and embracing the hidden talents and thoughts of the participants. 
'Choice' plays a significant role in the project, with the participants helping to develop  the course of their experience with the artist together.

Through sensory and highly personalised workshops, Katie works attentively with the participants on a one-to-one basis, with each journey, and set of actions, differing greatly to the other. 
Katie uses raw food where possible, focusing on  intent, unusual ingredients, new preparation techniques, development of fine motor skills, all with a health perspective in mind.
Many participants have made cakes of their choice without sugar, gluten or dairy for the first time. 

The group came together as a whole in January 2018 for a specially designed pizza-making workshop with Katie, Joost Brouwer (cook and specialist in the care of the otherly abled) and the wonderful Eetwinkel Buurman & Buurman at the pizzeria in Groningen.

Katie is currently collecting and reflecting on some of the experiences through documentation, with an audio-visual cookbook to come. 
The cookbook holds the recipes created in conjunction with the participants, the stories shared, drawings, photography and other reflections by participants, in an accessible book format (letterpress, braille, CD).

Katie has been cooking in line with food allergies, healthy food choices and innovative recipe creation for more than 6 years, and with an extensive experience in catering has combined her interest in cuisine with her specialized social-participatory art practice. 

The Right to Fibre is a two-track participatory and artistic research project as part of the VHDG Artist in Residence programme 2021.

The working approach uses dietary fibre and human rights as talking points to investigate issues around health equity, food access, political language and resonance, and the embodiment of human connection, choice and empowerment.

Between private deep-participation, public collaborations, casual participation and public access to the artistic research findings, the work situates itself on many aspects of the scale, visiting dust under carpets where needed.

April 2021 held the first segment of the research, which continues through a second residency period in September / October 2021. This phase will attempt to enact findings as useful tools in actual space. The Right to Fibre is an attempt to integrate an artistic system into private life and public governing, by offering the practice as a method of construction which takes a radical resonance.

THE KITCHEN ISLAND

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE!

For the Culturele Hoofdstad programme in Leeuwarden this Autumn, The Kitchen Island will exist as a concept cafe exploring water as a theme from several perspectives.

The Kitchen Island is open from September 15 - November 18 2018, Wednesday through Sunday from 13.00 - 17.00.

Activity Info:
Consumable Triptych of Endless Loop and Non Linear Info Mealspaces:

SEPTEMBER 15th
Meals of the Sea Farer & the Water Reliant

OCTOBER 14th
Cultural Fluidity Cafe

NOVEMBER 15th
The Excursion Cafe of New Discoveries

Three main activities over the course of three months, floating on a cube in the canal.

Food Stories is an embodied collaborative project developed and carried out together with Fighting Words Ireland and 80:20 Educating and Acting for a Better World.

The participatory project brought a group of fantastic people, seeking asylum and living in Direct Provision centres in Wicklow, Ireland, together for a journey of meeting each other and themselves, telling deeply valuable personal stories, sharing, caring, hearing, being heard and tightening the human connection. Between being, laughing, smiling, we pulled the project through bread workshops, cooking sessions, writing and educational activities. The moments are housed in a private, special understanding through memory.

This project was realised as part of Bray Literary Festival 2019.

2017 - continuous

The Politieke Keuken is a binding object and pinpoint which emerged in 2017 from Katie's Tafelgenoten project research. Initially intended as the key object of Tafelgenoten, the Politieke Keuken will now widen it's perspective to appear as an object, a character and a service in several of Katie's upcoming works.

The Politieke Keuken's first action was made in November 2017 at the CBK Groningen, whereby Katie exhibited as part of the Wildvang event having been nominated for the Hendrik de Vries Award.

Edition #1
Koloniale Proverij: uit de Politieke Keuken
Katie Ceekay | 2017

"A Dutch-Moroccan waiter immerses himself in the space;

His face is kind and open, he is charming and perceptive;

Dressed in black, he moves around the crowded room with a large golden tray, filled with carefully cut pieces of the koloniale proeverij;

Spekkoek;
Spekkoek:
Spekkoek:

The tray is filled with spekkoek;

The tray is filled with the historical, the objective, the subjective...;

The guests indulge in their little pieces of luxury, the precious symbolic layers instantly consumed in one quick bite. 

The waiter speaks with his audience as they promptly sample these little tastes of free information, unknowingly now owing an ear in exchange - he has the right character and charm to open up the conversation. I chose him very carefully.

"What is your opinion of colonialism, and what do you know about the spekkoek?"

From there the magic of discourse ensues and I can leave the space somewhat satisfied... But still and always pissed at all of our ignorance"

details:
3 large 16-layer spekkoeks, cooked traditionally, consisting of a total of 80 seperated eggs, each cake cooked layer by layer, 8 minutes per layer, over the course of 10 tightly schedule hours.

DOWNLAOD THE SPEKOEK MANIFESTO HERE

With special thanks to: Juan Zyad & Eva Elaine

2017

Tafelgenoten in Discussie is the first abstract research segment in preparation for Katie Ceekay's 2018 Tafelgenoten project. Together with filmmakker Joost Wierenga, Katie abstractly interviewed 3 different residents of Groningen who had little to no knowledge of her work or of the project itself. Katie asked them about the phrases and ideas used in her project plan.

Tafelgenoten as a project plan and concept was nominated for the 2017 Hendrik de Vries Award.

About the upcoming work:
In brief, Tafelgenoten is a year long participatory based project whereby along with a diverse group of participants, Katie will use culinary diplomacy to explore three contextual, historical and political themes. The themes are: 

  | The Irish Famine of 1845
  | Dutch Colonialism & the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
  | The Breaking of Bread: Eating our Way through Immigration & Integration

Through mealspaces, events, critical discourse and various other culinary based formats, the group will explore the themes in depth in several locations and project spaces in the north of the Netherlands. The project also wishes to visit Rotterdam and later Ireland for pop-up events.

Tafelgenoten will begin in mid-summer / early autumn 2018.

PEOPLE’S PLATTER

Inspired by the popular political slogan Nothing About Us Without Us, Katie Ceekay looks at the Nacht Van De Kunst & Wetenschap’s Inclusivity theme by reversing the approach of further marginalising the marginalised. Katie looks for examples of what she thinks could represent some description of ‘inclusivity’ within the people she has met and the stories she has gathered. Her People’s Platter will host a person-first perspective naturally limited to the 3 narratives presented: an Irishman and artist living in London, a highly perceptive biochemist from Iran, and a refreshing Dutchman who’s deaf identity starts with a capital ‘D.’ Katie’s aim is to share stories, histories and perspectives using food as a visual, thought-provoking and metaphorical tool, without generalising or objectifying. The edible ode’s on the Platter have grown from a series of interviews, resulting in the need to bake a Shepherd’s Bisteeya, a Triplicate of Rose dishes and a Soup in sheep’s clothing.

(NL)
Geïnspireerd door de populaire politieke slogan Nothing About Us Without Us bestudeerde Katie Ceekay het thema Inclusivity van de Nacht van de Kunst & Wetenschap. De Ierse kunstenaar zoekt naar voorbeelden waarvan zij denkt dat ze een beschrijving kunnen geven van ‘inclusiviteit’. Ze verzamelde verhalen van mensen die ze heeft ontmoet. People’s Platter presenteert 3 van deze verhalen. Katie laat je kijken door de ogen van een Ier en kunstenaar in Londen, een zeer scherpzinnige biochemicus uit Iran en een verfrissende Nederlander met een dove identiteit die begint met een hoofdletter ‘D.’ Katie’s doel is om verhalen, gebeurtenissen en perspectieven te delen in combinatie met voedsel als een visuele, tot nadenken stemmende en metaforische tool, zonder te generaliseren of te objectiveren. Peoples Platter is ontstaan uit een reeks interviews en de noodzaak om een ​​Shepherd’s Bisteeya, een Triplicate of Rose-gerecht en een Soep in schaapskleren te bakken.

On the menu:

BITES:
The Shepherd’s Bisteeya   African Bisteeya-style filo-pastry w/ a hearty Irish shepherd’s pie filling
Triplicate with roses.     Coconut-honey Halva w/ roses & pistachio, Persian spiced granola & homemade oat milk
Soup for you, in this way.     Tomato soup cake w/ Gazpacho Sorbet

SIPS:
Cardamom Rose Oat Milk     Homemade oat milk w/ cardamom, rose water & vanilla
Ginger Lemonade     Homemade ginger lemonade w/ fresh radish from the garden w/ Markievicz Seaweed Tincture
A dash of homemade, organic Irish Kombu infused whiskey for the lemonade