22 March–25 May 2025 / Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Lange Nieuwstraat 7, 3512 PA, Utrecht

Exhibition visits on Thursday–Sunday, 12:00–18:00
Or by appointment, info@casco.art

Under prevailing paradigms of thought, knowing is framed within the boundaries of the written and the rational—a kind of thinking that works by sorting, categorizing, and separating, cutting knowledge off from the body, sensation, and pulse of lived experience. A search for other ways to know, alongside embracing forms of not-knowing, is what guides Casco Art Institute’s Spring program Sensing the Ways.

Sensing the Ways is an invitation to consider knowledge not as a decontextualized abstraction but rather as an assemblage of embodied practices rooted in deep connections with more-than-human worlds, spirit, and land. Flowing through touch, story, movement, and song as methods of aesthetic inquiry and artistic experimentation, the four artistic proposals that make Sensing the Ways transcend mere rationalizations; rather, they enact knowledge, asking what possibilities emerge when it is held in relation rather than possession. 

In Sensing the Ways, each artist brings forth exhibited works and public programs, engaging with specific sites and histories. In dialogue with the exhibition, which is open continuously, the following programs are organized as part of this Spring program:

Teresa Borasino – Glacial Conversations

19 May 2025 / Casco HQ

Glacial Conversations is a program facilitated by Teresa Borasino with the contributions of Macarena Gómez-Barris, Vito Calderón, and Yolanda Quispe. The program explores the interplay between epistemicide and colonial extractivism, focusing on the rapidly shrinking Quelccaya — the world’s largest tropical glacier and now a new sacrifice zone for lithium mining.. with a focus on lithium mining at the Quelccaya glacier in the Southern Andes of Peru. Through dialogue with community members in Peru, a lecture by Gómez-Barris, a performance–glacial invocation, shared food, and grounding practices, the program foregrounds the epistemologies of those made invisible, and decolonial approaches to knowledge, art, and resistance.

Kristiina Koskentola – Camera Dialogues + live concert by Han Xiaohan

4, 17 & 18 April 2025 / Casco HQ

Conceived by Kristiina Koskentola, and special guests. Camera Dialogues is a program exploring the intersections of spiritual relations, ritual knowledge, and contemporary philosophical thought in filmic and documentary practices. Through screenings, conversations, and study sessions, practitioners come together to examine how these elements shape cinematic and artistic expression. Head to the linked pages for more information.

The program begins with Camera Dialogue #1 on 4 April, 13:30–18:30, featuring a discussion between Stephan Dudeck and Kristiina Koskentola. As part of the session, participants are invited to a screening of Before the Snow (2007, 27’25”), a documentary by Stephan Dudeck, co-created with photographer and filmmaker Christian Vagt.

This is followed by Camera Dialogue #2 on 17 April, 13:30–18:30, featuring a conversation with Gu Tao, Kristiina Koskentola, and Rick Dolphijn, offering deeper reflections on these themes. The session includes a screening of Opaque God (2011, 1’23”), a film by Gu Tao, which explores the life of Guan Kouni/Garulie (1935–2019), a shamanic elder of the Oroqen people, as well as Oroqen culture and shamanism more broadly.

Additionally, there is a guided exhibition tour and special concert inviting Manchu shamanic composer Han Xiaohan in De Kargadoor, Utrecht, on 18 April, 20:00–22:00. The day’s program begins with an exhibition tour led by Kristiina inviting you to their joint film in the exhibition from 15:30–17:00. At the concert afterwards, Han Xiaohan invites us to experience the traditions of the Tungusic-Manchu people through his musicality, incorporating shamanic sounds—through instruments, technique, performance, and vocal chants rooted in his culture.

Serena Lee – Lines and Fields

23 March, 13 April, 4 May & 25 May 2025 / Casco HQ

Lines and Fields is a proposal for embodied study where different lines of thinking and making intersect with Serena Lee’s research on taijiquan. Developed in collaboration with Leonardiansyah Allenda, this series unfolds over four sessions within the gallery space, inviting practitioners from diverse disciplines to explore embodied knowledge and movement-based inquiry. Head to the Lines and Field page for times, accessibility notes, and more information.

Schedule:

• 23 March 2025 – Session #1 with Magdalena Górska and Lee Su-Feh
• 13 April 2025 – Session #2 with Joy Mariama Smith
• 4 May 2025 – Session #3 with Rajni Shah
• 25 May 2025 – Session #4 with Nuraini Juliastuti

AZ OOR – Rivers of Thirst

7, 8, 9 & 10 May 2025 / Casco HQ

This four-day program invites participants to the speculative world of Rivers of Thirst. Unfolding in four storytelling circles, Rivers of Thirst is an episode of The Fable of the Agronauts, a space-fiction on indigenous survivance. Taking place at sunset through a series of storytelling circles, the program unfolds over four days, offering multiple entry points. Combining imagination, materially rooted knowledge, poetics, and embodied practice, AZ OOR’s storytelling engages with the struggles and histories of the Amazigh people, weaving past, present, and future into narratives of their resilience and refusal.