Four artistic proposals by Teresa Borasino, AZ OOR, Serena Lee, and Kristiina Koskentola from 22 March–25 May, 2025

Spring program – Sensing the Ways: On Touch, Story, Movement, and Song

How might attuning ourselves to embodied forms of knowing provide new orientations to face the present?

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. 

Colophon:

Sensing the Ways: On Touch, Story, Movement, and Song, with Teresa Borasino, AZ OOR, Serena Lee, and Kristiina Koskentola.

This artistic program is the result of a collective effort. At Casco Art Institute, Aline Hernández and Marianna Takou lead the curatorial process, with support from Luke Cohlen. Luke Cohlen and Niloufar Nematollahi handle communication, editorializing, and translation in conversation with Aline Hernández and Marianna Takou. Marianna Takou and Naomi de Bruijn manage production, while Luke Cohlen, Naomi de Bruijn, and Niloufar Nematollahi coordinate education and community outreach. Luke Cohlen, Aline Hernández, Marianna Takou, and Naomi de Bruijn guide accessibility efforts. Marianna Takou oversees financial administration.

From our cooperative committee, Binna Choi facilitates connections and offers feedback in the early stages, while Annette Krauss provides support. Exchanges and dialogues with members of Arts Collaboratory and the lumbung network focus on the potential of artistic imagination and arts organizing to shift dominant paradigms, forming a strong foundation to build upon. Equally essential is the role of the contributing artists, whose generous commitment and practice of self-organizing and sharing bring this program to life.

Glacial Resurgence is a film by Teresa Borasino, part of Glacier Resurgence, a work-in-progress initiated in 2023, evolving through dialogues with Quelccaya, Ausangate, Yolanda Quispe, Vito Calderón, Hipólito Peralta, Victor Bustínza, INAIGEM (National Institute of Research on Glaciers and Mountain Ecosystems), and the peasant community of Phinaya in Cusco, Peru.

Thawing of the Frozen Rivers is a film and research project by Kristiina Koskentola in collaboration with Han Xiaohan made between 2024 and 2025. The ritual performance by Han Xiaohan gives greetings to the local gods of Lake Saimaa, Southern Karelia, Finland, and honoring the Mother River Sahaliyan ula (Black Dragon River, Amur River), Daxinganling, Manchuria, Northeast China.

Lines and Fields is an ongoing project by Serena Lee, with study atmospheres developed with Leonardiansyah Allenda, and study sessions developed with Joy Mariama Smith, Lee Su-Feh, Magdalena Górska, Nuraini Juliastuti, and Rajni Shah.

Issaffen n Irifi (Rivers of Thirst) is a scenography and storytelling circle by AZ OOR, centering the Amazigh movement through space-fiction. This project is part of the space-fiction and installation The Fable of the Agronauts, earlier presented at the Jan van Eyck Academie in 2023.

From our extended support team:

Tim van Elferen (Revolute), Michael Klinkenberg & Bram Kuipers (Studio KunstWerk), exhibition construction
David Bennewith (colophon.info), visual identity and communication
Chun Yao Lin, photography
Rawan Boustany, food
Maria Sujecka, cleaning and maintenance
Athina Koutsiou, Savvas Gerolemidis, Maria Tzekaki, May Herbawe, production volunteers
robstolk drukkerij, Amsterdam and Kopijwinkel, Utrecht, printing
Anna Chatzioti, Athina Koutsiou, Besime Alikişioğlu, Caterina Ossio Tord, Changli Luo, Maaryah Ahmad Syed, Maria Sujecka, Ming Lo Yuen, Sophia van Zonneveld, Yumi Maes, Zoe Bertotti, hosts

Sensing the Ways is made possible by the financial support of Gemeente Utrecht, Mondriaan Fonds, DOEN Foundation via Arts Collaboratory, and Iona Foundation. In their artistic research and proposals, Teresa Borasino is supported by the European Cultural Foundation and Patagonia International Grants Program; Serena Lee by Canada Council for the Arts and Culture Moves Europe; and Kristiina Koskentola by The Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux and Frame Contemporary Art Finland.

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