Alice Pons - Vogelsymfonie van het alledaagse // Vogelbuurt and its everyday stories

I have been working already for a year in a neighborhood of Amsterdam Noord called “Vogelbuurt”. I spent a lot of time there, lived there partly myself for some time, took walks with various people, got invited in various houses. I chose this place by intuition. It felt other and strangely familiar to me. Maybe because it felt close to where I grew up. In France, in a complete different neighborhood, yet carrying the same soft and chaotic dynamics. 

So I sticked around. I was the other to this new place, the foreigner who is here to learn, talking my clumsy dutch, wandering around, getting lost at times. I am still The other to some aspect. But maybe one of the reason I felt a sense of home, was that, as where I grew up, there were many others living with others and that seemed to be fine.

I found guides, who helped me direct my gaze through their stories and routines. I also directed their gaze into my gaze. The gaze of someone who is attracted by places with layers, complexities and unknown corners. The gaze of someone who is attracted by surprising forms of knowledge, how people survive, how people make their surroundings the way it is, their hidden expertise, their unexpected skills, their unknown stories.
Now here we are, when I have to share these stories and experiences with you. A year of intimate work and encounters, a year of everyday gestures, small talks, letters and cups of thee.

On the 30th of May, I invite you to celebrate this everyday work with us through the inauguration of 5 monuments inspired by the different guides I followed along this year.
Those monuments are humble and down to earth, they are what they are, a tribute to aging, daily work, home. A tribute to the familiar others, the unheard stories, the displaced. A tribute to the maintainers, the care takers, to the neighbours. 

A tribute to Vogelbuurt and its humble heroes.

Date & tickets

30 May 2018 | 17:00 - 19:00 /// Ticket link €5,-* includes food /// Location: Huis van de Wijk de Meeuw

Credits

Project hosted and facilitated by Alice Pons
Artists - concept and design monuments:
Merel Noorlander, Saidia Bettayeb, Niek Peters, Daniel Zimmer, Anne Breure.
Thanks to my guides: Rietje, Willy, Maria, Fatine, Alicia, Jarayso, Waynona, Lily, Martyna Nayeli, Noah, Frank.
Thanks to all the people who helped me through the organisation of the project, to the Meeuw buurthuis, the Resto van Harte and all their volunteers, The choir of de roze tank, and of course my dear MOHA team.
Image: Zsofia Pazscolay

Biography

Alice Pons is a french multifunctional art worker, organiser, care-taker, facilitator, carrying a lot of stuff around, carving lenses, truck driver, waitress, cleaner, improvised urbanist, host; Currently adding the perspective of the "expanded curator" to her work. She works mostly within her collective MOHA  (moss in hungarian), a living elements growing almost everywhere, often in shady locations, sometimes invisible. The context in which they work, the city and its different social dynamics as well as the research on locality, on how people make and use their living environment, are the starting points for all their initiatives. 

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