On the crack: Syllabus Reading Group

Lectures & artist talks

This reading group will take place around and on the surface of the table at the centre of the exhibition We Turn Towards an Ending and Pay Attention by artist Fiona Hallinan.

The exhibition looks at the demolition of a church in Ireland through the lens of Ultimology, or the study of endings, a practice which is informed by the artist's gathering of knowledge on ways of attending to death. If death could be described at least as a type of ending process, could it hold potential for ways of negotiating other endings?

The title, On the crack, is derived from the work of Rosi Braidotti, who writes,

"Making friends with the impersonal necessity of death is an ethical way of installing oneself in life as a transient, slightly wounded visitor. We build our house on the crack, so to speak.” (Braidotti, 2019)

Braidotti suggests that an affirmative attitude to death offers potential for re-thinking our ethical position on the earth, aware of our interconnectedness and fragility. Could we gain further insight from looking to knowledge of how to care for and attend to the end of life of people? In this Syllabus reading group, co-hosted with artist Anaïs Chabeur, we will reflect on these questions by reading together, looking at text and film works that explore ways of attending to death.

Can’t make it? The exhibition 'We Turn Towards an Ending and Pay Attention' is on view at Kunsthal Gent until 31 August, 2025.

We will begin with a collective reading of selected passages primarily from the book Dying Livingly, by Staci Bu Shea. The author gives a deeply personal and well researched account of their experiences as both curator and death doula, and introduces the practice of Dying Livingly, a “poetic, aesthetic and ethical approach to Life that holds Death in tandem at all times.”

The reading will be followed by viewing two video works that sensitively and uniquely realise some of the topics of the book :

Old Song (18.29mins) by Nancy Vansieleghem
Rehearsal (10:30mins), by Anaïs Chabeur.

The films explore, in different ways, attending to the end of life, and the camera as a means to witness and care. They will be introduced by their makers and following the screening we will take time for questions and further discussion.

Anaïs Chabeur

Anaïs Chabeur is an artist based in Brussels. Through films, installations and participative offerings Anaïs crafts sensorial atmospheres, invitations to inhabit time consciously. The intimacies of dying is an underlying topic in her work and life. Since 2022 Anaïs has been a palliative care volunteer, offering presence and massages to terminally ill patients.

Her work has been shown at S.M.A.K Ghent/BE, Wiels Brussels/BE, De Singel Antwerp/BE, Botanique Brussels/BE, Krupa Foundation Wroclaw/PL. For the period 2024-2026,

Anaïs is a researcher at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp with her project "Visions for Crossing" on the washing of the dead.

Nancy Vansieleghem

Nancy Vansieleghem is a lecturer-researcher at LUCA School of Arts. She teaches in the educational master's programme and conducts research on the philosophical relationship between art, education and society, with a particular focus on radical pedagogies and artistic practices as forms of study.

In 2006, she obtained her PhD in pedagogical sciences on philosophising with children. As a research professor, she leads the recently renamed research cluster 'pedagogy as lovecraft.'

Fiona Hallinan

Fiona Hallinan is an artist, researcher, filmmaker and, alongside curator Kate Strain, co-founder of the Department of Ultimology, based between Brussels, Belgium and Cork, Ireland.

Her doctoral research at LUCA School of Arts, KU Leuven explores the coming-into-being of Ultimology, the study of endings, as a tool for transformative discourse. Using oral interview, this project instigates gatherings around endings as case studies; the closure of a canteen, the demolition of a church, the extinction of a plant. It is further informed knowledge related to rituals of mourning, including testimony shared in the monthly reading group On Death.

She has presented work in a number of international contexts, including at IMMA, Kerlin Gallery and currently at Kunsthal Ghent.

Credits

Photo: Rehearsal, Anaïs Chabeur.

Reference: Braidotti, R. (2019). Non-fascist ethics: Learning to live and die as affirmation. In M. Hlavajova & W. Maas (Eds.), Propositions for non-fascist living: Tentative and urgent (pg 36). BAK basis voor actuele kunst.