Monsters School

Monsters Assembly is a collective that is convened by wpZimmer. It is initiated by Helga Baert and Gosie Vervloessem (wpZimmer) and is guided through the artistic practices of Leonardo Delogu and Carolina Mendonça. Monsters School is a collective work authored by Monsters Assembly: Leonardo Delogu (artist), Carolina Mendonça (artist), Gosie Vervloessem (artist-curator), Dušica Dražić (artistic advisor), Alex Schuurbiers (community worker) and 8 participants Prisca-Agnes Nishimwe, Laurent Delom de Mézerac, Joud Toamah, Lois Loumonga Brochez, Elien Verschueren, Kaori Ishiguro, Denys Shantar and Miles Fischler.

wpZimmer is an Antwerp based international workspace dedicated to the development of the artistic practice. WpZimmer offers time and space for in depth and unconditional artistic research. It is organised as a multi voiced collective, currently guided by Dušica Dražić, Marie Luyten, Lina Van Hulle, Valeria Secchi, Gosie Vervloessem and Tim Wouters.

Leonardo Delogu is an independent artist, researcher and curator. Delogu explores the interplay of body, movement, and landscape, focusing on the concept of “mobile space” between nomadism and settlement. He co-founded the DOM – collective, shaping works in public spaces, immersing the audience in authentic experiences that demand trust, dedication, and time. Their work scrutinises the interplay between bodies and territories, emphasizing permeability, and investigating the interactions of power, nature, culture, and marginality. DOM – explores how perceptual dimensions can foster a novel choreographic perspective on the world.

Carolina Mendonça is an artist-curator interested in contamination of knowledge and in being vulnerable to different logics. Her latest artistic projects speculate around feminist perspectives on violence (Zones of Resplendence, 2023), attempt to listen to the sirens chant as a collective practice (Sirens, 2021), deal with an intuitive archaeology digesting the leftovers of the XVII and XVIII centuries (Pulp — History as a Warm Wet Place, 2018), or invite the audience to sleep while being read aloud to through the night (useless land, together with Catalina Insignares, 2018). Mendonça (co-)curated projects, a.o.: NIDO (2022, with Suely Rolnik and Victoria Perez Royo), Performing Arts Festival VERBO (2017), and Temporada de Dança (2017).

Dušica Dražić is an artist-curator. She researches the interrelationship of place and its users, rethinks them at the level of cultural continuity, symbolic irregularities and individual actions. In 2018 Dražić co-founded OUT OF SIGHT in Antwerp, dedicated to experimental, audio-visual and time-based practices. Since 2020 she is a creative producer and artistic collaborator at wpZimmer.

Alex Schuurbiers is a photographer and filmmaker. Her practice focuses on the texture of analogue film as an active contributor to her storytelling: embedded in the past like a memory and tangible in the present like emotion. She is also the founding member of Ursula, a female-led collective of artists working with the moving image.

Gosie Vervloessem is a performance artist. In her work, Vervloessem maps the complexity of human-plant relations, seen through the perspective of popular culture, augmented reality and fiction. Her work unfolds in many ways from lecture-performance, walks, zines, workshops and drawings and was shown internationally. She is one of the founding members of State of The Arts. In 2020 she joined the artistic team of wpZimmer.

Monsters School PARTICIPANTS

Prisca-Agnes Nishimwe (she/her) Astounded by the elusive nature of sound, Prisca – Agnes Nishimwe explores the nuances of her voice through music and spoken word. In a sonic realm where feeling, perception, and impulse converge, she oscillates, propelled by philosophical questions, between beauty and tragedy.

Laurent Delom de Mézerac (he/him) is an alumnus of the Royal Conservatory Antwerp with a background in telecommunications engineering, merges his skills in his creative work, creating hybrid dramaturgies. He has worked as a performer with notable companies and as a consultant on technology in art projects. His research explores technology and nature, examining new media’s impact on human experience.

Joud Toamah (she/her) is an interdisciplinary graphic designer and artist researcher drawn to practices of remembrance. She is currently working with remembrance of generational practices related to water vessels in Syria through critical fabulations, activation of photographs with ancestral knowledge, poetry and traditional Islamic protection practices.

Lois Lumonga Brochez (she/her) is part of the transdisciplinary art group KIN Collective. On her individual journey she submerges herself in the traditions of African oral storytelling. Guided by her late Kaonde grandfather, and her matrilineal Bemba heritage she draws inspiration from the rivers and the cosmos, from songs and poetry passed down from generation to generation. Through associative play, she seeks ways to marry contemporary performative art forms with ancestral and indigenous knowledge.

Elien Verschueren (she/her) is a Dutch- as-a-second language teacher and visual artist. She draws and works with text and textile. Her research questions are: How can I reclaim my softness? Where do my esthetic decisions come from? Who are my elders? What is this body for? How to navigate being seen/unseen?

Kaori Ishiguro (she/her) works in performing arts based in Antwerp. In her artistic practices she questions the boundaries between herself and others/things. Through the sensory she wishes to create immersive pieces through which she can extend her artistic boundaries.

Denys Shantar (he/him) is a Ukrainian – Swiss artist, curator and researcher, who lives and works in Antwerp. 2019 he graduated with a Fine Art Bachelor’s from the Zurich University of the Arts (CH) and 2021, he finished his Master’s degree in Costume Design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp (BE). He exhibited in several Belgian as well as international institutions and spaces.

Miles Fischler (they/them) (1991) is an artist based in Antwerp who mostly works with still and moving images. They have a strong interest in ecology, queerness, community and death practices. Their work is driven by curiosity, wonder and confusion and is an attempt to relate to, appreciate and make sense of the world around them.