Blog, Nov 2012
websitewww.2up2down.org.uk
Lynn Tolmon weekly columny about life at 2Up2Down/Homebaked
, Nov 2012
So yesterday was a bit hectic. Saturdays at the bakery are so random. That’s what the young people are saying these days, no? “oh my god you’re so random!” ... but they literally are pretty random too, not just abnormal and zany. Some weeks it’s dead until the exact moment the Tour arrives, led by Carl with a C (not with a K, that’s just weird). Some weeks we have a ton of locals come in for a coffee – “oh god it’s him” “dog in a pram” and “bodybuilder in a Porsche” to name but three. Some weeks we’re stuffed to the gunnels with biennial bigwigs (you can identify them by their question of “do you know Jeanne?”) or confused tourists (“where’s the art? I thought there’d be some art?” or “do you do pies? We just went on a tour of LFC”)
But this week it was heaving. From the second we opened the front shutter, we didn’t have a moment’s peace. It was bleedin marvellous. I personally would prefer to have more cups, because when your job is to make tea for the “Unexpected Guest” you really don’t want to find yourself saying “oh, sorry, no clean cups” but I have come to realise that Hospitality isn’t about perfection, but personality.
My favourite comments were “this is THE highlight of the biennial, this is EXACTLY what art should be” (tell us something we haven’t heard!) and... well, this one needs context...
So we’ve dealt with the tour, and are all having a breather, when a footie family wander in. You can always identify the footie family – dad and son dressed in football kit, mum and daughter looking glassy-eyed and slightly passive-aggressive. They come in expecting a cafe, and then have a couple of minutes of drastic existential confusion which ends with them having to decide how much to pay us for their tea and cake. Usually they walk into a conversation about the intricacies of today’s performance, or the politics of the built environment.
In this case I had to say “oh sorry, bear with us, we haven’t got any clean cups...” and then Angela explained why... tea in hand, they then mooched for a bit and relaxed. As they left they said “we thought you were a cafe, we didn’t expect to walk into this! It’s like we’ve come into your front room!”
That made my day. Coming to us is like coming into our front room. It doesn’t get any better than that. I often wonder what Art is, when I’m asked “where’s the art then?” or “so which bit of this is the art?”... but ultimately doesn’t it boil down to things like enriching someone’s day, showing them an alternative perspective, challenging habits of thought? Isn’t art about being random, thought-provoking?
So the footie families go home with a memory of the multi-billion pound football club, the Regeneration zone desolation, and a funny little bakery where they felt at home. Random.
related project
2up2down / Homebaked
But this week it was heaving. From the second we opened the front shutter, we didn’t have a moment’s peace. It was bleedin marvellous. I personally would prefer to have more cups, because when your job is to make tea for the “Unexpected Guest” you really don’t want to find yourself saying “oh, sorry, no clean cups” but I have come to realise that Hospitality isn’t about perfection, but personality.
My favourite comments were “this is THE highlight of the biennial, this is EXACTLY what art should be” (tell us something we haven’t heard!) and... well, this one needs context...
So we’ve dealt with the tour, and are all having a breather, when a footie family wander in. You can always identify the footie family – dad and son dressed in football kit, mum and daughter looking glassy-eyed and slightly passive-aggressive. They come in expecting a cafe, and then have a couple of minutes of drastic existential confusion which ends with them having to decide how much to pay us for their tea and cake. Usually they walk into a conversation about the intricacies of today’s performance, or the politics of the built environment.
In this case I had to say “oh sorry, bear with us, we haven’t got any clean cups...” and then Angela explained why... tea in hand, they then mooched for a bit and relaxed. As they left they said “we thought you were a cafe, we didn’t expect to walk into this! It’s like we’ve come into your front room!”
That made my day. Coming to us is like coming into our front room. It doesn’t get any better than that. I often wonder what Art is, when I’m asked “where’s the art then?” or “so which bit of this is the art?”... but ultimately doesn’t it boil down to things like enriching someone’s day, showing them an alternative perspective, challenging habits of thought? Isn’t art about being random, thought-provoking?
So the footie families go home with a memory of the multi-billion pound football club, the Regeneration zone desolation, and a funny little bakery where they felt at home. Random.
related project
2up2down / Homebaked
websitewww.2up2down.org.uk
- Nov '24Basecamp for Tactical Imaginaries: Building Cultural Infrastructure Anew - Announcements - e-flux
- Sep '23Celebratory sharing of different realities by It's OK... Commoning Uncertainties.
- Apr '23FULL PROGRAM: UPS
- Mar '23ULTRADEPENDENT PUBLIC SCHOOL (UPS) opening (April 1st 2023)
- Mar '23Social Practice Library (SPL) very soft opening
- Mar '23Social Practice Library (SPL)
- Oct '22ULTRADEPENDENT PUBLIC SCHOOL
- Mar '22Toward the Not-Yet: Art as Public Practice
- Jan '22Harboring the Social, Rotterdam Social Harbor - Moving Words
- May '21Mahkazin . مخازن, an exhibition by Qanat
- Sep '20BAK 2020 Fellowship program: exploring the possibilities of art as a public good and a site of public pedagogies
- Jun '20Qanat Cura
- May '20A Call for New Organizational and Collective Forms After COVID19
- Oct '19Trainings for the Not-Yet (14 Sep 2019–12 Jan 2020) at BAKbasis
- Jun '19Trainings for the Not-Yet, An exhibition as a series of trainings for a future of being together otherwise
- Jun '19Propositions #8: I Wanna Be Adored (the Non-Fascist Remix)
- May '19QANAT: a Training for the Not-Yet
- Oct '18BAK Fellowship 2018/2019
- Sep '17Philadelphia Assembled
- Apr '17'This is not about gentrification’
- Sep '16Book launch What's the Use?
- Sep '16ROTTERDAM CULTURAL HISTORIES #9: MANIFESTA 1 REVISITED
- Jun '16Article in DAMn #58
- Sep '15Acts of Political Uncertainty: Towards a Daily Practice of Resistance
- May '15Public Faculty #9: Conversations About Connection
- Oct '14Jeanne van Heeswijk selected for inaugural Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism at Bard College
- Jun '14Public Faculty No.8
- Mar '14Book Public Faculty no.5 out : We Just talk!
- Jan '14FREEHOUSE: Radicalizing The Local
- Dec '13Freehouse: radicalizing the local in ' Museum Of Arte Útil
- Sep '13Here we are - Performative Conversation with Homebaked
- Jun '13Amnesia of a Landscape in The City, the Artists and the Museum
- Feb '13Freehouse: radicalizing the local in 'A CITY SHAPED'
- Feb '13'A Piece of Cake' at Art Rotterdam
- Jan '13'Revisited: De wereld is groter dan schijndel ' in exhibition 'Waar?'
- Dec '122Up2Down / Homebaked Kickstarter campaign
- Nov '12Homebaked community bakery is holding a Bake Off!
- Nov '12Lynn Tolmon weekly columny about life at 2Up2Down/Homebaked
- Oct '122012 Curry Stone Design Prize awarded to Jeanne van Heeswijk
- Oct '12Anfield Home Tour
- Oct '12Presentation video's Wastelanders
- Oct '12Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto gives the Minimum Prize
- Sep '12Installation 'Participer ou Mourir' exhibited at Kunsthaus Graz, Space01
- Sep '12A Piece of Cake in the Museum of Liverpool
- Sep '122Up 2Down / Homebaked at the Liverpool Biennial 2012
- Jul '12Some 7 part of 'the hero, the heroine and the author' at Ludwig Museum
- Feb '12Works, Typologies and Capacities at STUK
- Feb '12Freehouse nominated Rotterdam Design Prize
- Sep '11Creative Time gives Leonore Annenberg Prize
- Aug '11Last chance to see The city in 3D
- Jun '11Solo exhibition Chabot Museum summer 2011
- Oct '10Bologna: lecture Fields of Interaction
- Jun '10Nominated for Award for Participatory Art
- Jun '10Publications Jeanne van Heeswijk for sale
- Apr '10Talking Trash 13 April - 29 May
- Jan '10RAM opens 2010 with Citizens' Tales
- Jun '09The Market of Tomorrow
- Sep '08Fields of (inter)action at Venice Biennale
- Sep '08New work coming up at 2008 Shanghai Biennale
- May '08Women beyond the Verge
- May '08'The Urban Game Show' at the NAI
- May '08Premiere 'It runs in the Neighbourhood'
- Apr '08'Ariadne' moves to Sint-Oedenrode
- Apr '08Breakfast lecture at the Design Publico Week
- Feb '08'Narratives of Desire' at Axel Lapp Projects
- Feb '08International presentation 'Systems'
- Feb '08'Memory Knight' at Art Rotterdam 2008
- Jan '08Public Faculty no.1
- Nov '07Presentation 'Systems' and 'Works, 1993-2007'
- Jul '07'Socially Yours', Seminar Hong Kong
- Jun '07Kunsthal: Presentation 'FYW Museum Park'
- Jun '075 projects at the Architecture Biennale Rotterdam
- Apr '07Symposium DEAF07: 'Interact or Die!'
- Mar '07Evasions of Power, Sesion 4: 'Interventions'
- Mar '07Lecture at Architectural Association in London
- Jan '07Exhibition 'Room with a View' at Axel Lapp Projects
- Jan '07KONTROL #1 is online now
- Nov '06'FYW' nominated for Citizen Participation Prize
- Nov '06Lecture at the MCA in Sydney
- Nov '06Visiting Scholar at Hunter College NY
- Nov '06Project presentation 'Care-taker'
- Sep '06'Cascomobile' at the Busan Biennale
- Jun '06Exhibtion: 'Play! The Art of the Game'
- Jun '06'Narratives of Desire. Realities Odense' in Arnhem
- May '06Kunst RAI 2006: 'Games People Play, Chapter 1'
- Apr '06Lecture at the NAi, Rotterdam
- Mar '06Design Staalmanpark receives green light
- Feb '06Exhibition 'Reality 10'55 Odense
- Feb '06'Some 7' at exhibition in RAM
- Feb '06New website Jeanne van Heeswijk online