buren - SPARE TIME WORK

Melissa Mabesoone and Oshin Albrecht prepare their performance SPARE TIME WORK, set to premiere in November in Leuven.

"For this project, we are both maker and performer. The piece will be a sort of 'space', an installation where the visitor takes place in a different way than in a theatre context. The scenography will be a major part of the performance, reflecting our visual arts background. Via text and performance, we bridge our present situation, our personal history and the relation with watching and experiencing with a focus on the way we spend time and our relation to work."

Late 2012, Oshin Albrecht and Melissa Mabesoone founded the collective buren. Their work consists of performances, videos, texts, pictures and installations. In all those forms of expression, they tackle themes such as feminism, community, sexuality, pop music and neoliberal fantasies. They made their first film Parkways during the BijlmAir residency in Amsterdam, did a duo post graduate at HISK and published the book Confusion of Tongues at Posture Editions. Their latest performance Blue Skies Forever premiered at Theater Aan Zee (Ostend) in 2018. In May 2019, buren was part of Vooruit's 3-day programme Elaboratory, shedding light on different aspects of their work and their relation with other people's works. buren's cross-over practice is shown both in visual arts settings as theatre contexts, such as Playground (STUK/ Museum M), Vooruit, Pukkelpop, de Brakke Grond, Netwerk Aalst, Galerie Am Polylog, Z33, Gouvernement, Buda, Bâtard (Beursschouwburg / Veem House for Performance), Casco, Tatjana Pieters.

After an introduction in Philosophy at the University of Ghent, Melissa received a degree in Graphic Arts at KASK in Ghent. She has worked for Kunstverein in Amsterdam and performed with Davis Freeman, Assaf Gruber, Dora Garcia, Peter Aers. In the 2019-2020 season she toured withLies Pauwels' performance Anatomie van Pijn (NTGent).

Oshin graduated as visual artist at Luca School of Arts in Ghent and did artistic research at a.pass in Brussels. She exhibited her work and performed at Z33, Ciap and NU Performance Festival Tallinn. In 2019 she co-programmed Young WOrk at Theater Aan Zee. Together with Ezra Veldhuis and Bosse Provoost she created SUN-SET for Toneelhuis.