Curator, visual artist, musician and producer Laurens Mariën feels quite at home at Gouvernement, having co-curated Night Shift: from dusk ‘till dawn in Brussels and last year’s HOOGTIJ/laagtij.

Mariën will curate 4 evenings dispersed in the following cultural season. For the first edition, ‘My Own Private Idaho’, Mariën brings together an assembly of performances, music, video and film screenings related to themes such as narcissism, vanity, sexuality, instagram and identity.

Participating artists

Participating artists: Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe, Flor Maesen, Daan Couzijn, Lara Verheijden, Mark Stadman & Amanda van Hesteren + DJ-set by DJ Loopsnoeper a.k.a. JFK.

After a successful première during De Parade in Amsterdam, renowned enfant terrible and self-proclaimed countertenor Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe shows his brand new performance ‘My Protest’, in collaboration with Alien Observer (Mariën’s musical alias). Inspired by 60’s protest songs, Meirhaeghe observes our social media behaviour and reflects on life in virtuality. DJ Loopsnooper alias JFK provides a fit after show.

As support Dutch-based multidisciplinary artist Daan Couzijn treats us to his solo project Cousin,in which he combines electronic, synth pop music and creates his one-of-a-kind surreal universe. Couzijn also showcases 2 video’s, named Fat guy dancing and Forever Online, as well as the installation Drying my tears in the cooling fan which combines rendered images and virtual realities.

Flor Maesen, who’s currently finishing his MA Photography at KASK Ghent, presents The Harvest. It’s a video work in progress, made from a sublime position on the human nature of “oppression”, about the glorification of perversity. Maesen’s work continuously searches for the ultimate and intimate beauty in objects and people, a search which may result in a rather vain conquest.

In The Netherlands she’s already made quite a name with her images which featured on VICE and is also known for her work for I-D, INDIE magazine and Glamcult. Lara Verheijden displays at Gouvernement her critically-acclaimed film ‘Jamaica, a year ago’, an experimental film flirting with the boundaries of art, exoticism and love tourism. Verheijden travelled with Amanda van Hesteren who documented the same journey but from a different perspective. Verheijden also presents a performative installation, in collaboration with Mark Stadman.