The Grande Finale of The Parallel Show consisted of an exchange between two groups of artists who only communicated through live video connection. They were placed in the chapel of Greylight Projects in Brussels and NP3 in Groningen and switched places the next day. The distance between these locations is 345 kilometers.
We started this weekend in Dordrecht and drove to Brussels. There was no program, no fixed rules, just us artists in a room and a video connection. We tried to connect with the other artists and find a purpose for these two days. We tried to take care of the room (by sweeping) or take care of the people (by massaging). Gruzemayer wrote a blog about his visit that day.
Michiel Huijben wrote: ‘What kind of social experiment is this anyway? At times I feel like Iām watching a reality TV show, but Iām the only one watching and now I have to convey it to someone else, who has never seen the show.’
At the end of the day we proposed to leave a problem for the next group. Through consensus this became a surprise in the form of a hanging banana.
We drove from Brussels to Groningen. Our car had a broke down on the way, so our trip took a bit longer. Once in Groningen we tried to get grip on our own group dynamics and ignore the group in Brussels. What would be necessary for a functioning group? Who is responsible for what aspect? How does the day look like? We approached this informal situation in a formal way, by formulating vacancies and a timetable.
The vacancies consisted of functions that were sometimes fulfilled in an informal way, like Jolanda in the function of Assistant of Spatial Planning, or Nerdistic Support by Jim. It gave also room for other artists to jump into some topics like ieke did with taking on the job as Chef Footprint (responsible for societal issues). It became a playground where we as CEO Swag could bring in more swag or reflect on complaints as an Advisor Nagging. Also some vacancies remained unfilled, like Coordinator of Clarity or Director Decibel.
The timetable gave us space to connect with the other artists and visitors, although some of them rejected our attempt to structure the day. We made this visible by putting ‘The loss of face by CEO Swag’ on the timetable, the change of ‘Class about Rule Breaking & Avoiding Expectations’ into a ‘Class of Loneliness’ and the cancellation of ‘Friendship Crash Course’. Also the ever-changing time of the lunch shows the impossibility of adding structure.
The vacancies made also made clear ieke’s wish to learn some Arabic. That’s why we added the job of ‘One Arabic Sentence Teacher’ to the list. Gijs and Salim helped us to host this class, which we organised partly online. We learned one sentence in Arabic, translated as ‘Can you teach me a sentence in Arabic please?‘
The Grande Finale has been documented by two writers, Sjoerd Westbroek and Michiel Huijben, who joined us in this process. You can read the online publication below.