Inspiraling

An exhibition by Katja Mater, Clare Noonan, Jessica Gysel, Marnie Slater, Robin Brettar and Matilda Çobanli, with MYCKET, Ot Lemmens, Sophy Naess, Judith Geerts, Nienke Fransen, Christine de Pizan, Rosalind Nashashibi and Anne Reijniers & Eline De Clercq, curated by Sarah Menu, Elsa Vettier, Richard Neyroud, Sandrine Desmoulin and Maria Claudia Gamboa. 

On this occasion, a free shuttle will leave from  Basel, Meret Oppenheim Strasse at 6pm. Return to Basel from the art center: 10pm. Reservation: s.menu@cracalsace.com.

VERDIGRIS, LIGHT BLUE, ORANGE-YELLOW, LILAC, DARK BLUE*

“Summer solstice swung around and women from all over arrived. We sang and ate and smoked and danced; we walked in the woods, we looked at the stars and hugged each other.”**

Robin Brettar, Matilda Çobanli, Jessica Gysel, Katja Mater, Clare Noonan, and Marnie Slater, who are artists, publishers, and teachers in several collective projects***, celebrate queer loves and friendships, which they envision as a constellation of possibilities. Driven by a desire for community living, the group acquired in 2022 a building in Molenbeek (Brussels) to turn it into a shared living and working space. In 2024, for the exhibition Friendship :That Shiver, That Aspen organized by CRAC Alsace and Crédac, they designed À l'Amitié, a gate for the entrance to the CRAC garden. This gate, which connects the art center to their building, became the starting point for the Inspiraling exhibition.

In the summer of 2025, we visited 15 Heyvaert Street in Molenbeek. Robin, Matilda, Jessica, Katja, Clare, and Marnie were waiting for us to arrive before dreaming about Inspiraling over a meal and showing us around the building, which was undergoing renovation. As we walked up the different floors, we discovered an architecture that was not only functional but above all relational: a space of creation fostering the circulation of affects.

We sat down to dinner. Under our plates, scraps of blue fabric bore traces of objects and names. These were trials for what would become large cyanotype canvases where fruit, wine glasses and ribbons imprinted on a deep blue background the memory of a festive meal among allies.

With these blue images before our eyes, we talked about the creation of other works envisioned for the exhibition, linked to the history of the construction of this community building: a papier-mâché ball made up of the minutes of all their work meetings, or a garland made from the countless keys to the building. And, of course, the yellow gates adorned with sinuous lines, which, after their presentation at the CRAC, would permanently join each floor of the Brussels building: three new “friendship” gates.

Then, each of them talked about their respective practice. Marnie was conducting research in the archives of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore in Jersey, Robin**** was working on weaving, Matilda on choreography, Katja was continuing her work with image-language, Jessica was editing interviews with other queer communities, and Clare was imagining flying a fifth flag on Inspiraling.

As the conversation progressed, new names were added to this project, driven by boundless energy. The exhibition could feature the MYCKET collective's inflatable castle, Nienke Fransen's stained glass windows, and textile pieces by Sophy Naess and Ot Lemmens, fellow traveling companions of the group. Judith Geerts would open the CRAC's educational workshop to showcase this place of transmission. As for the films by Rosalind Nashashibi and Anne Reijniers & Eline De Clercq, they would evoke the garden as a lab for human relationships. Thus, after spiraling through the rooms of the CRAC, the public would end up in the middle of the garden, in front of a structure dedicated to plants.

Just before dessert, attention turned to the spoons. The artist René Heyvaert (whose name is also that of the street where the group lives) had made a habit of sending some to his friends by mail, with a note attached to the handle. What if the exhibition dedicated an entire room to the spoons entrusted to the artists by their loved ones?

Taped to the wall, an illumination from The Book of the City of Ladies manuscript (1407-1409) kept watch. It struck us as an allegory for the collective in which Robin, Matilda, Jessica, Katja, Clare, and Marnie channel their energy. Illustrating the work of Christine de Pizan, the first female author to make a living from her writing in the West, the illumination shows several women building a “new and eternal city.” With the “resistant and incorruptible mortar” offered by Lady Reason, Christine builds a fortress for the new city dwellers, artists, saints, and warriors. Through words and actions, they bring a new world into being.

Christine de Pizan's world-building gestures are complemented by the joy of living together. For the group, carrying bricks, mixing mortar, or wielding a trowel is combined with the pleasure of cooking with friends and taking care of oneself and others. Inspiraling celebrates this collective force intertwining exterior and interior, high and low, in a spiral movement whose momentum extends to infinity: “like a snail's shell, friendship grows a new circle every year.”*****

During the exhibition, the number 15 (Heyvaert Street, Brussels) will embrace number 18 (rue du Château, Altkirch).

—CRAC Alsace team, October 2025.

* Colors chosen for the facade and interior of the building that the group is renovating together.
** Woman’s Carpentry Book: Building Your Home from the Ground Up, NY, Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1980.
*** These joint initiatives include the artist collective All the Cunning Stunts, the magazine Girls Like Us, and the traveling trans and lesbian bar Mothers & Daughters, based in Brussels.
**** Claude Cahun (1894–1954) and Marcel Moore (1892–1972) were an artist couple who participated in the Resistance and whose work constitutes a major queer and feminist contribution.
***** Natalie Clifford Barney, Les Nouvelles pensées de l’Amazone, Paris, Mercure de France, 1939.

This exhibition is supported by Flanders State of the Art, Embassy of the Netherlands in France and SPIN. CRAC Alsace is supported by the City of Altkirch, Collectivité européenne d’Alsace, Région Grand Est, Ministère de la Culture—DRAC Grand Est. CRAC Alsace is a member of DCA, Plan d’Est and BLA!. CRAC Alsace is certified as a Contemporary Art Center of National Interest by the French Ministry of Culture.