Petticoat Government catalogue and finissage

Petticoat Government
For the 2024 Venice Art Biennale, the collective (Denicolai & Provoost, Antoinette Jattiot, Nord, Spec uloos) has developed a multidisciplinary scenario based on the participation of existing folkloric giants from different communities. Unlike a finished work, the project treats the Belgian Pavilion in Venice as a point of transit, representing the journey so far and yet to come in kaleidoscopic perspective. The elevated staging of the giants and the accompanying sound installation create an ungrounded space, a terrain of freedom where emphasis on the oral and the co-construction of narratives invites reconsideration of both ancient tales and modern myths. Petticoat Government is a choral work, in movement, led by a collective and multidisciplinary body that incarnates the possibility of shared, joyful governance. The position of author is shared by seven members (Sophie Boiron, Valentin Bollaert, Simona Denicolai, Pauline Fockedey, Pierre Huyghebaert, Antoinette Jattiot and Ivo Provoost) who form a team, assisted and accompanied by many others.

Until november 24, meet the Young Curators Storytellers, sit on the bench while reading the pink newspaper, dance under the giants, find the Murano bean in the form of a very small giant in the Petticoat Government’s cake.

Read more about the scenario and about the collective.

Catalogue
In the Pavilion’s copy shop in Venice, the catalogue of Petticoat Government is printed on-demand from the website. This printing practice aims to avoid unnecessary over-production and to give a physical dimension to the performative edition. The website is developed by variable.club and takes the side of a stubborn code ecology described in chapter 11 of the Digital Ethics publication. This makes it possible to offer a wide and narrow screen (cell phone) web interface, on the one hand, and quality pdf outputs, on the other. This pdf serve to print the catalogue. The printed catalogue that you can buy in the Pavilion is packaged in a copy of the newspaper L’Petti Lion (download the full pdf).

In its current version, as printed on-demand in the pavilion, the catalogue consists of notes written by the Young Curators-Storytellers and contributions from authors, researchers, anthropologists, socio-cultural facilitators and art critics: Jean-Baptiste Carobolante, Manah Depauw, Benoit Dusart, eli lebailly and Maximilien Atangana, l’art même (Christine Jamart), Silvia Mesturini, Alexis Zimmer. These invitations to authors from disciplines outside the field of art, strictly speaking, reflect the diversity of the project’s biotope. The content of the published version has been augmented throughout the presentation at the Biennale.

From December on, the printed and packaged catalogue will be available from MOREPublishers.

Brussels party, finissage
For Petticoat Government, the party establishes new gestures, replacing the rites imposed by the event in which the scenario takes place. It punctuates an organisation of time essential to social life. To mark the end of the Venice Biennale and the return of Petticoat Government to Belgium, the collective and their accomplices are getting together for a party at Le Petit Lion, Rue Haute 232 Hoogstraat, 1000 Brussels, to which everyone is invited.

From Venice to next chapters in 2025
After announcements of the giants’ departures in local magazines (Belgium, France, Spain’s Basque Country), the flag-raising in Leuven (Belgium), the picnic in the Alps at Lago di Resia and the stopover in the rotating press of the Gazzetta dello Sport in Padova (Italy), the seven months and seven days spent at the Belgian Pavilion in Venezia, the journey continues in 2025, to Charleroi (april 2025, in partnership with the BPS22), then Lille and Dunkerque (autumn 2025, in partnership with Lille 3000 and FRAC Grand Large).

Click here to suscribe to the emailing for more information about the upcoming chapters

Commissionners: Wallonia-Brussels Federation, in collaboration with  Wallonia-Brussels International
Press inquiries: (French) NAKAMI, Laurence Morel, laurence [​at​] nakami.be
(English, Dutch, German) SERENAI, Sarah Vermeulen, sarah-claire [​at​] serenai.be