HK & MACAU

RESIDENTIE BLOG

I don't have the time But I have all the time Of the World Right Now

Residency Pianofabriek

Maily Beyrens Monday Mourning Residenties 01.09 > 05.09.2025 Tijdens hun resi­den­tie in Pianofabriek zal YLÏAM onder­zoe­ken hoe ver­driet hun recen­te werk heeft beïn­vloed, en hoe dit een brug kan vor­men tus­sen het visu­e­le en het soni­sche aspect van hun artis­tie­ke praktijk.

“Na een groot ver­lies wer­den tra­di­ti­o­ne­le boed­dhis­ti­sche gebe­den en per­soon­lij­ke mooie her­in­ne­rin­gen omge­zet in kor­te pop-pun­klied­jes met repe­ti­tie­ve man­tra’s. Teksten, gedich­ten, grap­pen en loops wer­den niet alleen gezon­gen, maar ook geschre­ven en gete­kend, als een mon­nik, her­haal­de­lijk. Deze wer­den ver­vol­gens beel­den, en vice ver­sa. Terwijl ik alleen zong, merk­te ik hoe ver­driet hier vaak een geï­so­leer­de erva­ring is. Hoe kan deze een­za­me prak­tijk van rou­wen gedeeld wor­den, mis­schien ook een beet­je grap­pig, of gewoon anders erva­ren dan we nu gewend zijn?”

Binnen de muren van het druk­ke cul­tu­re­le cen­trum van Brussel hoopt YLÏAM ver­ha­len en erva­rin­gen te ont­moe­ten rond ver­schil­len­de rou­w­er­va­rin­gen in Pianofabriek en omge­ving voor het pro­ces van hun nieu­we cre­a­tie. Ze zul­len momen­ten orga­ni­se­ren voor ont­moe­tin­gen, for­meel en infor­meel, rond hun werk en het onder­werp van alter­na­tie­ve rouwrituelen.

Er zal ook een open­ba­re enquê­te wor­den gelan­ceerd via hun zelf­pu­bli­ca­tie­plat­form COMPLEX BUSINESS, waar­door het onder­zoek bui­ten de muren van de resi­den­tie wordt uitgebreid.

De resi­den­tie is geor­ga­ni­seerd en onder­steund door de NWNM (Nomadische Werkplaats voor Nieuwe Meesters). Dit is een resi­den­tie­pro­gram­ma dat zich vol­le­dig wijdt aan de (indi­vi­du­e­le) kun­ste­naar, diens prak­tijk en (ontwikkelings-)noden. Met de arties­ten als het kom­pas ver­loopt elke resi­den­tie op basis van de per­soon­lij­ke behoef­ten, zodat er tel­kens een gepas­te onder­steu­ning gega­ran­deerd is. Of het nu wer­ken op een open veld, in een black box of ergens tus­sen­in is: NWNM sti­mu­leert en koes­tert nauw­ge­zet het poten­ti­eel van de kunstenaar.

Shanghai Speed Print

2024

Grey Sun

The Last Day Of May

36 Ghosts

Another analogue heart break. 36 photos stacked on top of eachother in one frame. The last pictures showing up the most.

My camera betrayed me again… Or did I not load up the film correctly?
Luckily the action of taking a picture brings me a memory. I will list everything I have photographed.

Sad Spring Serenade (from the past)

I wrote this song years ago after a very painful phone call that was the start of a cracking friendship.

Recently I wrote to my old friend that I feel our relationship is like a beautiful book. A heavy one, beveled and enrobed of a velvet cover. The book is closed, and I wish to revisit it once in a while, but it a lot of effort and quite some sadness to be able to find a good place for it in my library. So I don’t really often want to open the book again to casually go through it’s pages. It’s save and well archived where it is now.

Pieces

After a long time not

really talking

Realising there is Nothing to say

You broke my heart in one day

Oh yes you did,

Oh yes you did

Outburst on the telephoneNever thought I would feel Like this alone

On an afternoon, on a fridayDon’t know what to say

You did the worst you could doNever expected that from youBut humans are weird species

They can break your heart in pieces

— lyrics & music by YLÏAM (2020)

Yin Wood Snake

op adem komen

notebook 11-12/2024

nai-nai

The Weather

I accidentally deleted the CORRECT version of this blogpost and I can’t get it bacK. So this is a not corrected version. No time right now to work on it again to have it as I wanted. But here is something — I have to learn to let go anyways, and try to let go of perfectionist tendencies.






It snowed today. And it reminded me of something I once read: that people in Belgium like to bond over their malheurs* and the weather.

(*their unfortune)

Collective nagging, just like gossip, a social necessity to bond, in order to process life ~ will transcend language and any culture barriers here. And I really felt that today, on my way

to work.

All crammed in a damped tramway, one person kept standing in the middle of the carrier instead of moving through; a child kept weeping out loud; I bumped into people with my bike; we were pushed, too hot inside, to close to each other, yet we all nodded, smiled, acknowledging, and incredibly patient with each other — despite our annoyances to one another.
Those little moments make me love it here.

“Snow is falling. How could we be mad at eachother? ”

Right after the doors closed, the new passengers have found their seat, their bar to hold, the balance on their feet, we look outside the window.

Some nostalgic, remembering how snow used to be only a joy, and never nuisance.

Partly impatient for it to melt, partly hoping it stays - until the working day is over, at least.

“Be careful biking outisde!” these old ladies shouted at me.
“It’s very slippery!”
“I will!”, I shouted while going out.
“Have a good day!”
“You too!”

On my bike, on my way somewhere else. I see a woman stepping out of a black car, close to Bruxelles Nord. High heels, morning, ponytail high up. The car drives away, she walks in her own scene. I capture the image in my head, this is how it translates in a drawing.

Coming home, energized form the cold, I fall asleep uncontrollably.

Today and the last weeks, i feel physically and mentally not great. My ADHD flares up, I have no control on what I do. I cannot even physically focus my eyes, the same way a camera wants to sharpen on a detail, but fails.

And I’m not even talking about trying to focus on a book or working on a computer — I am not physically able to focus on the food on my plate as my gaze just wanders into a non-existing horizon.

Despite these moments, I thank nothing less than my self for having the determination to actually quit my addiction to scrolling.

If you have been in loopholes and doomscroll spirals, sometimes days after days, and felt like Instgram was your crack at dawn and night, you know how hard it is to quit.

The fact I didn’t doomscroll for now more than 2 months is, without a joke, my biggest achievement in the past years.

I really used to fall in deep ADHD ravines. I would waste at least 3 days a month simply scrolling. That sounds like a lot now, 3 full 24hours day, spent watching 7 seconds videos of strangers?

Here’s the math:

• Scroll 15min the morning,

• Scroll 15min during your first break at work
• Scroll 5 minutes through out the rest of your work day here and there, adding 25minutes.

• Coming back home after work, scroll 30minutes.
• Scroll 30 minutes before sleeping (often it’s more).

That’s minimum 2 hours a day scrolling.

• 2 hours x 7 days a week = 14hours a week.
14 hours x 4 weeks = 56hours a month.

This equals to 2,33 days.

That’s 2,33 days x 12 (months) =
28 days a year.

That’s a total amount of a full month per year spent on scrolling.

And that’s just a calculation of my Instagram screentime…

I’m saying this because, despite having a new phase of uncontrollable ADHD symptoms, the compulsive dopamine hunt goes into MAKING. ART. And not. Watching. Videos of These Amazon Must Haves For Your Shower Are Scams videos.

After so much years, I am not frozen in my chair for 2 hours of compulsive scrolling and I am incredibly relieved.

Instead of scrolling, I now make art!