Talk – In Conversation with Alan Smart and Iris de Leeuw
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30.04.2023
Alan Smart & Iris de Leeuw
Join us for a night of cultural rebellion as we celebrate the launch of Alan Smart’s latest publication, “New Babylon Times: Publishing in the Contested City,” at our upcoming event. This publication was developed during Alan’s publisher residency at PrintRoom Rotterdam. It takes readers on a journey through a chronology of counter-culture manifestos, featuring excerpts from the likes of dada, the Situationist International, and Provo. Explore the dissonances, influences, and evolution between these movements, as each one articulates a radical desire for a new social paradigm through spatial interventions, happenings, and reimaginings of the urban sphere.
We also invited guest speaker Iris de Leeuw, an artist, printer, sculptor, and activist who was an active member in the Luuks movement (1965-1967). Her distinguished contribution to the movement includes designing a “speespak [space suit]” with zip-off legs for exchanging with others, which breaks the taboo on ‘touching the intimate space’, close to erogenous zones, because that’s where zipping had to take place.
The Luuks movement (1965-1967) is a significant piece of history in Maastricht, having been a part of the Dutch counter culture movement Provo. The Luuks was formed by Maastricht’s creative minds, including Hans Mol, Kees Graaf, Ger Brouwer, and Iris de Leeuw. Luuks offered—in the words of that time—“a workspace in which, in a completely new environment, creative behaviour is induced….”