THE PARASITE 
This season two of this lecture series continues to ride the back of the beast, visiting new expressions both light and dark, deepening not only our understanding of the life cycle of real bio­logical parasites, but also what the parasite teaches us about our complicated relation towards an intimate but infinitely strange ‘other’. What thought-feeling-behaviour does this intimate stranger evoke? How does the parasite relate to extinction, exhaustion and extermination? In what sense could decolonisation, cultural (re)appropiation, mimicry and the diasporic identity be seen as parasitic tactics? In these times, where simple narratives hold sway, and in which the fear for ‘the enemy within’ looms large, the parasite challenges to flip our worldview once again and ask ourselves: who is the real parasite? - Erika Sprey

On-Trade-Off presentation:
Georges Senga (member of Picha) and Marjolijn Dijkman (co-founder of Enough Room for Space) will introduce ‘On-Trade-Off’, an artistic trajectory initiated by the artists’ initiatives Picha (Lubumbashi, DRC) and Enough Room for Space (Brussels, BE) and some of the works they have developed within this project.

The starting point for the research project On-Trade-Off is the raw material lithium. A naturally occurring element (number three on the periodic table), lithium is currently considered to be ‘the new black gold’ because of its crucial role in the global transition towards a ‘green and fossil fuel free economy’.

Focusing on this one chemical element (Li3) allows the project to zoom in on particular social, ecological, economic and political phenomena that characterise the production processes currently experiencing rapid growth.

These phenomena show striking similarities with production chains as we have known them since the start of triangular trade in the 16th century: inhumane labour in the exploitation and extraction processes; a perpetuated economic imbalance to maintain economic growth; uninformed end consumers who are unaware of both the devastating production chain behind the goods they have purchased and their afterlife in the sense that a recycling scheme is lacking. 

KABK, The Hague, NL