Leana Boven (b. 1993, Paramaribo) is a curator, programme maker, writer, and researcher with a background in gender- and postcolonial theory. Her work centers on counterculture, diasporic connectedness and the feeling of belonging, spatial justice, ecology and decolonial climate justice, and collective care.
Leana curated her first exhibition, On Collective Care & Togetherness, at MAMA in Rotterdam in 2020, and has since organized multiple exhibitions and programs. She worked as a curator at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons for several years, and currently works as a curator at Stroom Den Haag, where she curated the exhibitions Positions: Soft Intimacies (2024) and Beloved Waters (2025). She is also a curator at Gemaal op Zuid in Rotterdam, where, together with Yusser al Obaidi, she organized the exhibition series Spiritual Disobedience (2025) and Love, Labour, Liberate (2024). Leana has taught at the Willem de Kooning Academy in the Social Practice department and is currently a tutor in Social Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven. In addition to her teaching, Leana regularly writes for platforms such as Metropolis M and is a board member at No Limits! Art Castle.
Love, Labour, Liberate! #2 Fortified Comforts, Evicted Homes - Golnar Abbasi and Arvand Pourabbasi (WORKNOT!)
For many, home is a space of precarious comfort and evictability. Fortified Comforts, Evicted
Homes, exhibits research and spatial representation of the house since its modern creation in
early 20th century, to ongoing housing struggles and increase of its financialization until today.
The space of the home was made to fortify the privacy of the heteronormative nuclear family
household, and maintain its rest, health, and reproduction; a minimized disciplinary space of
living.
In Fortified Comfort, Evicted Homes, WORKNOT! (Golnar Abbasi and Arvand Pourabbasi) shares
an iteration of two video essays that discuss two sides of the history of the modern (1920’s)
house: the Family and the new (gendered) norms of living of the “living income earner” which
centered around the labor of women as “housewives”; and Rent Strike as a practice of solidarity
and resistance against eviction and arbitrary rent raise, which were mainly led by the same
women.
Additionally, WORKNOT! presents a series of fabric works that echo the conversations around
resistance against housing injustice and eviction, voiced specifically from an architectural
understanding of the topic. During the exhibition, there will be workshops and a panel discussion
held to further discuss these topics.
* The video essays were initially commissioned by and produced for presentation of archival
research at Nieuwe Instituut as part of Designing the Social exhibition (Het Ontwerp van het
Sociale, 2021-2024).
* Image source: Archive of the Municipal Housing Department and legal predecessor,
Amsterdam City Archives (inventory), 5293FO000981. Photo by: Swaager Nico (1910-1983).
In this Sunday afternoon session we will dive deeper into the discussions brought up by the works in the exhibition. In this Sunday afternoon session we will dive deeper into the discussions brought up by the works in the exhibition, with invited guests and a group of participants.
The workshop is a moment to dive into the politics of housing with voices from artists, architects, activists, and residents around the table. It creates a space to look at the protest work, design work, and language work that make up conditions of comfort or precarity inside the house, which are often overlooked in art and architecture discourses.
The workshop starts off with presentations by WORKNOT! on the show and the political history of housing crisis, Mustapha Eaisaouiyen on activism, Tweebosbuurt, and the current Rotterdam Woonvisie (Housing Vision), and Michiel Huijben discussing the political manipulation embedded in the language of such policy documents related to visions on housing. This will be followed by collective conversations, and a session on writing down propositions from an architectural, design, artistic perspective, situated in between “promises” of policy, and “demands” of housing justice.
PROGRAM
13.00 – 13.30 Lunch and introductions
13.30 – 14.30 Presentations and group discussion
14.45 – 16.30 Writing and banner making workshop
Attendance is free. Lunch is provided. Limited spots.
please RSVP via: [workshop sign up bit.ly
WORKNOT! is a Rotterdam-based design, research, and education collective focused on critical spatial practice and theory. It focuses on political and decolonial readings of domesticity, anti-colonial space and resistance, historical narrative, and spatial pedagogy. They have presented work at Nieuwe Instituut, Jan van Eyck Academie, Kunstinstituut Melly, Museum Boijmans, Showroom MAMA, Venice Biennial of Architecture, Sharjah Architecture Triennial, Tehran Architecture Biennial, Architecture BANAL Bogota, e-flux Architecture, among others. WORKNOT! is founded by Arvand Pourabbasi and Golnar Abbasi.
Michiel Huijben (he/him) works with performance, video, research, and writing. His practice is concerned with interactions between (architectural) design, politics, and society. Influenced by his backgrounds in both fine art and architectural theory, Huijben’s work moves between the languages and aesthetics of both of these fields. He studied architectural theory at the Cass in London, understanding it as a tool chest holding historiography, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and geography, but also poetry, biography, fiction, and journalism; all useful tools with which to reflect on architecture and the city.
Mustapha Eaisaouiyen (he/him) is committed to the housing crisis in Rotterdam. He is a former resident of the now demolished Tweebosbuurt in Rotterdam. He is also one of the founders of Recht op de Stad and Woonopstand. He is also a member of the Bond Precaire Woonvormen, the Bewonersgroep Tweebos, de*beweging, de Afrikaanderwijk Cooperative and a board member of Bewonersorganisatie Afrikaanderwijk. He has started his own business on matters of housing especially for tenants in the social sector, who are confronted with demolition or renovations.
Fortified Comforts, Evicted Homes
Exhibition by WEWORKNOT! (Arvand Pourabbasi and Golnar Abbasi)
Friday August 2nd 17:30-21:00h
Music by DJ Synovitis
Bites by de Wijkkeuken van Zuid
For many, home is a space of precarious comfort and evictability. Fortified Comforts, Evicted Homes, exhibits research and spatial representation of the house since its modern creation in early 20th century, to ongoing housing struggles and increase of its financialization until today. The space of the home was made to fortify the privacy of the heteronormative nuclear family household, and maintain its rest, health, and reproduction; a minimized disciplinary space of living.
In Fortified Comfort, Evicted Homes, WORKNOT! (Golnar Abbasi and Arvand Pourabbasi) shares an iteration of two video essays that discuss two sides of the history of the modern (1920’s) house: the Family and the new (gendered) norms of living of the “living income earner” which centered around the labor of women as “housewives”; and Rent Strike as a practice of solidarity and resistance against eviction and arbitrary rent raise, which were mainly led by the same women.
Additionally, WORKNOT! presents a series of fabric works that echo the conversations around resistance against housing injustice and eviction, voiced specifically from an architectural understanding of the topic. During the exhibition, there will be workshops and a panel discussion held to further discuss these topics.
* The video essays were initially commissioned by and produced for presentation of archival research at Nieuwe Instituut as part of Designing the Social exhibition (Het Ontwerp van het Sociale, 2021-2024).
* Image source: Archive of the Municipal Housing Department and legal predecessor, Amsterdam City Archives (inventory), 5293FO000981. Photo by: Swaager Nico (1910-1983).
Fortified Comforts, Evicted Homes is part of the exhibition series Love, Labour, Liberate organized by Yusser al Obaidi and Leana Boven for Gemaal op Zuid
Fortified Comforts, Evicted Homes
Exhibition by WORKNOT! (Arvand Pourabbasi and Golnar Abbasi)
Friday August 2nd - September 6th 2024
For many, home is a space of precarious comfort and evictability. Fortified Comforts, Evicted Homes, exhibits research and spatial representation of the house since its modern creation in early 20th century, to ongoing housing struggles and increase of its financialization until today. The space of the home was made to fortify the privacy of the heteronormative nuclear family household, and maintain its rest, health, and reproduction; a minimized disciplinary space of living.
In Fortified Comfort, Evicted Homes, WORKNOT! (Golnar Abbasi and Arvand Pourabbasi) shares an iteration of two video essays that discuss two sides of the history of the modern (1920’s) house: the Family and the new (gendered) norms of living of the “living income earner” which centered around the labor of women as “housewives”; and Rent Strike as a practice of solidarity and resistance against eviction and arbitrary rent raise, which were mainly led by the same women.
Additionally, WORKNOT! presents a series of fabric works that echo the conversations around resistance against housing injustice and eviction, voiced specifically from an architectural understanding of the topic. During the exhibition, there will be workshops and a panel discussion held to further discuss these topics.
* The video essays were initially commissioned by and produced for presentation of archival research at Nieuwe Instituut as part of Designing the Social exhibition (Het Ontwerp van het Sociale, 2021-2024).
* Image source: Archive of the Municipal Housing Department and legal predecessor, Amsterdam City Archives (inventory), 5293FO000981. Photo by: Swaager Nico (1910-1983).
Fortified Comforts, Evicted Homes is part of the exhibition series Love, Labour, Liberate organized by Yusser al Obaidi and Leana Boven for Gemaal op Zuid
GEMAAL OP ZUID
