Study Circle Antwerp
New Forms of Social Realism in Contemporary Artistic Practice
We are Zone of Dawn, we are a space and a time that continually interchange, the specific moment of being that is in a continuous shape-shifting state. It is the way in which we, its initiators and its drivers, are allowed to dream of arriving each time anew.
Anonymity is the form through which we communicate to the world. It is a filter and it is a platform for holding a space safely, and holding each other accountable for each other’s well-being, while it is needed and desired. It is a resonator we utilise to check the borders between individual attributes and collective ones.
When you look up, Zone of Dawn may seem to be an ever-ending gradient of colour and sound, created in the eternally rehearsing moment of a night becoming a day. The hyper-sensorial state of being. On the verge of vanishing. This temporality echoes the time we live in, where crisis is the norm, on the brim of collapse. A zone of preparatory time of exchange for what lies ahead.
We use sound as a medium that can embody the in-between and the shape-shifting. Sound is for us anonymity, imagination, absence, mobilisation, collapse, togetherness, confrontation. We collect and produce sound, searching for how listening produces meaning, how anonymity can have a voice, and how physical sound, composition or noise, can function as our dramaturgy.
We archive and contribute to the Public Amateur Library through sound. For us, sound becomes a way to think, organise, remember, while finding our common positioning within the project, but also within the worlds we are part of.
We come together as jammers. We bring sounds, we let them interfere, we listen, we become something else. Sounds change us. Their waves travel further, encountering someone else. They change.
STUDY CIRCLE #1 / 23 March 2026, Out of Sight, Antwerp
Getting to know each other. Introduction to individual practices. Sharing lunch together. Devising possible methodologies for collective research, archiving, reflection. Planning the next meeting. The day ran by.
Methodologies proposed:
- Note-taking with a delay. A practice that allows for a delay and experimentation in how we remember recent events.
Protocol: At the beginning of each Study Circle meeting, members spend 10 minutes writing continuously about the previous meeting, using the principles of automatic writing. Each member reads their personal notes aloud. All the members are involved in the reconstruction and documentation of the previous encounter. - Answering a question with a question.
Protocol: Set a timer for 20 minutes. Anyone can start by asking a question. There is no order or sequence. Participants can ask a question whenever they feel ready. Questions cannot be answered with yes or no. Questions cannot be personal or directed to a specific person. Anyone can ask for the question to be repeated. Anyone can ask for a pause, meaning that there is a collective silence of 1 minute before a new question can be posed.
STUDY CIRCLE #2 / 17 April 2026, Out of Sight, Antwerp
STUDY CIRCLE #3 / 1 July 2026, Out of Sight, Antwerp
STUDY CIRCLE #4 / 2 September 2026, Level 5, Brussels
Activities
16 - 18 Oct 2026
Somersstraat 31, 2018 Antwerp, BE
Out of Sight, in collaboration with Zone of Dawn, is opening the Public Amateur Library. A noisy living room, not a quiet repository. Save the dates and join a full three-day-long festival, comprised of participative performances, workshops, lecture performances, screenings, and shared meals. Full programme will be published in September 2026.