PARSE is proud to present “The Colour Out Of Space” curated by Deltaworkers (Maaike Gouwenberg and Joris Lindhout). The exhibition includes three films and three events with international and local artists. The exhibition opens on Friday, October 16th with a presentation from 6 to 7:30pm, followed by a reception. Additional events will be held on October 23rd and November 13th (see below for details). The exhibition runs through November 21st and gallery hours throughout the exhibition are noon to 5pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

Film works by Melanie Bonajo (The Netherlands), Pauline Boudry (Switzerland) & Renate Lorenz (Germany), and Terence Nance (U.S.) form the starting point of a rotating exhibition. The focus from one film to the next will shift throughout the exhibition, allowing each to shine and gain additional meaning through engagement with local artists and theorists, including Red Vaughan Tremmel, Ashley Teamer & Local Honey, Brad Benischek & Case Miller, and Dave Greber amongst others.

For the exhibition, “The Colour Out of Space,” curators Gouwenberg and Lindhout focus on motifs like rituals and technology, gender politics, and Southern mythology. They find these themes of importance within the international art scene, but also vividly present within the cultural soil of New Orleans. The artists and theorists involved with the exhibition all work within the range of things unknown in the visible spectrum and they do so using colors. From out of space.

“The Colour Out Of Space” is a short story written by H.P. (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft in 1927. Drawing inspiration from a number of sources describing the extremely limited senses of humans, his aim was to create something entirely outside of the human experience: a truly alien entity. The story tells of the problems that arise after a meteorite crashes onto someone’s land. After its discovery the meteorite begins shrinking and local scientists are unable to discern its origins. As the stone shrinks, it leaves behind globules of color that are referred to "only by analogy" as they do not fall within the range of anything known in the visible spectrum.

Schedule of events:

October 16th at 6pm:
Screening of “Swimming In Your Skin Again” by Terence Nance
Lecture on Southern Mythology by Deltaworkers (Maaike Gouwenberg & Joris Lindhout)Contribution by Brad Benischek & Case Miller

October 23rd at 8pm:
Screening of “Night Soil / Fake Paradise” by Melanie Bonajo
Lecture / panel on ethnobotany, rituals and technology
Performance by Vanessa Centeno

November 13th at 8pm:
Screening of “Opaque” by Renate Lorentz & Pauline Boudry
Panel on gender politics by Red Vaughan Tremmel and Ashley Teamer
Performance by Local Honey & Ashley Teamer

About Deltaworkers:
Maaike Gouwenberg is a curator based in Rotterdam. She is interested in performative practices, and the ambitious large-scale projects she has been involved in bring together theatrical and curatorial aspects. Gouwenberg attended the Curatorial Program at de Appel arts centre in Amsterdam in 2006/07, worked at If I Can’t Dance and in 2010 initiated A.P.E. (art projects era) with artist Keren Cytter. She is programmer for the short film program at International Film Festival Rotterdam. She has been a committee member at The Mondriaan Fund and is a board member of artist run space 1646 (The Hague), Ponies Theater, and music theater group Touki Delphine.

Joris Lindhout is an artist and curator hailing from the Netherlands. He studied Interaction Design and holds an MA in Fine Arts. In 2014 he was a researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht where he focused on the social implications of fantastic literature in the Low Countries. His curatorial practice mainly revolves around video art; he works as a programmer for the Impakt festival amongst others. For a part of the year Lindhout lives in New Orleans where he runs the artist in residence project Deltaworkers together with Maaike Gouwenberg. At the moment he is writing the script for an experimental southern gothic short.

About PARSE:
PARSE is an art space and curatorial residency in New Orleans’ Central Business District that serves as a platform for critical dialog about contemporary art. This program hosts three to four visiting curators annually. During extended stays in the city, curators are encouraged to engage in studio visits with local artists, conduct research in the area, and utilize the PARSE facilities to experiment with the boundaries and possibilities of curatorial practice.

All three filmmakers in the exhibition have been shown at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Thanks to Keene Kopper @ May Gallery, Prospect New Orleans, and David Sullivan for lending equipment.