The last time I wrote I was at Shino’s house in rotterdam more then two weeks ago. Since then many many things have happened again. We came back to Belgium to start constructing the Maison des arts exhibition that was due to open the 18th. The first day was stressfull for shino bc the curater fucked up, but the week that followed was so, so so nice. We had the same schedule and also spent some days in the house of Leon and Magda who were away. So for some days we had our own nice little house and we made the most of it. During these days we ate well and spoke a lot. I also saw Marianne during these days and we hung out and talked for a long time. It had also been a long time since we last spoke and it was really super nice. Also something exciting: I had a call with Jurgen Boch, director of the Maumaus program, I was through the first round of selections and this videocall was the next stage. It was a super interesting conversation and it made me reaaallly want to do the program. I will hear the results in the beginning of october. Shino and me also went for a proper dinner with Zeger in Hermany, Marlie’s space. The day after that Magda and Leon came back and we went to an opening of only germans where Magdas work was being shown. Leon, Shino and me went to grab a drink after this opening and shino got to know him a bit for the first time and that made her really happy (bc he is very cool). Later that day (friday) we arrived at my parents place where the order of the fabric was waiting for me. THis was the fabric I needed for the expo. I was really nervous something would be wrong or that it would not arrive in time. And when I opened it it turned out that a printing mistake had actually happened, which really upset me. Shino said afterwards that she had never seen me so upset over something that was out of my control. (I defenitely have been but I guess not where she was present).

The next few days I spent trying out different solutions to get the masks fixed and ready for the exhibition. This took me basically until tuesday the 17th, the day before the opening on which me and shino finished up what we were showing and went home kind of nervously bc at that time the ‘jury’ was reviewing our work. The evening was cosy I think(hard to remember). The next morning we had to get up early enough to be in time for the press tour. On the way there we started having a kind of fight. It was about something that happened two months back when I was in Italy and she in nyc. I have written about it, but never got around to posting it on here. We talked it out in the garden of maison des arts and started the press tour of the expo. We had to explain our work, I kind of fumbled a bit, but not too bad. The guides (to whom I explained way better) also got a tour later in the day. In the evening it was the opening. It was honestly very overwhelming, many many people showed up, even just for me and talking to everybody and at the same time being present in the exposition was a lot a lot. The prize ceremony took waaay too long and when they started calling out the names, I was the first one whose name they called. I thought I had won 3000 euros for the third place but later it turned out that I won 1000euros worth of frames hahahaha. Dissapointing but also the best place to be (next to the top 3 stage with a prize). Especially since I don’t understand why the people that won were the ones chosen. Anyhow, the entire show is quite nice I think. Im happy to be there with everybody that is also showing work. Once everybody started leaving and things settled down, it got really cosy and it was a super fun rest of the night.

The day after we had a very slow morning and chilled at seba’s place for a long time before meeting with mark and leon at maison des arts again to check it out. I ended up spending the evening with Leon bc Mark was seeing Rachel. I was kind of uneasy in the evening because we still didnt have a place to sleep and I was feeling like I wanted to just be comfortable in this time. I wasnt feeling ready for adventure. In the morning we went however.

To put it shortly; it was really really fun and nice. We started by going to the national library and looking at old books which were really inspiring. Then we got some really nice 2good2go Egyptian food and chilled in a park. After that we went to an expo where we got to talking with the girl that organized the expo and who was guarding it. Her name is Semin and it was really fun conversation. I think we hung around there for almost 2hours with her. She also promised to help us find a place and was really doing the most. In the end we found a place and left Semin when the expo closed and agreed to meet up another day. We went all the way to the house before hearing that the booking was a mistake. We cursed and went to eat the best pakistani food ever with lassi. Afterwards it was already 21h and we booked another hotel. We also snuck into a church that was hosting a whole bunch of concerts from the global south and they caught us immediately but actually allowed us to stay a bit. Super sweet. Then we went to the hotel and it was actually a nice hotel.

The day after, on saturday we spent a very long time in the hotel before going to Tate Britain. Also there we spent a very long time, until the late afternoon. I saw the video ‘meat joy’ there and asked a woman next to me if she enjoyed it. She said it was interesting. After tate we walked trough the touristic centre for another 2g2g that turned out to not exist and then we took the tube to camden to eat at a burger place (also 2g2g). From there we went to the airbnb that we managed to book a few hours before. It was a single room of approx 4 square meters haha. We wanted to go party so we found this party ‘plastyk’ which was kind of a trans party.