Dominique de Groen is a writer & visual artist, living & working in Ghent.
She has published four books of poetry (Shop Girl, Sticky Drama, Offerlam, and Slangen), written essays on pop culture and politics, made and published zines, and
is currently working on her first novel. De Groen’s visual arts practice consists mostly of video art and rituals. Currently she is taking a Master in Media Art
at KASK School of Arts, combining this with writing practice and freelance work.

A video piece about plants, about the invisible work of photosynthesis that plants perform to keep us alive. Images of plants in advertisements and commercials are juxtaposed with lumps of coal, evoking the commodification of non-human life and work in various forms.

Collective fan-fiction writing workshop: The practices and pleasures of teenage girls are rarely taken seriously. This also goes for fan fiction, long ridiculed as an inferior, derivative form of writing. But what if we could reclaim it as a way of re-writing dominant narratives of the patriarchy and capitalism? Finding pleasure, and perhaps revenge, in transforming these stories and making them our own? Manifesting alternative plotlines and endings? This is what we will try to do in this workshop.

Ritual invoking goddesses and the ghosts of fossil fuels: In this ritual, taking the form of incantations and guided collective meditation, we invoke female warrior and witchcraft goddesses throughout human history, and the ancient plants that have been compressed into fossil fuels like coal, their restless ghosts exploited by capital which extracts free labour from them does not allow them to rest in peace. We try to form an alliance with them against a common enemy: the forces of oppression and capitalist expansion. Everyone is welcome to join, as long as we can form a circle.

On the Saturday of the Holding Space exhibition I was knee-deep in work on an article
I needed to finish by Monday, so I streamed myself into the exhibition space while
I was sitting behind my laptop typing. Totally unspectacular, but this is what 90%
of my working practice looks like!