From Fugitive Margins to Methods of Resistance; On Art, Memory, and the Politics of Presence
- Nabuurs&VanDoorn
- 7 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
As we stroll through the immediate surroundings of Hangar Artistic Research Center, we increasingly find ourselves confronted by striking yellow posters. They address us in fragmented Brazilian Portuguese—cryptic, suspiciously broken-up phrases that command attention. As insiders, we recognize them as interventions by Lambes Do Mal, an artist from Salvador who is currently in residence at Hangar. His guerrilla-style method of sharing his work with the world resonates deeply with our own artistic strategies—particularly with earlier projects such as our Something Is Missing series from 2007.
Back then, we carried out a series of interventions during Art Basel, which ultimately evolved into the Art Basel Travel Guide. Even before arriving in Switzerland, we had begun preparations in the Netherlands by collecting free city maps from the Basel tourist office. On these maps, we marked the locations of participating venues and drew connecting lines between them—one line per map page.
Once in Basel, we physically walked these routes, gathering impressions in the form of found objects, handwritten notes, and spontaneous performances using public space as both setting and prop. We filmed the performances and uploaded them to MySpace, later annotating the exact performance sites on the maps with links to the videos. The project became a kind of DIY performance guide for Art Basel visitors—an alternative map of the fair, grounded in experience rather than spectacle.
When we completed all of the walks and thoroughly annotated the maps, we visited the Kunsthochschule Basel, with whom we had arranged access to reproduce and assemble the maps into small booklets. Thus, the Art Basel Travel Guide was born. The entire process—both performative and documentary—was captured on video and in diary-style drawings, which we later exhibited in the Netherlands.
There, we appropriated the accompanying discourse program of Art Basel by performing a reading of a translated dialogue between Hans Ulrich Obrist and Juri Steiner titled “Something is Missing”. In it, they repeatedly reference Basel-based theorist Lucius Burckhardt, who coined the term “Strollology”—a research method based on walking as a way to critically engage with one’s environment.
But our work in Basel didn’t end there. After producing around fifty copies of the Art Basel Travel Guide, we returned to the heart of the fair to sell them directly to visitors waiting in line. This final act caught the attention of then-director Samuel Keller, who approached us, purchased a guide, and promptly notified security. Moments later, security guards arrived, shut down our operation, and contacted the police. They repeatedly told us, “You are not real artists. Real artists show their work inside—not out on the streets.”
Now, nearly eighteen years later, as we encounter Lambes Do Mal’s yellow posters plastered across Lisbon, we can’t help but smile. That accusation—meant to dismiss us—has only confirmed the importance of continuing to work outside the boundaries.
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