This may or may not be a true story or a lesson in resistance is the Final Outcome of de Appel’s Curatorial Programme 2019/2020. Due to the restrictions surrounding COVID-19, the CP participants Thomas Butler, Sharmyn Cruz Rivera, Juan Fernando López, Iris Ferrer, Danai Giannoglou and Naz Kocadere reimagined the project as an ‘exhibition in print’.

This Final Outcome is the culmination of a year-long journey and collaboration that began at de Appel in September 2019. Initially plans were made for a physical exhibition. However, the outbreak of COVID-19 and the various waves of lockdown measurements, necessitated a reexamination of the format in which this project could be presented. Building upon the long deliberations that had already developed before the start of the pandemic, the participants reimagined the exhibition as a limited-edition publication, suited to epitomize the subversive spirit of the project and embody the practices of the contributing artists.

The concept they started with in 2019 is informed by the work of the late American conceptual artist Allan Sekula, and his photo series School Is a Factory (1979/80). In his signature style, Sekula pairs narrative texts with stark, black and white photographs of students and workers. He thereby lays bare the ways in which education, labour, leisure, and culture are perpetually commodified and classed by an unrelenting system of exploitation and profit. Galvanized by this work, the CP participants set out to think about the tools of resistance for opposing and challenging dominant knowledge systems: what lessons in resistance can art teach us, if any at all?

Abandoning the working methods associated with traditional exhibition making, the CP participants chose to continue working with the artists who they had already engaged with for the initially planned physical exhibition. They asked them to create or adapt an existing artwork for the limited edition multiple of five hundred copies. These artists are Simon Browne, Danilo Correale, Jason Dodge, nibia pastrana santiago and Dilek Winchester. Each artist has created a work that can be taken out of the publication container in which it is delivered and activated in whichever way the recipient chooses. Together with these works, the container features a book of curatorial essays, written by the CP participants, and a photo series by Buck Ellison. Lastly, they were kindly permitted by the Sekula archive in Los Angeles to reproduce Allan Sekula’s original photo work, which is also included in this exhibition in print. All of this was brought to life in collaboration with Athens-based design studio and printer Bend and G. Kostopoulos Printing House S.A.

Publication consists of nine objects in varying formats -- including books, posters, and cards -- issued in cardboard box.
Yayın, karton kutu içerisinde yer alan kitaplar, posterler ve kartlar dahil olmak üzere çeşitli formlarda dokuz parçadan oluşmaktadır.

de Appel Amsterdam tarafından bağışlanmıştır.