Image: The Otolith Group, In the Year of the Quiet Sun, film still, 2013

Casco is thrilled to present two newly commissioned projects by artists Melanie Gilligan and The Otolith Group in double solo exhibitions, the first in the Netherlands for both. You are very warmly invited to join the opening during which there will be a conversation with Gilligan and The Otolith Group moderated by art historian Eric de Bruyn at 20:00 hrs in addition to a continuous special screening of Sovereign Sisters (2014), an animated film by The Otolith Group.

The Otolith Group's In the Year of Quiet Sun presents a cluster of new films and installations envisioning moments from the Promethean project of mid-twentieth century Pan-Africanism. Envisaged as the total liberation of the African continent from Europe's empires, the project focuses on a micro artifact, namely the postal stamp, issued to commemorate the independence of African nation-states. In the Year of the Quiet Sun incorporates three major new works consisting of a post-lens essay-film, an Incomplete Timeline of Independence Stamps with over 4,000 stamps from across the African continent, and an installation devoted to the first decade in the publishing of controversial journal Transition founded in Kampala in 1967.

For more information on the works and the contexts of each exhibition, please visit Casco's website.

The works in In the Year of Quiet Sun were co-commissioned and co-developed in collaboration with Bergen Kunsthall and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin and in partnership with Artsonje Center, Seoul. The initial conception of In the Year of Quiet Sun is made possible with special support of the Mondriaan Fund. Both exhibitions are presented in the context of Casco's 2013–2015 program guideline "Composing the Commons".

Melanie Gilligan's The Common Sense takes the form of a sci-fi mini-series which looks at how minds, bodies, and interpersonal relations are shaped by technological advancements within capitalism. This experimental narrative drama revolves around a future technology which allows one to directly experience another person's bodily sensations and affect, a system that becomes widely adapted altering social interactions until it breaks down and alternative narratives unfold.

The Common Sense, Gilligan's largest project to date, is the first co-commission by three institutions in the Netherlands of a single work by an artist. This winter it is presented sequentially in overlapping exhibitions with different episodes opening at Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory in Utrecht, De Hallen Haarlem (opening: 13 December 2014), and de Appel arts centre (opening: 23 January 2015) in Amsterdam, creating a nomadic viewing experience through which to see the entire work.

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