Lola Bezemer

A site specific installation and performance for the exhibition Dancing Through (Un)common Worlds which I curated for De Vishal in Haarlem, 2023. A 68-meter long cloth was “woven” around the pillars in the Vishal to create textile walls, creating several smaller spaces within the exhibition space in which the artists I invited presented their work. Upon entering the exhibition, the visitor would walk upon the textile and read a short absurd story by writer and artist Lenny van Gent that was embroidered on the cloth.

For the opening night I created a performance together with Lola Schot and in collaboration with the performers Catharina Vergeer and Alexandra Loembé. First the performers examined Lola Schot’s ceramic sculptures and then the 68 meter long textile. The performers moved the cloth up and down, in order to open up the created walls again; and they leaned on and pulled the textile to change the shape of the spaces that were created.

Artists participating in Dancing Through (Un)common Worlds:

Sanne Bax 
Lola Bezemer
Britt Dorenbosch
Lenny van Gent
Paulina Mellado
Lola Schot
Ananda Serné
Hilla Spitzer

In Soft Partition two performers carry a large pink and green coloured textile from location to location. The performers transform the textile from a revolving door to an enveloping cocoon; from a tightly stretched screen to a wavering cloth; and from a 12 meter long piece into a rolled up package. Sometimes the textile piece is in the middle of the road, moving next to the audience, and other times the work appears in the middle of the landscape. Through the movements of the textile separations between the audience, the performers and the landscape come to exist, continually changing the viewers perception. 

Performers: Lola Bezemer and Catharina Vergeer.

Soft Partition was commissioned by Derde Wal and shown at Festival de Oversteek in Nijmegen, September 2022. 

In Who’s Afraid? II, Lola Bezemer plays with access to and perception of space. A large textile screen is set in motion by a performer. The performer is continually rotating the screen while changing speed and direction. The movement of the textile limits access to the space, creates divisions between the audience and renders the space momentarily visible and invisible.

Performers: Lola Bezemer and Catharina Vergeer.

Performed at the opening of FLAM#9 at Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam, May 2022.

Sculpture Tour 

series of 4 weavings and 7 collages made of found textiles

This series of weavings and collages was created during Sowing Seeds, an international residency programme in a small village called Badanga near Udaipur in India. During walks through the village I found many tiny strips of textile. These textile strips were used by the villagers to tie things together (for example to close a fence). As time passes these strips loosen and continue to lay on the sides of the roads. I collected these dusty strips and washed them, after which the most beautiful colours appeared. With bamboo from the village I made a small loom on which I wove the pieces together and thought kids from the village how to weave. I first wove some of the strips together into a multicolour piece and as I found more I started organising the pieces by colour and created green, blue and red weavings. The bigger pieces I made into textile collages, using a stitch that was used in the village to make blankets. At the end of the residency the pieces were presented in the windows of a house in the village. 

Presented at the end of my residency at Sowing Seeds, Badanga, Udaipur, India, 2020.

Performance at Festival de Oversteek 

Site-specific performance developed in collaboration with dancer and choreographer Maria Abrantes. 

To enter the main entrance of the Culturgest building in Lisbon you can choose one of 7 doors that all lead to the same hallway with another 7 doors. While most people go in through the door in the middle and continue through to the door right behind that, in this performance we wanted to use the space in between these doors. The piece slows down the act of entering the building. 

Concept: Maria Abrantes and Lola Bezemer 
Sound design: Pedro Latas
Performers: Alice Giuliani, Ana Ester, Ana Catarina Santos, Lola Bezemer, Maria Abrantes

Culturgest, Lisbon, Portugal, 2019.

5 hour durational performance in public space. Light reflector, follow spot, dancers, light operator. 

Dancers: Alice Gioria, Ashley Ho, Inna Kulazhenkova and Paula Niehoff.
Light operators: Freija van Dijk and Lola Bezemer.

A circular light moves slowly from one spot to another. A dancer with a reflector screen follows the light spot to catch and reflect the light to people on the street, putting them literally in the spotlight. This creates an interaction between the light, the dancer(s) and the street. 

Performed during Arnhemse Uitnacht 2019.
Commissioned by Plaatsmaken, Arnhem.

The Sun and the Moon 

Reveal the Stage at Bradwolff 

Reveal the Stage at Studio 17 

Het Doek Gaat Op is the result of a one month residency at Concordia in Enschede in 2017. Concordia is a center for Visual Arts, Film and Theatre. The three different disciplines of Concordia are brought together by Lola Bezemer in a site-specific installation. 

With the help of videographer Tanja Busking and theatre technician Sicco Kamphuis, Lola Bezemer created 5 short films in Concordia's theatre in which she explored the moment of the opening of the curtains and lights.

These videos came together in an installation in Concordia's exhibition space. 

Exhibition trailer 

300 x 300 x 400 cm

Wood, wall paint, dyed cotton, wheel. Performers: Lola Bezemer, Madelyn Bullard, Maya Ichikawa, Inna Kulazhenkova, Aurélien Lepetit and Julie Mauskop. 

A large piece of fabric, dyed dark red is stretched over a wooden frame and hung with hinges to the edge of one of the three walls of a U-shaped art-fair booth. Acting like an enormous door, the canvas can turn both towards the inside of the U-shaped structure and outwards into the gallery space, creating a room enclosed on four sides or opening up to enlarge the space. The canvas is moved by continually present performers. The performers, who all come from different backgrounds, in their own way investigate their relation to the door; how the door moves; how they can move together with the door; how they as a performer can be visible or invisible and how they can direct the audience with the door. 

Exhibition: Prospects & Concepts, Art Rotterdam 2017.

Who's Afraid? 

dyed cotton, pvc-tubes, two dancers
Performers: Mami Kitagawa and Caroline Loiseau. 

Volte-Face is a performative installation which consists of large pieces of fabric with flexible tubes in their seam. The dancers Mami Kitagawa and Caroline Loiseau install the textiles in different ways: hanging them from the walls, stretching them through the space or standing them up right in front of the audience, creating sometimes more decorative and other times more spatial installations. With intervals in between the performances, the dancers change the installations from one to another following a choreography of different set-ups. Through this movement with their bodies and the textiles, the dancers in Volte-Face research presence in space. 

Performed during the final presentation of my residency at Superdeals in Brussels, Belgium, November 2016.

Volte Face 

Thirteen red dots in different sizes are placed in the exhibition space. Two persons in light blue comfortable clothing, with red dots silkscreened on it, are in charge of the composition of the red dots. Following a set of instructions, the movers change the arrangement of the dots to create an installation that is of temporary existence. Once the dots are installed, the performers take of their gloves and put them with the dots. When a new assignment is presented, the performers put on the gloves again and place the dots in a new position.

Moving Red Dots 

Kilometre of Sculpture, Rakvere, Estonia, 2016.