We are back from Geneva!!!

Yes, we are back! And we survived! And they let us out from Swiss!

It was a real trip. We departed from Geneva on Friday at 11. I was nervous and pissed because I thought it's already 12 and that we are very late. But only the clock in the van was still showing the summer time! Sorry, Joyce and Jan Dirk, I was awful.

Next thing was, the phone with Tomtom dropped dead out of battery just when we got out of Geneva. Despite being on the charger all night! Shitty, but we got in a better mood after stopping at a Coop market by the high-way and spent all of the swiss francs we had left on croissants and candies!

It was going OK till the border, the weather forecast - the rain and snow - didn't really come true, we only saw a few snowflakes dancing in front of the window, just to say hi.
We were passing the border in Basel. There are two LKW border passes, one is with the France and the other one, which we took last time, is with Germany. We decided to try with the French, since last time the Germans didn't want to give us a stamp, we thought the French are nicer ...

Swiss didn't make much problems at the customs, they gave us the import money back, but then at the barrier the officer sent us to weight the car. It was a disaster: 4500kg! That is 1 ton more than what I am allowed to drive with my license and what the car can be loaded. The officer called the police and while waiting for them we tried to get a stamp from the French. They didn't want to give it. You should go to the same place where you got in - at the German boarder!

Then the police came, Joyce and Jan Dirk explained that we don't know where all that weight is from. Some machines and some small stuff, it can't be soooooo much. The police was calculating and talking, took a look inside the car. See, it's almost empty!
When they heard we are artists, going back from an exhibition, they let us go, even without a ticket. They said, we saved 700 francs and that we should use it for the art. I can't believe, they really let us go.

Since the French didn't want to give us the stamp, we thought we could try at the other border pass, but the officers at the barrier didn't allow us back to Swiss because we were too heavy. So we were trapped between France and Swiss with an overloaded truck and it was getting late.

Joyce and Jan Dirk tried again with the French customs person. First it was a solid no, but then he heard their discussion in Dutch, which he happened to understand. He could hear that we are not trying to fool him around, and then gave the stamp on that thin piece of paper.

I couldn't believe when they got back with the paper and we drove away. We really got away with it. Amazing. It could be a lot lot worse, Joop was almost organizing a saving squad from Holland.

We bought a car charger for the phone on the way to Mainz where we stayed for the night and had some very heavy food in one of the filled pubs. Next morning we left and I was still afraid that the German police might stop us and send us for being weighted, but luckily that didn't happen. Only some rain.

The last problem was parking in Nijmegen on a Saturday afternoon. Well, not parking, that I know quite good by now, but more finding the parking space :)).

But even that we found and I got very happily home, had a nice loooooong shower and Joop cooked a fabulous Spinach risotto.

Here you can find the whole collection of photos from Geneva.

Lake Geneva

You can take a cruise on the lake...But see the front of the boat ...
Oooooops ...
Bad driver ...
Tststs ...

I am an art piece!

I'm going to be in the catalog of the exhibition!!!

Geneva printing

3 minutes of printing.

Geneva

Knust is going to Geneva to print a Dotdotdot magazine within the context of the group exhibition 'Wouldn't it be Nice' curated by Emily King and Katya García-Antón (25 October – 16 December 2007).

There goes a stencil machine from down the first floor...

Straight into the van...

Where everything is nice packed...

Waiting at the German/Swiss customs along with the real big trucks...

Our working space at the gallery (Centre d'Art Contemporain Geneve)...

Which we share with the other art pieces. You see a hammoc? That's my favorite.

Anderhalfwitavond in Extrapool

Anderhalfwitavond is an evening where the novelties of the Halfwithal shop are presented. Halfwithal shop is a part of Extrapool which is open every friday afternoon and is selling books and fanzins, CDs, LPs, Tshirts, badges, which you can't get anywhere else. There's also an online shop.
Next week there will be the next Anderhalfwitavond (write down this date in your agenda: 27. 10 at 21.00 in the Onderbroek). Next to presentation of books, there are also concerts and cakes and DJs and here you can see more about the program.

Kiiiiii and Le Club des Chats in Extrapool

There was a concert yesterday at Extrapool. Well, it was in the Onderbroek, since Extrapool is still being under renovation process. There were two bands playing, a french duo Le Club des Chats and two japanese girls called Kiiiiiiiiii.
I didn't see much of the first band, because I was sitting at the kassa with Ani, but I saw the japanese girls and they were crazy. My camera died, it's last words were CHANGE THE BATTERY PACK! so no pictures from me.
But you can take a look at these videos to get a taste of the concert.

Kiiiiiii



Le Club des Chats

...

Started to work at Extrapool

Today I started to work at the graphic space of Extrapool.

Behang van plint tot plafond

As Extrapool being a part of exhibition about tapestry at Coda Museum in Apeldoorn, Joyce, JanDirk, Maaike and me went on a mission to plaster a bit of a fancy glass museum in Apeldoorn. When we got there, we found out that our space for putting up the tapestry (behang in dutch) is not in the area of the exhibition. Een beetje vreemd, but we did a great job with it anyway.
Coda was presented also at the Woonbeurs in Amsterdam, where Joyce and JanDirk were plastering next day. The upper picture is from there.