Talking Backwards
a flip chart for slow thinking

How can you weave with thoughts? Talking Backwards by Katinka de Jonge is a performative installation that deliberately positions itself at the margins of the spectacle. It is a space where notes, associations, and fleeting thoughts don’t disappear inside the viewer’s mind but are given the opportunity to become visible. The title refers to the feminist idea of talking back (bell hooks, 1989): speaking against silence, oppression, and imposed invisibility. In this installation, talking back is not an audible voice but takes shape as an associative thinking space in which individual impressions are woven into a shared image.

Visitors are invited to slow down and inscribe their thoughts onto a large canvas visible to all. It is decidedly more than a wall of lament: by writing down thoughts, they enter a new context and, sometimes willingly, sometimes involuntarily, enter into dialogue with what is already there. A remark hooks onto an earlier scribble, a drawing extends a fragment of a sentence, a word corrects another word. In this way, a polyphony emerges from what usually remains unspoken.

A projection is cast over the canvas as a facilitating voice that gives the surface meaning: in the form of a dialogical landscape, it asks questions, marks divisions, and exposes observations. This projection forms a gentle format: a structure that does not wish to restrict but instead invites openness. By working with the canvas in different phases, the passage of time becomes visible: layer by layer, the exchange of thoughts grows. It is an invitation to contribute, a framework that not only allows but encourages unexpected connections. Like a subjective flipchart, the page is turned when the thoughts have reached saturation.

Talking Backwards merges two earlier works from Katinka de Jonge (The Silent Discussion and Subjective Note Taking) and continues the search for a collective way of slowing down and thinking out loud. Each participant adds a new line of thought; each note opens a new perspective. In this way, a quiet conversation unfolds. It is a continuous dialogue between image, text, and viewer, in which the woven fabric of shared thoughts gradually becomes visible.

About the programme
This activity is part of the Time Out / Tune In program that program maker Lenn Cox has curated around Plaatsmaken's shared household. Time Out / Tune In connects the cyclical nature of time and its seasons, with a call to slow down! The program explores with multiple generations how we can organize together, what we can learn from each other and what is at stake in the cultural field and beyond. Dancing through chosen families, kindred spirits and ancestral matters. Read more about the program Time Out / Tune In.

About Katinka de Jonge
As an artistic researcher and maker, Katinka de Jonge questions the role of collectivity, polyphony and authority within various professional and non-professional contexts. She consistently links a theoretical approach to her artistic practice. With her keen observational capacity, De Jonge enters into dialogue with carefully chosen contexts: a neighbourhood, a specific professional group, an art house, exposing the tension between everyday reality and the invisible power relations that play a role in it. Out of a love for the written and spoken word, De Jonge translates these dynamics into a variety of media: text, video, installations, relational performances, audio tours, and publications. Conversation and performativity are recurring strategies, and as “social sculptures”, the major issues surrounding agency, boundaries and the marginalised voice are constantly being translated into playful actions.