'buren' is a collective founded by Oshin Albrecht and Melissa Mabesoone in 2012.

 

Their name derives from a term found in Heidegger’s ‘Building, Dwelling, Thinking’ in which ‘büren’ coincides with ‘building’ and ‘inhabiting’. What does it mean to nest oneself, to keep a household? For Melissa and Oshin it functions as a noun and as a verb; as an umbrella term for their practice and as a modus operandi. How their work relates to an environment (being site-specific, black-box or white cube), both physical and content wise, is always active. Through performance, video, text, objects, photography, publication and installation they navigate ideas of community, domesticity, gender roles, (art) history and neoliberal fantasies. These subjects are approached with a sense of irony and humor as well as a future-oriented imagination.

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buren focuses on the de- and reconstruction of image and language. They approach the scene as a critical playground, a surface on which they continuously re-play. They install a sense of familiarity and distort it progressively. Their work has a strong visual character with specific attention to the musicality of text and to the way in which sound and music function as a means of communication.

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The crossover practice of buren is shown in visual art and theater-related contexts such as Playground (STUK / Museum M), Vooruit, Pukkelpop, de Brakke Grond, Netwerk Aalst, Galerie AmPolylog, Z33, Buda, Bâtard, Kaaitheater, Casco, Tatjana Pieters. buren did a postgraduate at the HISK 2016-2017.

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In 2020-2024 buren is supported by the European Network apap - FEMINIST FUTURES, a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union via Kunstencentrum Buda

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From 2023 onwards buren is one of the house residents at Kaaitheatre, Brussels.

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In 2025 their first group piece for the black box "shoe/farm - a family business" premieres at Almost Summer Festival and they start working on their record buren's Greatest Hits, a best-off selection of all the songs they made the past 13 years.

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For trailers: check out our vimeo

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After a Philosophy introduction at the Ghent University, Melissa studied Visual Arts at KASK, Ghent. Her work is shown at Sale Docks, M HKA, Verbeke Foundation and published in nY magazine. She performed for Dora Garcia, Assaf Gruber, Lies Pauwels & NTGent, Peter Aers (a.o.). Melissa was a core member of Engagement, a movement tackling sexual harassment, sexism, power abuse in the arts from 2018-2023. Her first short film Maturation Station premiered at the Filmfestival of Ostend, February 2025 an won the Best Narrative Short at the Blue Water Film Festival in San Diego, California.

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Oshin graduated as a visual artist from Luca School of Arts, Ghent and did an artistic research at a.pass in Brussels. She exhibited her work and performed at Z33, Ciap and NUPerformance Festival Tallinn, a.o. In 2019 she was co-programmer for Young Work at Theater Aan Zee. With Ezra Veldhuis and Bosse Provoost she co-created the performance SUN-SET. In 2023 she worked as a scenographer for dancer/choreographer Ingrid Berger Myhre's Spelling Spectacle. And she teaches at LUCA School of Arts in the Mixed Media department.

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