Do you hear me now?
Coalition Flags 1, 2 and 3
Katie Ceekay
December 4, 2024 – March 2, 2025
24/7 in the window exhibition space DISplay
visible from the St. Walburgstraat
NP3 | RE:Search:Gallery
Do you hear me now? is a set of three 6m x 1.5m flags by LABitat artist Katie Ceekay, created to visualize and bring attention to important issues she is exploring. By experimenting with materials to create artworks like these flags, Katie aims to make her research accessible and spark public conversations.
Made possible by the Groningen Visual Arts Stipendium LAND 2023, Katie’s work is part of a larger research that reflects on ethics in the arts, resource redistribution, and on the very system that funds her work. Katie approaches art as a verb rather than a final product, working with artistic practices instead of projects, such as forming a coalition for artists in the North of the Netherlands.
Katie reflects on how her previous work with materials like food, textiles, and community spaces has often been gendered, labeled as “soft,” or dismissed as lacking political weight, as a consequence of long-standing stereotypes in the art world. Even when she adopted a more hardened aesthetic, she notes, her work continued to be gendered, but as “difficult.”
Do you hear me now? transcends these considerations. It’s more than a question – it’s a desperate and serious plea for change in our society. Her work asks us to rethink not only the cultural sector but also the societal structures that perpetuate nationalism and the complicity in genocides and wars. While the title carries a hint of confrontation, Katie’s work also invites the public to move beyond the material object and participate in conversations about these urgent issues. Do you hear her now?