LEKKERKERK, Niekolaas Johannes; MANGANO, Domenico; VAN ROOY, Marieke
Homestead of Dilution

The concept of ’dilution’ – bringing together healthy and mentally ill people to overcome the formation of a polarised and hierarchical society – was developed during the Nieuw Dennendal experiment at a Dutch mental healthcare institute in the 1970s.

With this book we broaden the scope of what dilution could mean today, viewed through various historical, artistic, sociological and philosophical lenses. Could the historical concept of dilution be deployed as a contemporary artistic principle and be rediscovered as a means to achieve peaceful cohabitation? Does it have the potential to bridge and unify radical forms of otherness as part of an artistic process or perhaps life in general?

 This publication comes out of the artistic research for the video work Homestead of Dilution, and is the result of an artist-in residency by Domenico Mangano & Marieke van Rooy at Het Vijfde Seizoen (located on the grounds of the mental health institute Altrecht in Den Dolder, The Netherlands), from January to May 2015. [publisher's note]

Published by Onomatopee, 2017
Design by Bardhi Haliti
Essays