buren is the name under which Melissa Mabesoone (b. Knokke, Belgium, 1988, lives in Brussels) and Oshin Albrecht (b. Bruges, Belgium, 1986, lives in Ghent) work. It is deliberately written with a lower-case ‘b’ because it refers to the verb büren from an essay by Heidegger, which means both ‘building’ and ‘inhabiting’. For Mabesoone and Albrecht, ‘buren’ refers to their collaboration and to the way their work relates to its surroundings. Since 2012, the artists have been exploring ideas around community, domesticity, living, gender, (art) history and neoliberal society. They approach these themes with humour and irony, depicting different realities from various angles.

For Brief Encounters ’22, buren have created the performance 7 means dinner for a breadwinner. This is the first ‘stop’ or episode of their project SHOE/FARM. This title refers to the duo’s personal histories. Mabesoone grew up on a farm where hard work was required around the clock, and the division of tasks was based largely on traditional male and female roles. Oshin’s parents had a shoe shop on the Belgian coast, and much of their clientele consisted of holidaymakers who were out for a stroll.

This project fits in with buren’s long-running investigation into the relationship between leisure and labour in different social classes in Western society and how this is represented in art history and popular media. buren looks specifically at roles and the balance of power within the past and future of leisure activities and work.

7 means dinner for a breadwinner takes place at a picnic table, where buren work around dinner time at the farmer’s table, singing work songs and toiling away like workhorses because they need to earn their daily bread, with habits, customs and specific sayings associated with farming life being milked and poured out again, along with ideas about class consciousness and class differences.

In an associative performance, the artists link personal memories to the history of leisure activities and work, the evolution of women’s work and the relationship between those in charge and their subordinates. De Oude Warande forms a playing field for addressing different working relationships, leisure pursuits and their representation.

7 means dinner for a breadwinner is a co-production with STUK – House for Dance, Image and Sound, Louvain