a-test-site: Pin protest (2024)
Performance/ intervention, duration: ± 1 hour
In this intervention 96 retired bowling pins are reactivated. After being tossed out into storage they are now brought back onto the lane. Over the course of one lane reservation hour, the pins are placed onto the bowling lane, before carefully returning them back to storage. In this temporal act, the still wooden-core pins — fragile, able-to-crack, natural, and now obsolete — stand in contrast to the mass-produced artificial pins that are used in the game today.
Through this act, the work critiques a culture of disposability, questioning when objects are deemed "out of order" and what gets lost in the rush for technological progress, which thrives with our obsession with replacement and efficiency. The artwork proposes an alternative: one that values maintenance over replacement, and care over convenience.Using a method familiar to a peaceful protest, the pins occupy the space on the lane, blocking its function, and distracting the flow of the bowling alley. The lane being rented and paid by the artist out of the material budget given for the exhibition — turns the material capital into immaterial capital by ‘buying space and time’.
Pin protest becomes a test site for a disruption which doesn’t just block a lane - it forces us to rethink what we discard.
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
original photos from HetResort by Victor Wennekes, 2024
Performance/ intervention, duration: ± 1 hour
In this intervention 96 retired bowling pins are reactivated. After being tossed out into storage they are now brought back onto the lane. Over the course of one lane reservation hour, the pins are placed onto the bowling lane, before carefully returning them back to storage. In this temporal act, the still wooden-core pins — fragile, able-to-crack, natural, and now obsolete — stand in contrast to the mass-produced artificial pins that are used in the game today.
Through this act, the work critiques a culture of disposability, questioning when objects are deemed "out of order" and what gets lost in the rush for technological progress, which thrives with our obsession with replacement and efficiency. The artwork proposes an alternative: one that values maintenance over replacement, and care over convenience.Using a method familiar to a peaceful protest, the pins occupy the space on the lane, blocking its function, and distracting the flow of the bowling alley. The lane being rented and paid by the artist out of the material budget given for the exhibition — turns the material capital into immaterial capital by ‘buying space and time’.
Pin protest becomes a test site for a disruption which doesn’t just block a lane - it forces us to rethink what we discard.
original photos from HetResort by Victor Wennekes, 2024