Lecture For Every One is a short artistic intervention consisting of a text that Sarah Vanhee or another performer brings/performs at occasions where people are anyway already gathered in order to discuss/exchange/undertake something together. She intrudes into existent situations that are strange to her, and where she herself is a stranger. The text is exactly the same on all the occasions. Some examples: a sales meeting in a luxury hotel, a city council, a team meeting at a multinational, a high society club, the army, a union meeting, an informal meeting of antique collectors, a choir rehearsal, a football training of homeless people etc. Mostly there is only one person within the organization that knows of her coming, for the others it’s a total surprise. She grafts Lecture For Every One onto the meeting, in a moment where there is the necessary concentration and focus, e.g. just before a meeting starts. When the lecture is done, she leaves immediately.

In the text, she tries to address citizens both collectively and individually - avoiding the rhetorics known from political messages, mass media, advertising, rules and laws - in an attempt to speak "freely", in a gesture that addresses both the individual and the collective, and considers society as a co-creation of "every-one". LFEO is a personal and an artistic gesture, a simple but strange object that enters a certain homogenous environment consisting nevertheless of individuals.

The text consists of a hybrid of stories, political reflections and performative momentum. It addresses concerns about our living together, about the state of the common in our societies, about current forces operating upon the human condition. It proposes "fictions" other than those prevailing in our contemporary Western Societies.

LFEO is a viral project that temporary spreads itself in a city, with the support of many different (in) visible agents. Read more on the archived project website.

At the occasion of 7 years Lecture For Every One, a book was published by Art Paper Editions.

"During seven years, 16 performers spread Lecture For Every One throughout Europe. They intervened in more than 300 different gatherings, from a corporate sales meeting to a brass-band rehearsal and a municipal council. As uninvited guests, they addressed every one with exactly the same text. Until now, the project has remained largely invisible to the wider public. This book now sheds light on the information and expertise Lecture For Every One has generated—feedback, stories and memories from a range of perspectives. It reflects on how places where people gather can become political instances, on the (im)possibility of addressing every one, and on the value of fiction in our daily lives."

With texts & contributions by Adinda Van Geystelen, Anabela Almeida, Anne Thuot, Anton Wilsens, Bojan Djordjev, Carola Bärtschiger, Christine De Smedt, Christophe Slagmuylder, Daniel Blanga Gubbay, Deborah Hazler, Edith Goddeeris, Elina Pirinen, Evelyne Coussens, Gurur Ertem, Iiris Viirpalu, Ilse Ghekiere, Jan De Brabanter, Jan de Zutter, Joe Kelleher, Katja Dreyer, Kristien Van den Brande, Kristof Blom, Lara Barsaq, Lex Bohlmeijer, Linda Sepp, Mariel Supka, Marika Ingels, Matthieu Goeury, Mylène Lauzon, Robin Vanbesien, Salka Ardal Rosengren, Sarah Vanagt, Sarah Vanhee, Silvia Bottiroli, Taziana Pyson and many others.

Produced by Manyone | Co-produced by CAMPO, Vooruit, kunstencentrum BUDA, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, STUK, BIT Teatergarasjen, Skogen | With support of the Flemish Community

Order online at APE

Sarah Vanhee Lecture For Every One 15 x 22 cm, 304 p, ills colour, paperback, English ISBN 9789493146501 design and editing: 6′56″ edition of 500 April 2020

At the occasion of 7 years Lecture For Every One, I made a performance with stories and memories, looking at the places where, today, we are supposed to be "together."

For the past seven years of my life I was an intruder. Unasked and uninvited, I walked into meeting-rooms, and started to speak about how we live together as human beings, about society as a co-creation by every-one. One could see my intervention as a bomb or as a gift. People were surprised, shocked, moved, angry. With my guerilla-speech was I tried to transform any meeting into a political moment. I surprised more than 10.000 people this way, interrupting their daily routines by asking big and small questions about life. I always said the same words, I called it Lecture For Every One. It spread over twelve different countries but remained largely invisible. Like a virus. This is not fiction, this really happened.

Now I want to share this story about words, love, violence and connection. About people alone and together. It’s a story about what it means to speak up, today. About the (im)possibility to address every-one. And about how we are always before. Before the war starts, before you kiss, before you really decide. How today also, we are before.

In 2020 I thought it was time to pass on Lecture For Every One to a new generation. During four months, I would meet every Saturday with a group of Brussels teenagers, to assist them in writing their collective Lecture For Every One. In this new text, the young people tackle their preoccupations with our collective life and current forces acting on the human condition in order to rethink an ethics for living together. Like in the original proposition, the teenagers unexpectedly interrupt existing meetings in different places, to perform their own guerilla speech.

Due to COVID-19 the live interventions by the youngsters could not go through as planned. A shortened version was performed in Flemish on VRT (Flemish public broadcast) by Camilla Lakhloufi.

The complete final version of LFEO-20 was performed by Elliot Delvaux in French, on Vimeo: