Gents Kunstenoverleg presenteert:
Werkgroep beeldende kunst

The Working Group Visual Arts (Gents Kunstenoverleg) warmly invites the Ghent visual arts field to two brainstorm sessions on potential collaboration.

Please register / lunch provided / volunteer fee possible
With a preview of the exhibitions in Kunsthal Gent that open this day.

* Objective of the working group
Strengthening the vulnerable field of the visual arts in all its diversity: bringing together museums and individual artists, medium-sized organisations and small ad hoc initiatives. We want to achieve this by learning from each other about each other's needs and qualities, by practicing trust and equality, by organising joint actions in practice. In this way we are gradually building an ecosystem of the visual arts in which different players —institutional or not, large and small, permanent and sporadic—are aware of their own and each other's role and importance.

* BRAINSTORM 1: Which possible events / moments can we (museums, art initiatives and visual artists) realise together?

We already have the Museum Night and the Late Thursdays in which the museums of Ghent jointly open their doors. Can such a format be further expanded, so that the entire visual arts field joins forces at a particular moment? What does such a moment look like? And can we go beyond opening the doors at the same time, but develop a format such that we are together and visit each other?

Tim Bruggeman (initiator of De Koer) speaks about the Ghent partnership Tot in de Stad by way of inspiration.

Do you have ideas or ambitions in this direction? Be sure to bring them to this brainstorm!

* BRAINSTORM 2: What can we do for artists and cultural workers from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus?

We live in urgent times: on 24 February 2022, Russian troops under the command of Vladimir Putin attacked the independent state of Ukraine. This war unleashes horrific violence, which should not take place in the XXIst century. For millions of people, life will never be the same again, thousands of people have had their lives literally taken away.

Our cultural colleagues in Ukraine and also the many dissident voices in Russia and Belarus need our support. Various initiatives have already been started: SMAK made a deposit for Ukraine, BOZAR proposed to initiate a joint emergency fund to support cultural workers in danger wherever possible. Daria Bocharnikova (BOZAR) opens the brainstorm with the idea of a joint emergency fund.

Can we find common ground with the visual arts working group? Can this urgency be a reason for a joint action / initiative / statement, from everyone who shares the values of freedom of expression, free movement, mutual respect and the rule of law? Which initiatives already thought of do we join and what can we contribute to the solidarity movement?