#60: Look after all tools. The moment it looks like things are missing it means that things are missing.|#88: Changing internships, artists, curators,... are important propositions to keep a fresh set of eyes.|#3: Entrance to all exhibitions at Kunsthal Gent is free.|#55: Keep basic human needs on the forefront.|#40: Follow the artist|#10: Don’t be obsessed with numbers.|#94: No objections? Just do it.|#68: Once in a while we need to get out of utopia and get something done.|#37: Operate with radical transparency.|#70: Have the office space inside the exhibition space, it reminds of you what you are doing.|#141: Start a Publication Studio at Kunsthal Gent in the nearby future.|#15: Kunsthal Gent aims to be an extension of public space.|#61: No all male install teams.|#107: Build a community / scene.|#105: Kunsthal Gent is local in scale, but globally connected.|#56: Take a lunch break.|#32: Be pan-gender polyphonic.|#137: Use the publication as programming space|#90: The best systems have a failure or ‘a hole’ in them…|#87: Always keep in mind there is something really special about being in a room that is 19 meters tall.|#82: Clean and sterile looks professional, but really boring.|#51: How do we invite the true unknown?|#36: We support production separately.|#59: Always protect the floor when painting (or pouring concrete)|#47: Artists need to be supported more than ever in the development of their practice due to the gaps that have been created in the field of fine art|#99: Evolve according to changing needs.|#20: Are exhibitions the most suitable form for the art that we present?|#92: We’re a learning organisation.|#119: Be a space of production.|#132: Things will always look weird when you’re the first doing it.|#26: More artists, less borders.|#64: Arrange a distribution of forces.|#112: Spaces today don’t need to be curated, but occupied.|#29: We make the program for the artist that we exhibit.|#111: Do it together.|#35: The artist fee should be good.|#84: The White Cube is a lie.|#74: Last one out turns of the lights.|#16: Kunsthal Gent will always be a construction site.|#25: Never ask the artist to just present their work, ask them to co-create and co-organise the space.|#5: Kunsthal Gent is a city where different identities collide in an ongoing exhibition without end date. New exhibitions are always a new layer in this ongoing story.|#89: Build-in impurity within the organisation.|#30: Don’t work with artists who are assholes.|#28: Make Contracts.|#53: Immaterial support for artists is important.|#14: Can you also remain a toddler institution?|#4: Pay what you can.|#79: The layered painting in the Old House has the potential to become the emblem to explain what Kunsthal Gent is doing.|#23: That’s a very interesting piece, but how would it behave in a pizza joint?|#75: A building is a capricious thing: it is inhabited and changed, and its existence is a tale of constant and curious transformation.|#2: Bring something new to the city of Ghent.|#17: An exhibition is never finished.|#120: The new type of art institute cannot merely be an art museum as it has been until now, but no museum at all. The new type will be more like a power station, a producer of new energy.|#24: We invest long-term in individual artists’ careers, working over time in different contexts. This also applies to designers / web-developers / photographers / volunteers /…|#19: Have fun at the exhibition.|#21: Live with the exhibition, spend time with it.|#6: Demand that visitors are active.|#117: Consider design, organisational structures and architecture as programme.|#44: No name tags at dinner.|#54: What about disabled artists?|#33: We will ensure work by female artists and curators make up at least 50% of our programme each year.|#98: The success of it will not lie in the result but in the process.|#58: Kunsthal Gent is a monument. If you plan to drill a hole, contact Tomas first.|#91: Embrace doubt.|#131: A visitor who comes back after a week might discover new additions to the exhibition.|#65: No excuses: Thursday morning, team meeting.|#57: Volunteers must be: cared for / hands on / ready to learn / willing to share / in it to win it / show new or old tricks.|#39: Be the early stepping stone in an artist’s career|#34: We pay artists.|#130: Be a uniquely charged and curated gallery that is an artwork in itself.|#124: Do less, do it better.|#127: Remain practical: what happens to the work in an endless exhibition?|#81: Things come alive when there is friction.|#62: Don’t be a dick. Full dishwasher: empty it.|#60: Look after all tools. The moment it looks like things are missing it means that things are missing.|#88: Changing internships, artists, curators,... are important propositions to keep a fresh set of eyes.|#3: Entrance to all exhibitions at Kunsthal Gent is free.|#55: Keep basic human needs on the forefront.|#40: Follow the artist|#10: Don’t be obsessed with numbers.|#94: No objections? Just do it.|#68: Once in a while we need to get out of utopia and get something done.|#37: Operate with radical transparency.|#70: Have the office space inside the exhibition space, it reminds of you what you are doing.|#141: Start a Publication Studio at Kunsthal Gent in the nearby future.|#15: Kunsthal Gent aims to be an extension of public space.|#61: No all male install teams.|#107: Build a community / scene.|#105: Kunsthal Gent is local in scale, but globally connected.|#56: Take a lunch break.|#32: Be pan-gender polyphonic.|#137: Use the publication as programming space|#90: The best systems have a failure or ‘a hole’ in them…|#87: Always keep in mind there is something really special about being in a room that is 19 meters tall.|#82: Clean and sterile looks professional, but really boring.|#51: How do we invite the true unknown?|#36: We support production separately.|#59: Always protect the floor when painting (or pouring concrete)|#47: Artists need to be supported more than ever in the development of their practice due to the gaps that have been created in the field of fine art|#99: Evolve according to changing needs.|#20: Are exhibitions the most suitable form for the art that we present?|#92: We’re a learning organisation.|#119: Be a space of production.|#132: Things will always look weird when you’re the first doing it.|#26: More artists, less borders.|#64: Arrange a distribution of forces.|#112: Spaces today don’t need to be curated, but occupied.|#29: We make the program for the artist that we exhibit.|#111: Do it together.|#35: The artist fee should be good.|#84: The White Cube is a lie.|#74: Last one out turns of the lights.|#16: Kunsthal Gent will always be a construction site.|#25: Never ask the artist to just present their work, ask them to co-create and co-organise the space.|#5: Kunsthal Gent is a city where different identities collide in an ongoing exhibition without end date. New exhibitions are always a new layer in this ongoing story.|#89: Build-in impurity within the organisation.|#30: Don’t work with artists who are assholes.|#28: Make Contracts.|#53: Immaterial support for artists is important.|#14: Can you also remain a toddler institution?|#4: Pay what you can.|#79: The layered painting in the Old House has the potential to become the emblem to explain what Kunsthal Gent is doing.|#23: That’s a very interesting piece, but how would it behave in a pizza joint?|#75: A building is a capricious thing: it is inhabited and changed, and its existence is a tale of constant and curious transformation.|#2: Bring something new to the city of Ghent.|#17: An exhibition is never finished.|#120: The new type of art institute cannot merely be an art museum as it has been until now, but no museum at all. The new type will be more like a power station, a producer of new energy.|#24: We invest long-term in individual artists’ careers, working over time in different contexts. This also applies to designers / web-developers / photographers / volunteers /…|#19: Have fun at the exhibition.|#21: Live with the exhibition, spend time with it.|#6: Demand that visitors are active.|#117: Consider design, organisational structures and architecture as programme.|#44: No name tags at dinner.|#54: What about disabled artists?|#33: We will ensure work by female artists and curators make up at least 50% of our programme each year.|#98: The success of it will not lie in the result but in the process.|#58: Kunsthal Gent is a monument. If you plan to drill a hole, contact Tomas first.|#91: Embrace doubt.|#131: A visitor who comes back after a week might discover new additions to the exhibition.|#65: No excuses: Thursday morning, team meeting.|#57: Volunteers must be: cared for / hands on / ready to learn / willing to share / in it to win it / show new or old tricks.|#39: Be the early stepping stone in an artist’s career|#34: We pay artists.|#130: Be a uniquely charged and curated gallery that is an artwork in itself.|#124: Do less, do it better.|#127: Remain practical: what happens to the work in an endless exhibition?|#81: Things come alive when there is friction.|#62: Don’t be a dick. Full dishwasher: empty it.|
This website uses cookies to improve your user experience. More info

08.04—06.05.2021 14:00

Broadcasts & Live Event

Pay what you can

Philippine Hoegen, Julia Reist, Miriam Hempel and guests:
What is Work?

WHAT IS WORK? Episode 1, 2 and 3

Philippine Hoegen
with
Julia Reist
Miriam Hempel
Guests and Speakers

08-04-2021, 14.00 - 18.00 / Episode 1: What is my Work?

Central questions: How do we regard work, our own work, the conditions of that work and our own identity through work?

During the past period, many people have expressed the need to reposition themselves to their own preconceptions of their work and working conditions. The pandemic changed a lot of peoples working formats, some changed or lost their jobs, many adjusted to completely new formats and contexts. We are curious what the reverberations of these experiences over time will be. And what deeper or more fundamental issues these reconsiderations expose.
Some people are confronted with their own work addictions, some took time to change habits, some found their habits reinforced.
Many people were cooking, sewing, carpentering or caring for another person and found this to be the best work they ever did. In our current social and economic system, these are the least valued forms of labour, so we can see appearing a huge gap between what is valued and what gives gratification.
Is it possible to break old structures or will we get stuck in the vacuum of redefinition? The coming period will be the proof of the pudding, therefore it will be an essential time to talk and reflect with each other, to provoke each other not to forget all those realisations and simply slip back into the old normal. Instead we aim to draw some conclusions from the experiences we are having and have had and, aligning the personal with the political, explore the potential for change.

22-04-2021, 14.00 - 18.00 / Episode 2: Work Performance and Performing Work

Shortly after the first lock down I was involved in a performance at the Beursschouwburg that took place without an audience. There were only performers, and as performers we were also our audience. And it was magical. Oh dear! Is it possible that we will find out we no longer need them? Or is that not the point at all? Is it rather about reconsidering what it is to be an audience – to witness, to spectate. And by the same token, what is it, to perform?
A nurse working in a retirement home remarked that he now not only has to perform the role of medical worker, but – in their absence because of the lock down - also that of a relative or loved one.
We perform when we work, and work is a performance. We conjure versions of ourselves to meet the demands of the new roles that are necessitated, without knowing in advance what these versions induce within the infrastructure of ourselves.
For this episode, we would like to deeply examine shifting perceptions and experiences of forms of performativity within and beyond the arts – meaning also how performativity has entered into the working practices and gestures of people who don’t normally identify as performers, and the repercussions of that on performing in the arts.

06-05-2021, 14.00 - 18.00 / Episode 3: What is the Value of Work?

For this episode, we will go deeper into the valorisation of work, of labour, something that is problematic in the cultural field, but certainly also beyond. The complete negligence shown by the government during the pandemic towards, for example, sex workers, the ignorance of the realities of working conditions of people working in care etc., are the results of longstanding valorisation systems based on patriarchal, neo-liberal standards.
Within the arts, this is a subject that State of the Arts has been working on for a long time, so we will certainly draw on that knowledge and would like to involve certain SOTA collaborators in this part of the research. But we would also want to take it beyond the cultural field and find interlocutors from familiar with working conditions in f.e. care and sex work.
Working on SOS Relief since its launch in April, we have seen unprecedented testimonies of appreciation for the arts and those who work in art, from people who donated within the project. We are curious if a shift in attention for / involvement in f.e. domestic work could also cause a shift in the discourse of valorisation and appreciation of such labour.
SOS Relief was created as a concrete gesture or experiment in solidarity, wealth redistribution, thinking about how to transform our society into one which is fairer for all. For this episode we will look for these kinds of forms of resistance, or ways of working against existing structures.