State of The Arts Almanac sessie #6: Empowering Artist-Run Spaces
State Of The Arts (SOTA)'s 6th event within the Fair Arts Almanac programme focuses on artist’s-run structures and how to empower them!
Over dit evenement
What do artists gain from running an organisation collectively? And how can these collectives empower surrounding actors?
Artists have not only been the victims of gentrification processes in the large cities worldwide, but for decades (unconsciously) functioned as a driving force from within this scheme. When setting up artist-run working spaces, artists often put a lot of time and energy into their start-up, maintenance and management. Of course, they get many advantages in return: being part of a network and the accompanying exchange, for example, and sometimes, hopefully, affordable space. But does it also strengthen their artistic, economic, social, and/or political position? What models exist – think for example of Scheld’apen, PAF, Jubilee, Theatergarage, etc... – that improve the opportunities and conditions of their members, and those of other groups who also struggle with the negative effects of gentrification? What ideas, tools and practices do they have?
In Belgium and internationally, there are places where there is a balance between the energy that is put in and the energy that the people involved get out. How do they do it, how are these places organised? On the basis of a workshop where we focus on ideas and solutions rather than on the problems, we will visualise a variety of ideas and models and see in which contexts and conditions they are constructive or productive, are liable to receive support, have a potential of changing the socio-economic fabric of the art world...