“Creativity as a tool to create a nice neighbourhood”

Magnolia collective

The Magnolia collective started in September 2021, right after the restrictions because of the COVID-19 pandemic got less. The founding members consisting of fourteen women wanted to organise some activities in the Koningin Astridpark in Kortrijk, but they also saw a chance in combating loneliness of the people by bringing them together. Since many of the members have a professional artistic background or have big interest in working artistically, the artistic influence came into their activities. Their members are international: They have members from Chile, Mexico, Australia and Belgium as well as connections to people from Ecuador, Germany and the USA. It is important to them to make their activities accessible for everybody, so that everyone feels welcomed. 

There are two things, which can be seen as the resource of the collective. One is the knowledge about how art works and what it can transfer. With this resource they are working on promoting a better sense of neighbourhood. The second resource they can offer is to provide a place where everyone can come and bring their own materials to just work together. This can combat loneliness, if people have contact with others and can exchange with them.  

Rules in the collective 

According to their vision, that their activities should be affordable and welcoming to everyone, they do not have many rules. There is no fixed target group, the activities are not only for women but for everyone, so the age of the participants varies a lot. This is one of their unwritten rules. Other rules are made for maintaining their meeting place, the kaartershuisje; those informal rules are made by the members of the collective asking themselves if they really want things to happen in a certain way or not. So, they talk with each other and reflect on things going on to develop rules as a result of this process.  

Workshops they do should be free of charge, as far as possible. If a fee is asked, then it is mainly for materials, which need to be bought. So far, they never asked more than 15€ from the participants to either buy material or to cover some costs they have, since they have no other income. Sometimes a rule for workshops is to sign up for them beforehand, so that the members of the collective can make sure to have enough space to host all participants. 

For the collaborations they do they also have more unwritten rules instead of very formal and strict ones. Especially if they work with children, they feel like it does not make sense to have a whole set of rules, because children may not obey them anyways. 

 The members of the collective named different challenges they face with different actors. With members of society, they have the problem that sometimes people sign up for the workshops, which are restricted in the number of participants, but then they do not show up. This is a problem for the collective if they have people on the waiting list. Then they cannot call the people on the waiting list to attend the workshop, because it is already too late for this to happen. 

A second challenge within society is the problem of free riders. Some people just want to use the space the Magnolia collective has to do an exhibition of their work. They are not interested in working in the collective, collaborating with the collective or giving the collective something else in return.  

Furthermore, they also see different challenges in the cooperation with the city of Kortrijk. The city of Kortrijk wants them to do a lot of administrative work. Firstly, this is asked when it comes to financial issues. Receiving funding is only possible, if the collective is becoming a VZW. But the collective does not want to be obliged to do so much administrative work. So they have constantly the struggle of being not allowed to receive money. But the collective is still asked to pay money to the city. Since their foundation they have to pay a small fee per month, which gets expensive over a year, for the kaartershuisje they are using as their common resource place. Second, the city recently asked them to look for an energy provider themselves, although they do not use much energy in the kaartershuisje. A last point they mentioned as a challenge was the painting of the kaartershuisje. For this they also had many restrictions and could not completely design it like they would have liked to do.  

Lastly, they face challenges within their collective. The work for their collective they do besides their main jobs and their private life. So there coming lots of other things in the way of every member, which need to be done first, before they can put their time into the work of the collective. In this quote “If you want to get something out, you also need to put something in. And it can be only time. Time is okay”. The member of the collective sounds like time might be not as worthy. But from what she told about the things they are facing with; time is the most important resource the members of the collective have to give. She says “it can only be time” to make it sound easy for new people to join, but in fact she knows herself too well, that this can already be a lot. The challenge they face that “life gets in between” is also a need for more people and more time to be able to organize more activities.  

Finances 

The Magnolia collective gets some money out of the cooperations they have or out of the workshops they offer. They do not receive funding from the city of Kortrijk, since they do not want to become a VZW. That would mean too much administrative work for them. For the “kaartershuisje” they need to pay a usage fee to the city of Kortrijk and recently they were asked to search for an energy provider. Since this got too expensive for them, they cannot offer so many activities to finance the usage fee and the energy costs, they decided to quit the use of the house in May 2023.  

Relation to the city of Kortrijk 

Their relation to the city of Kortrijk is ambiguous. They do not get funding from the city, but they are allowed to use the “kaartershuisje” for a usage fee. For painting this house, they also had restrictions, which they did not like, but they arranged themselves with them. But with the upcoming need of searching an energy provider, the administrative control got too much for them. The member stated that “the use of energy in that little building is next to nothing, but we have to go through all the hustle of administration and finding an energy provider”. 

But they are thankful that the city put effort in giving the people a safer feeling while staying in the Astridpark. Also, they are cooperating with the city of Kortrijk for projects. For “sinksen 2022” they hosted an activity with the theme of “The golden twenties' ' at the Houdmarkt in Kortrijk. Furthermore, they feel honoured that the city of Kortrijk has noticed a positive value in the statues they made together with the Kiwanis club. So they are open to anything, which has an added value for society as well.