Platform Werkplaatsen and AiR Platform NL

Act and Connect: Platform Werkplaatsen is a joint venture between Dutch and Flemish workshops and labs for artists and designers.

Technical workshops, with and without artist-in-residence programs, lead the way in facilitating craft techniques for and by artists and designers. These workshops are consistently developing, reflecting the changes in daily art practice, thereby creating innovative applications of old and new techniques. Their function has also shifted, from knowledge centre to junction within knowledge networks. This has created unexpected connections between art, science, business and society.

Platform Werkplaatsen makes this development visible and examines the position and significance of workshops by organizing symposia and meetings.

Platform Werplaatsen is co-founded and supported by AiR Platform NL, platform for artist-in-residence programs in the Netherlands.

Platform Werkplaatsen is committed to

• Visibility to the extensive range of technical facilities, knowledge and expertise in the Netherlands and Flanders.
• Mutual cooperation and exchange of knowledge and experience.
• Promoting the importance and significance of artistic workshops, in connection with art education, science, business, and social institutions.

For whom?

• Workshops for professional makers to enable experiment and sharing of knowledge, across various techniques and disciplines.
• Arts professionals seeking facilities for the execution of projects.
• Partners looking to collaborate, such as art schools, universities, companies, social institutions, funding agencies and policy makers.

Organization

Platform Werkplaatsen operates as an informal network: a modular structure in which organized meetings, events and projects are accessible for colleagues from and across various fields.

Initiators

Kristien van den Oever, director AGA LAB, Amsterdam
Lex van Lith, director Beeldenstorm, Eindhoven
Sofie Dederen, director Frans Masereel Centrum, Kasterlee
Ranti Tjan, director Sundaymorning(at)ekwc, Oisterwijk
Heidi Vogels, coordinator AiR Platform NL, DutchCulture|TransArtists, Amsterdam

Development of the Platform

Platform Werkplaatsen was launched during the symposium TopGemaakt, 2-3 October 2014 at 'Textiel Museum' in Tilburg. On May 20, 2016 the website platformwerkplaatsen.nl was launched including a list of more than 20 technical workspaces in the Netherlands and Flanders at Grafische Werkplaats Den Haag. The formal launch of the platform was preceded with meetings and forums concerning the urgency to stress the significance of facilitating space and expertise for research and experiment, in anticipating of the needs of the workspaces and the current situation in the Dutch, Flamish (and international) art field. These series of meetings, starting from March 2012, were organized by AGA LAB (Amsterdam), Sundaymorning(at)ekwc (Den Bosch), Frans Masereel Centrum (Kasterlee), Beeldenstorm (Eindhoven) and AiR Platform NL (Amsterdam) and other technical workspaces in the Netherlands and Flanders (overview below).

Chronology to the start of the platform in 2014

02/10/14 TOPGEMAAKT symposium at Textiel Museum in Tilburg

A symposium of Best - Practice presentations, working groups and workshops about the new position of technical workspaces in the arts - and culural field. Initiated and organized by Sundaymorning(at)ekwc, AGA LAB, Beeldenstorm, AiR Platform NL in collaboration with Textiel Museum en Fontys.

21/03/13 Meeting at Buitenwerkplaats in Starnmeer and Foundation Vrij Glas in Zaandam

01/02/13 Meeting at EKWC Den Bosch

23/10/12 Exhibition, forum and expert meeting 'Show your colour' at DDW in Eindhoven

During the Dutch Design Week six technical workshops presented work of designers and artists using metal, paper, glass, film, ceramics and textiles, next to an expert meeting about the objectives, opportunities and the significance of workspaces. The meeting was moderared by Heidi Vogels, coordinator of AiR Platform NL and included: Hebe Verstappen, Audax Textielmuseum Textiellab (Tilburg), Lex van Lith, Beeldenstorm (Eindhoven), Sofie Dederen, Frans Masereel Centrum (Kasterlee), Lysette Jansen, Nationaal Glasmuseum (Leerdam), Ton Crone, Nederlands Instituut voor animatiefilm NIAF (Tilburg), Ranti Tjan, Sundaymorning(at)ekwc (Den Bosch), Olga Mink, Baltan Laboratories (Eindhoven) and artists Marinke van Zandwijk, Tim Breukers, Kiki van Eijk.

27/09/12 Transmitters: forum and expert meeting in Amsterdam

The public forum Transmitters, a model of art practise concerning technical workspaces as a tool and signifier in the public sphere, was part of the Boundless Project by AGA LAB. Moderated by Ranti Tjan, director of Sundaymorning(at)ekwc, participants included Marleen Stikker - De Waag (Amsterdam), Sofie Dederen - Frans Masereel Centrum (Kasterlee), Diana Krabbendam - The Beach (Amsterdam), philosopher Willem van Weelden (Amsterdam) and artists Stian Adlandsvik and Joeny Veldhuizen van Santen.

31/08/12 Meeting at Flacc in Genk (Be)    

Flacc is an artist-in-residence program, offering artists and designers the fascilities of different workshops (ceramics, wood, metal, medialab), assistance in logistics, connecting to (international) networks and communication. Topics of discussion: the role of workshops in direct relation to the development of the art field, the need to exchange experiences between technicians, and strategies for more visibility.

01/06/12 Meeting at EKWC in Den Bosch

Ekwc is a centre of expertise in ceramics, bringing together artists, equipped staff and fascilities to stimulate the cross-pollination between different diciplines in their artist-in-residence program and between analog and digital fabrication at their Fablab. The centre's recent decline of support by the Dutch Ministry of Culture, directed the discussion about ideas concerning profiling and expanding networks towards the private sector.

23/03/12 Meeting at AGA LAB in Amsterdam

This introduction meeting was joined by twelve different organizations from the Netherlands and Flanders with the aim to exchange ideas and expertise in relation to technical workshops and their position in the cultural field. The meeting prooved a useful inventory of each other's situation to set out the lines for a series of workmeetings to come.