Future Hospitalities: peer-to-peer meeting for artist residencies in Brussels

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Future Hospitalities
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Future Hospitalities
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Globe Aroma

Future Hospitalities: peer-to-peer meeting for artist residencies in Brussels

We are exploring new forms of hospitality through cross-sectoral exchanges on 2 February 2023 in Brussels.

Peer-to-peer meeting organized by DutchCulture | TransArtists, NL and Kunstenpunt, BE (max. 30 participants)

It is not possible to register anymore since the maximum number of participants has been reached for this event.

Date: 2 February 2023
Time: 10.15 - 18.00 hrs
Language: English
Locations: Globe Aroma, Cinemaximiliaan, Doucheflux (Brussels, BE)
Transport from and to Amsterdam: By train (costs for the NL participants will be covered by DutchCulture | TransArtists)

Forced migration due to war, persecution, or crisis (climate, economy, etc.) is no longer an exception, rather a new reality. In the past year, we have seen how quickly artist-in-residence programs and the cultural sector, in general, can react and offer support to artists and cultural professionals who are forced to leave their countries. Residencies, cultural institutions, and creative professionals joined forces and provided an ad hoc first line of support. But the question remains: how can the cultural field be permanently open to professionals who are forced to move, regardless of their country of origin?

Future Hospitalities brings together professionals from the cultural and humanitarian field from Flanders and The Netherlands. DutchCulture | TransArtists and Kunstenpunt organise this peer-to-peer meeting for exploring new forms of offering hospitality and collaborating with different sectors, in and outside of the cultural field.

The programme will include working sessions for the participants on subjects such as protocol, access, policy and practice (the detailed program will be published beginning of January). The second half of the day will be held at Globe Aroma, in the morning we will visit Doucheflux, and Cinemaximiliaan.

You find the full program and list of participants in the booklet below (pdf).

After the summer, a follow-up public meeting will take place in Amsterdam.

For more information, contact [email protected].


Work sessions

1. First crisis response Lotte Geeven, DutchCulture | TransArtists

What happens first when a crisis breaks out? How do we organise ourselves? In this session, we look at examples of communication structures and role assignments in search of new strategies. Among other things, Lotte explains how she worked with a team during the fall of Kabul to get people out of the country and link requests for help.

2. Policy and practice Jelle Burggraaff, DutchCulture | TransArtists
The cultural community often responds to crises bottom-up – hosting colleagues via artist-in-residence programs, organising support via fundraising campaigns, creating visibility through exhibitions, discussions and performances. Concerning refugee work, there are professional organisations who act quickly. Governments also respond and wish to be advised, also by the cultural field, on what is needed. How can art communities, refugee workers, and governments interact, while assuming that bottom-up initiatives work in different timelines? Geopolitical agendas also play into policy actions. And as the crisis continues, the demand for help changes. How do we deal with this?

3. Navigating networks and match making Dirk De Wit, Kunstenpunt
With the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, questions arose from professionals and organisations fleeing or staying on the scene and, from the other side, suggestions of what to do for them. Formal and informal networks found each other around those questions during the past year: Residence programs offered accommodation, art institutions set up public programs for newcomers (M HKA), guest artists participated in organisations (Timelab), workplaces were found (Agalab), buddy schemes were set up, programs opened to applicants from Ukraine (JvEyck), etc. Can this supply and demand be made transparent and accessible to all? How can this become a permanent structure suitable for responding to any crisis? Can this be organised digitally (google form, e.g.), or is physical contact needed to ensure a good match?

4. Unlocking the cultural sector for newcomers An Vandermeulen, Globe Aroma (session 1), Jozefien Stevens and David 'Ramos' Joao, Fameus (session 2)
How do we build a welcome structure as a formal and informal network between various arts organisations, arts professionals, and (civic) platforms working around newcomers? organisations such as Globe Aroma, Cinemaximilian, Fameus, and others are committed to opening up the cultural sector in Brussels and the region to newcomers, offering workspace, their networks, and organising presentation moments. What are their current challenges, and what could be the next step? How can you develop a welcome structure within your city?

5. Embracing broken languages Dušica Dražić, wpZimmer
One of many requests in the mandatory integration processes is to learn a local language. However, it takes a long time until an accent that situates the speaker outside the hegemonic West is successfully suppressed. In other words, language proficiency makes one more “deserving” to become a local community member. Questions for this session: How can we create conditions in which cultural and linguistic diversity is considered when developing cultural activities and artistic research processes? How can we support artistic research practices that are also a tool for informal language learning? What gets lost in the absence of the mother tongue, and what poetics emerge when languages interfuse?

6. Career development in a new context Basel Adoum, artist
Artists and art professionals who arrive in a new country take their practice and knowledge into a new context: a different society, arts ecosystem, and valuation frameworks. For most, it feels like starting all over again. How can displacement become a transformative part of your history and practice without the stigma? How to further develop a career where past and present have their place?


Organizations we will visit in Brussels

Globe Aroma is an artistic work- and meeting place that offers space, time, and their network to artists and co-creators who experience specific challenges in pursuing their artistic practices due to their precarious citizenship status. Globe Aroma, therefore, builds in alliance with the Flemish, Brussels, and international cultural, educational, and migration sectors, a mental and infrastructural in-between space in which a community can create, discover and share art with a broad audience.

DoucheFLUX is a social and participative project to empower those living in precarious circumstances, whether they are homeless or living in poor housing, documented or otherwise. The DoucheFLUX day center offers shower cabins, a launderette, lockers – and an array of complementary services, encouraging social interaction and mutual respect. These basic yet essential services, activities, and training courses help restore energy, dignity, and self-esteem, underlining the mission of DoucheFLUX to deconstruct stereotypes around extreme poverty and spread the message that homelessness is a problem caused by failed policy and can be solved.

Cinemaximiliaan is a platform with and by newcomers in Belgium. The initiative started in an improvised camp at the Maximiliaan Park in Brussels with daily film screenings. Cinemaximiliaan quickly grew through the commitment of a vast network of volunteers, bringing films to remote asylum centers around Belgium and organizing encounters and debates in private homes and cultural venues. The project house in Molenbeek is the organization's heart and facilitates the production of short film projects.

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