OPENBARE WERKEN

OPENBARE WERKEN (‘public works’) is a surprising journey of discovery in which artistic practices intertwine with the city, its periphery and its inhabitants. This third outing is a celebratory edition: we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of Voo?uit Arts Centre’s Stadsatelier! We invite you, together with local and international partners, to join us in blowing out the candles. 

Difficult times call for well-thought-out curatorial and organisational strategies. More than ever, there is a need for horizontality, shared leadership, co-creation and imagination. For this edition of OPENBARE WERKEN we put our heads together with a host of artists, colleagues and partners to come up with a challenging and diverse programme. In doing so we kept the values of transparency, reciprocity, sustainability and respect at the forefront of our minds. 

With this festival we are interested in exploring ‘the public’, in the sense of both the audience and the public space. We are guided by the following questions: 

How do we as artists form a community in the current societal context, which threatens to destroy any trace of a collective dynamic? In doing so, how do we involve the widest and most diverse possible audience?

How can we as artists reclaim pseudo-public spaces, and how do we turn our stages into public places of encounter, difference and protest?

How do we ensure that the arts sector itself becomes more inclusive and that all voices have their place in the broader public debate?

PROGRAMME

Take a look at the programme of OPENBARE WERKEN below! 

international assembly 

The third international assembly will also take place during the festival, within the framework of the European network BE PART (Art BEyond PARTicipation). This assembly focuses on artistic practices in close relation to the public (space): discover a cross-section of collective and participatory practices and engage in a dialogue on public issues. In a collective session, we will continue work on a protocol that focuses on the (re)distribution of power (policy, finance and work) between organisations, artists and communities within participatory art practices. We will also look at certain shared values within these practices (care, transparency and sustainability).

BE PART is a research project aimed at achieving a better understanding of the interrelatedness of power, politics, place and audience in the arts. It is a collaboration between Santarcangelo Festival (Santarcangelo, Italy), Voo?uit Arts Centre (Ghent, Belgium), Arts Admin (London, UK), Scottish Sculpture Workshop (Lumsden, Scotland), Kiasma (Helsinki, Finland), the Latvian Theatre Institute (Riga, Latvia), Festival de Marseille (Marseille, France), City of Women (Ljubljana, Slovenia), L’Art Rue/Dream City (Tunis, Tunisia) and Cork Midsummer Festival (Cork, Ireland). 

OPENBARE WERKEN is organized by: Kunstencentrum Voo?uit, de Koer, Manoeuvre, CAMPUS Atelier, Villa Voortman, Kunsthal Gent, Rest for the Wicked and CAMPO - with the support of: KASK School of Arts, LUCA School of Arts, Jong Gewei, Kunstenplatform PLAN B, Walpurgis, Trage Wegen, Boerderie/Hof te Nieuwenhove Zarlardinge and Design Fest Gent