Openbare Werken network day

Openbare Werken network day: a day of kinship

Prélude to the festival Openbare Werken, with offerings shaped from artistic practices of artists working around kinship and a presentation of Eavatea. At Hof ten Nieuwenhove, Zarlardinge
09/05/2025, 10-17h

On Friday 9 May, we meet at an old manor farm in Geraardsbergen among the trees and chickens for a networking day, or the prélude to the festival. Openbare Werken invite you to spend a day slowing down and connecting with our surroundings, each other and yourself. There are a number of offerings (ritual, conversation, workshop, walk, meal,…) shaped from artistic practices of artists working from/around kinship (including Isabel Burr Raty, Elien Ronse, Laura Palau, Asli Hatipoglu, Eline De Clercq, Jubilee, State of the Arts,…). Bring your colleagues and your hammock!

Eavatea
On this day, Jubilee presents Eavatea, a digital, online mapping tool for research-based, often in situ, nomadic, collective, ephemeral, interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary practices. The development of Eavatea is supported by Kunsthal’s Permanently Practising development program.

Openbare Werken
With Openbare Werken, art practices appear in places where you don’t always expect them. They embrace the margins, connect with what is already there and gently subvert the dominant currents of the city. The city festival draws attention to a range of unconventional makers. Like Mark Požlep with ‘Everything Under’, exploring what goes on under the waterline of Ghent’s waterways, or the artists of Midnight Marsh, who bring the wild marshes from the expanding periphery back to the city centre in the form of a big potluck, and Atlas of Ovens, taking us to hidden baking ovens in the city. During the festival, discover these and many other projects that question and engage with public space — with the marshes as the undercurrent and food and kinship as the common thread.

“Staying with the trouble means making (odd)kin; that is, we require each other in unexpected collaborations and combinations — between humans and non-humans — in hot compost piles. We become — with each other or not at all.”
Donna Harraway

Tot In De Stad
The festival Openbare Werken is a gathering of years of collaboration between the diverse partners from the Tot in de Stad! network. From common needs and similar challenges, all kinds of threads were woven with, and between each other. Through this network, many things were created together. In small projects as well as larger initiatives, knowledge was exchanged, expertise shared, artists supported and joy shared. Thus an exciting and enriching web of interdependence, care and critical friendship emerged over the years.

Tot in de Stad! is a collaboration between VIERNULVIER, de Koer, Kunsthal Gent, Manoeuvre, CAMPUSatelier, Jong Gewei, KASK & Conservatorium School of Arts and LUCA School of Arts. Together, they support artistic practices that consciously engage in dialogue with residents and the environment, working bottom-up from what is already there and questioning the city in all its complexity.

Practical

Interested in joining?
Please sign up
Pay What You Can: €15 — €20 — €30 (lunch incl.)

Location:
Hof ten Nieuwenhove
Zarlardinge

Language:
EN & NL