Instituting
Artists Circle is a colleague network from Amsterdam, by and for performance artists. On 3 September, they organised a panel conversation titled From Institutions to Instituting: Designing Alternative Ways of Organising Art Practices Together. BARN Core Team member Jesse van Winden was invited to the panel, representing Brussels Artist-Run Network. He wrote the following reflection.
Instituting: the agility to act freely, collectively, horizontally, pragmatically. Organizational forms without fixed forms, not rusted-stuck in vertical, top-down hierarchies, robotic executions of mandates, accumulations of power positions, ossification of expectations (which would be dark definitions of ‘the institution’).
I’ve participated in this conversation representing the Brussels Artist-Run Network knowing that the glorious freedom of spontaneous forms is something to defend, but also comes with a price: it’s hard to count on them. In the co-writing process of BARN’s Artist Workspace Memorandum this became painfully clear: artists who were numerous to voice their concerns, and enthusiastic over collective action during the moment when crisis became imaginative, subsequently largely receded and remained invisible when the actual work for it needed to be done. This should not come as a surprise, in a neoliberal society characterized by growth for few and precarity for many. Bottom-up instituting and precarity seem to form a cyclical relation that is both generative and destructive: precarity gives rise to collective actions of self-empowerment, but the instituting that can result from it will suffer from the limited endurance that is inherent to precarious economic conditions.
Rather than celebrating total freedom, I think ‘instituting’ should be about the ways we want to get organized. How to work horizontally (avoiding positions that abuse their power), collectively (harnessing and exponentially multiplying skills, knowledge and other resources) and independently (not waiting for approval by third parties such as theatres, museums/art centres, maybe even funding bodies) yet solidly?
If we want to be able to count on each other, we cannot just rely on friendship, fun and solidarity, we also and especially have to improve the conditions in which we work. A healthy ecology of the arts is maintained collectively, in reliable ways, and for that some level of organization and infrastructure is needed. This should be thought and practiced bottom-up, starting from the individual, through smaller formations, all the way up to larger institutions and policy making.
Answering to one of the questions in the communication about the panel – How can a horizontally organised group maintain its energy over time? – I said I think we could experiment with rotating the positions of the driving forces of our collectives/organisations/institutions to maintain and refresh energy, imagination and sustainability. This should be anticipated, because often when we think of this, it’s because it’s already too late. Just one idea. What else?
As Arthur Kneepkens of artist-run advocacy movement Platform BK said, it’s not about being against institutions (or even against becoming institutions, I’d add) it’s about thinking what we think institutions should be like and act like. For instance, I’ve proposed: they, especially larger institutions, should integrate artists and general audience in their teams. Not just in their boards, that’s mostly symbolic, I’m talking about co-ownership and decision-making and making public of public value.
‘Instituting’ the way I sometimes explain it: an institution implies being established top-down with a mandate of tasks/privileges within society. If we imagine ourselves and our role in the world/art scene, how would we describe those: our worlds, societies, art scenes and as an inverted political question, how do we imagine our roles as collectives and initiatives? In the wider context of our world today, what are the ambitions, tasks, privileges that we want to set for ourselves? What are the ways of working that fit these parameters as well as our practices and conditions? What do we need to arrange, then, realistically? Organising like this is not about about fixing things, but about acting on our own potential, collective intelligence and values, time and again.
Jesse van Winden, September 2026
Artists Circle’s foundational statement
We are a collective of artists, producers, and cultural workers based in Amsterdam. We believe the way we organise art determines what becomes possible.
In Amsterdam, most art organisations survive thanks to public funding. Artists rely on these structures to research, create, and live. In Summer 2024, the four-year subsidy results were announced. Two key organisations (Veem House for Performance & ICK Artist Space) supporting dance and performance lost their funding. Suddenly, many were left without a production house. Without continuity. Without support.
That’s when Artists Circle began. Somewhere between crisis and imagination. We came together to ask a shared question:
How can we collaboratively design a feasible and sustainable prototype for an independent, artist-driven structure for dance and performance makers in Amsterdam?
With the support of AFK, we launched a research trajectory to answer that question. Not to replicate old models but to try something different: more inclusive, collective, responsive, and sustainable.
We made a start. It’s an open process, and a collective responsibility. Somewhere between idealism, logistics, and many meetings ;)
We’ll keep you posted.
X X X
— Artists Circle
telegram
instagram
newsletter
Log in