nienke schoLts
100 day House
Veem House for Performance is one of my most important collaborating partners of the past years. Since November 2014, in close collaboration with artistic director Anne Breure, I have been an active contributor in our continued reflections and actions concerning what a house for performance should be in these times. Since they/we decided to manifest ourselves as the 100 Day House in the art policy period 2017-2020, I made Veem the subject of my research: stimulating and articulating this practice from within. This amendment to the business plan, was made in the fall of 2016 in order to allow Veem House for Performance to maintain its high standards despite restricted funding. In this way Veem will manifest itself in condensed form without compromising on quality. Far from offering a model or solution that allows us to forget the issues that brought the 100 days into existence in the first place, it rather is an attitude that points to these issues that urgently need addressing. By taking on this attitude, inevitably the way the organisation functions changes and gives space to an alternative practice of organising performing arts to develop slowly.
Photo impression of The 100 Day House #1
MOHA
MOHA project is another important collaboration partner within the Fluid Fundaments research project, and the second main case study. MOHA is the collective – or living organism as they say - of Alice Pons and Olivia Reschkofsky. They belong to the generation of artists that graduated in 2012 – the year of the cuts on art funding in the Netherlands – and immediately understood they had to work differently. With no invitations, no work offers and an empty agenda, they started to create there own conditions to work and used the space directly available to them; the street. Over the years they developed a hybrid practice that focuses on otherness and includes a super diverse community of people. They make works of art that address social and political manners in fresh and radical ways and often become so much more than art alone. I think longer lines with them, articulate their practice with them through interviews, I worked with them artistically on The Roof and currently also on Unfolding Routines in the Bijlmer Poort, in Amsterdam.
