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Building Conversation chooses collectivity and, as of 2023, will continue as a platform
26-10-2022
After countless performative conversations in The Netherlands and abroad, inspiring collaborations and constant self-reflection, Building Conversation is undergoing a momentous change and will continue as a platform from 2023. With this transition, the organisation is making a radical choice for collectivity and participation.
Transition to a platform
The artistic team (Daan ‘t Sas, Peter Aers and Lotte van den Berg) of Building Conversation has opted for a new, more collective organisational structure in the form of a platform.
Ten years ago, Building Conversation – as part of Third Space Foundation – was created from the question what it means to participate; in a conversation, a work of art, a society. What does it take to realise true participation? With the transition from foundation to platform, Building Conversation takes the next step in this process by allowing the public to participate not only in the performances, but also in the way it is organised.
Artists Daan ‘t Sas and Peter Aers will shape Building Conversation’s new direction together with a group of dedicated artists, philosophers, researchers, and participants. Theatre maker Lotte van den Berg is stepping down to make way for new blood and greater diversity within the heart of the organisation. Separate from Building Conversation, in her own practice, she’ll be creating space for new work, focussing on research and teaching.
The future
The Performing Arts Fund NL considers the announced change of course too far-ranging and fundamental for it to sustain the subsidy support for Third Space/Building Conversation. Regrettably, our proposal to explore other, more collective forms of organisation and the possibility to continue our work as an a platform, together with the Performing Arts Fund NL, has not been met with a positive response. We regret that the Dutch structural funding system of the performing arts does not support this type of pilot, at a time when collectives and non-hierarchical organisational forms and practices are being celebrated throughout the arts sector, Despite the lack of structural funding, we move forward towards the future in full confidence of our plans and activities in the years ahead.
10 years of Building Conversation: the book
Building Conversation celebrates and shares the work they have developed by publishing the scripts of several performative conversations in book form, making them available to all. The book will be presented at a launch party at the Tolhuistuin in Amsterdam on Thursday 8 December.
