Last week was our trip to the Verbeke Foundation in Belgium, five days of varying levels of physical comfort, hard work, and collaborative art-making. The trip was organized primarily by a Dutch student named Eveline, who was our contact person with Verbeke and suggested to the fine arts students at WdKA that we should go there to make work for a week. The idea was at first met with enthusiasm from at least 20 students, but as time passed and more planning was needed, other obligations got in the way and we ended up with ten students going on the trip. Both planning and attending the workweek was an inevitable process of getting to know one another in a unique way, and though for me it had many extreme highs and lows, it was something all of us were incredibly grateful to have experienced.
Planning Stages
As soon as I heard Eveline suggest the trip a couple months in advance I was filled with excitement and high expectations for the idea of "camping out" in an art exhibition space with greenhouses and outdoor space, making work with a small group of classmates, and most of all living together for a week. I am fascinated by the ways in which people organize themselves in a group in order to coexist on a day to day basis, providing for each other's needs and supporting one another- intentional community is a buzzword for me, and this was precisely the goal Eveline had in mind when we talked about how best to plan the workweek. Even the act of planning for the week in the months beforehand was a source of excitement and interest for me, since it felt so very similar to the work I have done on planning committee for Young Adult Friends retreats and working as a counselor at a summer camp. Not only did these things require a great deal of collaborative effort and individual responsibility, they also focused heavily on consensus as a group decision-making tactic, attention to the needs of the group as a whole, and the need to listen to and support each individual's voice. I saw the workweekand its planning stages as an opportunity to exercise these practices, and could not have been happier and more hopeful at this thought.
I was met with varying degrees of enthusiam about my many suggestions for ways to make decisions and plan together, some people getting excited about consensus or community-building activities and some not finding them as exciting or useful as I do. In the end there were so few of us attending the workweek that we did not need much structure to make decisions and get things done, though the process still felt a bit haphazard to me. The most important aspect of the workweek was always being intentional about everything we did as a community, which happened less than I expected but still enough to keep the ten of us on the same page. We met a few times to discuss logistical aspects; tents or no tents, who has extra sleeping bags, who will cook what, how will we get there, etc. Beatrice, one of my classmates who held particular interest in the idea of intentional community, gave each of us a worksheet on which to write what we thought we could give to the workweek and each other, and what we wanted to get out of the experience. I thought this was a great idea and a wonderful way to get conversation started for the more abstract planning and goal-setting for the week, though it didn't gain quite as much traction as we'd hoped. By the time we were ready to leave we had our tents packed and materials ready to go, but still no clear idea of a groupwide intent for the week. My sense from the group was that this would be decided when we arrived at Verbeke.
Arriving in Wonderland
The ten of us arrived by car, train, and bus in Kemzeke, Belgium, a small village near the Dutch border, in the evening on Sunday. We had two Dutch students, Eveline and Loe, Tea from Italy, Alex from Australia, Jess, Beatrice, Clare, and Mair from England, Marina from Canada, and myself the American. All of us female, an aspect which definitely influenced workweek and how we acted as a group, and something which was a bit disappointing to me at first but ended up adding an interesting element to the whole experience.
Walking around the grounds of Verbeke was a magical experience and I think we all regressed at least ten years in age as we ran through the winding grassy pathways, happening upon sculptures and installations with glee. My favorite was a house made all out of windows. There was a small pond in the middle of the grounds, lots of wooded areas and tall grass, all surrounding the large warehouse-museum and several expansive greenhouses filled with both gardens and recycled junk. The entire place had a topsy-turvy, unorganized feel to it, with piles of items indistinguishable as trash or art strewn amongst the gardens and museum exhibitions. It was clear that this was not a place that attempts to hide the way it runs or make anything look prettier than it is, and each of us fell in love with it immediately.
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| Horses made of mud and wire |
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| The Dome |
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| A live sculpture of trees and branches |
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| Guests can stay in the Anus House! |
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| Junk or art? |
After everyone had arrived we were greeted by a welcoming hot dinner from Karla, the wife of Geert, the owner of the foundation. Geert then gave us a proper tour of Verbeke, explaining his love for "living dead" things in the museum's collections, as well as his huge collection of collage works of all kinds filling one entire building, and then the many works and works-in-progress to be found in the greenhouses and throughout the grounds. Much of the work had a focus in bioart, had a utilitarian aspect, or took into account its natural surroundings, which I found fascinating. Geert himself was a fascinating person to meet, having started a shipping business and then deciding he would rather collect art and create a free space for artists, so he sold the business and started Verbeke. When he dies he wants to have his body donated to an artist who makes work with corpses. Wow.
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| This cow's been dead for decades. |
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| Beehive |
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| Dead stuffed cows in the dining hall |
Since Belgium in April can still get pretty chilly at night, we didn't set up our tents in the greenhouses as expected but instead laid our sleeping bags on a large table at the back of the dining hall. Everything at Verbeke is outdoors or in an uninsulated, unheated warehouse however, so most of us didn't get much sleep the first night, shivering and wearing all of the clothes we brought at once. Thankfully we were given extra sleeping bags for the rest of the week. Despite this much of the week felt like a constant battle with the cold, even for me and the Canadian. Our favorite spot at Verbeke was next to a large, old-fashioned wood stove (which was recycled from an old ship!) in the dining hall which we would happily keep fed and warm.
We met some of the other volunteers / artists that work at Verbeke in the first day or two. There were four or five full-time volunteer-artists who live there, working two or three days a week in the greenhouses or for upkeep, and working on their own creative projects the rest of the week. They all seemed to be friends and ate their meals together with Geert, his wife and the few other employees that were keeping the place running. They mostly did their own thing for the week but were very friendly to us and gave us a lot of insight on what it would be like to live at Verbeke.
Workin' Hard
Monday morning we rose groggy but ready to start a day of work. We had an agreement with Geert that we would work Monday and Tuesday from 9 to 5 helping to keep the foundation running, cleaning, gardening, and doing odd jobs, in exchange for living and making art in the space for free. Monday was spent with some of us washing some dusty old library shelves- hundreds of them, ten rows and two levels, with soapy water and rags so that we felt a bit like singing "Hard Knock Life". Some of us carted wheelbarrows full of soil and plants around the grounds and greenhouses, enjoying the sun, and some spent time cleaning and sanding a series of large metal sculptures outside in order to paint a few of them red. Tuesday was spent almost exclusively with all of us working on these sculptures, and by the end of the day I had raw, red hands and quite a bit of red paint in my hair. We were given bright blue jumpsuits and smocks to wear while painting the rusty white sculpures red, which resulted in a striking image with the ten of us perched on various bits of the tall structures, paintbrushes in hand. We were told that Geert would ask the artist if he liked the new color of a few of the sculptures, and if not, they would be painted white again. We certainly hoped he would like the red, we worked hard on those damn things.
(better photos to come)
THE FOOD
One of the things I was most excited for during the week was everyone cooking for each other. The ten of us ate our meals together every day, though usually separate from the other people of Verbeke. Breakfast and lunch were very Dutch- they consisted of a lot of bread with assorted toppings: butter, peanut butter, cheese, jam, and hagel slag. Hagel slag (try pronouncing that- the g's make a gutteral 'hgh' sound) is basically chocolate sprinkles, but the Dutch eat them on bread with butter, usually with breakfast. I will never understand the Dutch approach to nutrition.
Dinner however was a completely different story. Each night a different group of two or three of us would start cooking early, with a certain meal planned. I was astounded at our collaborative cooking skills and each night we feasted until we could feast no more. We had a vegetable curry with rice, an amazing Aztec soup with tortilla chips and yogurt-cucumber topping, roast vegetables with feta and cous cous, pancakes (crepes) for a special lunch one day, and for the final night I made lentils stewed in red wine and tomatoes, which we had with roast potatoes with garlic yogurt dip and salad picked fresh from the gardens. That last night was the best- we invited all of the Verbeke folks, as well as our teacher Tine, to eat with us and we filled two tables with food, wine and beer and had a great time together. I was particularly proud of myself for cooking a stew for twenty people. It was a really nice way to end our stay at Verbeke and thank everyone for hosting us, as well as get to know the volunteers a bit better.
Playing, Collaborating, and Sunbathing
After 5pm on Tuesday we were free from our volunteering responsibilities and could start working on our creative projects. By this time we still did not have a clear idea of a project to work on as a group, and some of us were not even sure what we wanted to do individually. My main idea was to take advantage of the workweek as a time to practice playing camp games and doing community-building acivities in another setting, with the ten of us as a group of peers living together. During the day on Wednesday I roamed around in the tall grass and played with braiding and knotting it together in circular patterns, which was marginally successful but did not hold my attention for long. My lack of attention span was something which annoyed me most of the week as I tried to get invested in creative work but couldn't seem to put my heart in it. At the end of the week however it was the overall experience of being at Verbeke that was important, and not so much the work we produced in two days.
Tuesday night found us giddy and giggly, possibly from exhaustion and gladness to be done doing tedious tasks. After dinner we roamed the grounds in the chilly night under a full moon, and sat in a circle on the ground in the big wooden dome which has a hole in the top opening to the sky. The situation begged for silly campy games and Marina beat me to it, as she suggested we play a clapping-singing game, and then I suggested some rounds to sing which fell flat. We then tried and failed to find even one song we all knew- something which revealed just how international the group was. It was too dark to play Honey I Love You (Please Give Me a Smile), so we did a group circle-sit, howled at the moon a bit, and laughed plenty. In hindsight, we should have played the Ha Ha game (everyone laughing with a head on another's belly). I went to bed thinking hard about the way different groups of people work and how receptive they are to different activities, and when it's the right moment to suggest something silly or serious. I spent a lot of the Verbeke week thinking about how to differentiate that particular community from my camp and Quaker communities and still valuing each one.
After talking on Wednesday we decided that for a collaborative project some of us would take as much rope and string-like recycled material as we could find and knit, crochet, knot, and weave a structure to hang from an empty shipping container which sat atop another one outside. We saw the idea as indicative of how we viewed Verbeke- made of industrial materials but existing in nature, and by using craft processes we put our own hand in it. We searched through the cavernous warehouses filled with years of junk, and found electrical wire, heavy rope, nylon twine, fish net, and other things we deemed craftable. We then laid two long pieces of rope out on the lawn as a frame and set to work making pieces to fill it in. I crocheted the fish net and rope, which made me feel like a sailor crafting with something so heavy. Eveline knitted purple electrical wire and then used what looked like two broomsticks to knit some heavy rope, and Loe, Clare and Mair wove and knotted more materials until we had enough to fill the space between the container and the ground. Meanwhile Marina, Jess, Beatrice and Tea worked on their individual projects nearby, and it was lovely to be out working together in the sun, sitting on the grass listening to music and taking unnecessarily long tea and biscuit breaks. At this point it felt more like a vacation week than a work week.
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| My fish net and rope contribution |
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| Workin' hard or hardly workin'? |
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| Mair being fabulous |
We spent Friday morning putting the finishing touches on our collaborative piece until it was ready to install, then we lugged it over to the shipping containers and hung it by the two pieces of rope and hooks. It looked both like a ladder with which to climb into the container, and a load of junk material spilling out from it onto the ground. We were glad to have left something of ourselves there at Verbeke, and I was curious to see how the piece would blend into the landscape- maybe grass or vines would start growing up the structure like a trellis, eventually linking the ground to the opening of the container. We didn't name it, and I'm not sure how long it will be allowed to stay where it is at Verbeke, but I am hoping at some point the ten of us will be able to present the work to our classmates and teachers to critique it. However in the end it was the collaboration and working together with craft processes that was just as important, if not more, than the end product, which I think could very well be our mantra for the entire workweek.
Beatrice's piece, a large donut-shaped seating arrangement made of hand-sewn bright orange tarp material and recycled cushions found at Verbeke. She left her piece in one of the greenhouses.
Tea's piece, made with a wood frame and white synthetic material in conjunction with the landscape:
Let's Play A Game! My Verbeke Mantra
My favorite part of our stay at Verbeke was when all our work was done, we had eaten dinner, and we spent the rest of the night chatting by the woodstove. Usually this did not last too long as we ate dinner late and were always very tired, going to bed before midnight. On Wednesday night we ate smores (to my particular American delight) roasting them in the fire and sandwiching them between Belgian chocolate and tea biscuits. My camp counselor instinct kicked in as we were huddled quietly around the woodstove, sleepy and about to go to bed, and I suggested we play a game called Rose and Thorn, a common activity for cabins to do before bed at Friends Camp. I explained the rules: each person takes a turn to tell the rest their rose, which is their favorite or best part of the day, and their thorn, the worst part or something that troubled them. It's usually not a conversation starter but a way to value each person's voice and experiences briefly and give a little moment of reflective time before bed. Everyone participated and seemed to enjoy it, which made me so incredibly glad after feeling a bit disheartened about whether Verbeke was the right place to try all my crazy summer camp game ideas. I went to sleep happy to have heard about everyone's day, even though we had been together the whole time, but we all experienced it differently.
The next day, Thursday, I had another idea while we were outside working on our projects. We had been out there for quite a while, and I got the sense that people were getting a bit sick of what they were doing, or at least needed a break from being seriously focused on their work. I ran to get a bag of marshmallows and told everyone to stop what they were doing, we were going to play a game. Oh, Maggie's at it again. I told each person to hold out their hand palm up, arm outstretched, and placed a marshmallow on each palm, instructing them to not close their palm or bring their arm in. "This is your baby." The marshmallow. "Do not eat your baby. Do not let others eat your baby. You are to try to eat other people's babies. Go!" At first everyone was hesitant and confused but after I ran around with my mouth open trying to eat marshmallows out of others' hands, everyone got it and began running around, mouths agape, screaming and laughing at the ridiculousness of the scene. It all lasted five minutes until all the babies were eaten or on the ground, many mothers turning cannibalistic. It seemed silly, but playing Don't Eat My Baby was a well-needed break and reminder to have fun. While we worked on our "real" projects, I considered that game my best work for the day.
Thursday night we played Rose and Thorn again, and since it was our last night some of us reflected on the whole week in addition to the day. Many of us remarked at how well we had gotten to know each other and how glad of this we were, acknowledging the bonds I had hoped would form, that I was so familiar with in a camp and retreat setting. If you live with people for five days, work with them, cook for them and listen to their ups and downs, then you will inevitably feel closer to them, however intentional you are about it. I am used to far more intentionality in this case, but nevertheless hearing bits of fondness in everyone's messages made me feel satisfyingly warm and fuzzy.
Similar to when I had my classmates do camp activities called Wagon Wheel and a Jelly Roll during our group critique meeting, much of doing these things at Verbeke was gathering information about how each individual community works. At Verbeke we were a small group, we were all art students in our twenties, and were were all female-identifying. Each of these aspects made doing community-building activities harder or easier, more or less appropriate. For example, Rose and Thorn may have seemed too "cheesy" or touchy-feely if there had been males present (to generalize about how males have been socialized to not show emotion) or we all may have felt less comfortable opening up to talk about ourselves in a group of mixed genders (to generalize about how males and females are socialized to build trust within their own gender group). I have seen this happen successfully and it is even more transformational to build community outside of one's own gender-based comfort zone, which is why I was disappointed to not have any of our guy classmates join us. On the other hand, I wonder if as artists we are less relectant to be cheesy and touchy-feely because of our constant focus on being serious with our work- it is often considered detrimental for an artwork to be too sentimental, personal, or emotional, whether this is true or not. Is this a patriarchal or analytical element to the art world? Is this reluctance towards engaging socially, forming trust and emotional intelligence and showing vulnerability a more pervasive social phenomenon? I am beginning to observe the ways artists, young people, students and people of different nationalities interact in groups and what degree of closeness is acceptable, which can then inform my creative, socially engaged practice both in the art world and my other communities.
Always Welcome at Verbeke
Beyond whatever projects we completed, help we contributed, or community we built at Verbeke, we additionally came away with the knowledge that we would always be welcome back there to work whenever we wanted, for months or years at a time. This was a dream come true for many of us who are already wondering what we'll do post-graduation, and knowing that there is a place in Belgium with food and a bed where we can go and work for our keep is a very comforting thought. I have thought of much of the week as a way to get to know Verbeke, so that I can then think of projects that would fit well into Verbeke in the future. I am glad to have a place to go for nature-based projects or ones needing a lot of space or recycled resources, and also a common meeting place for all of my creative friends living all over the world. I could potentially start a collaborative project there between people from SVA in New York, and artists from London and the Netherlands, and I have already told every one of my creative friends that they would love it there. This is such a unique and valuable opportunity and I am eternally grateful for it, and for the chance to work with my peers for a week outside of school. Verbeke is heaven on earth for freewheeling, hardworking creatives, and this is only the beginning of my time there.
Foundation's website: http://www.verbekefoundation.com/en/
Message me if you have questions about Verbeke, what it's like to work there, or if you'd like to go there to do a project!
