An art form in transition: the history and future of performance in Flanders and Brussels

This is not a comprehensive mapping, but a field sketch, an initial overview intended to provide insight. Seen from a Flemish perspective, it nonetheless aligns closely with a Western and Central European frame of reference.

Performance: An art form in its own right, or an umbrella concept?

Performance art is often live and unpredictable. It is consequently an art form that cannot easily be captured in a single definition. Artists use their bodies, actions and presence as their primary material. It can be improvised or experimental, written out in scripts and scores, involve professional artists or amateurs, or break the traditional fourth wall by engaging the audience. Performance art takes place at the intersection of art and life, and responds to the world around us. 

The history of performance art dates back to Futurism and the Dadaist cabarets of the early twentieth century. Nonetheless, such terms as Performance Art, Body Art, Happenings and Action Art are usually associated with historical performances from the 1970s. It was then that artists in certain parts of the world began to explicitly call themselves performance artists: think of Joseph Beuys, Lygia Clark, Marina Abramović, Chris Burden, Vito Acconci, Ana Mendieta, Helio Oiticica, Carolee Schneemann, Yoko Ono and Joan Jonas. In this sense, we can view that period as the beginning of performance art as a genre or movement. Although the designation was of course not used everywhere where live events were taking place, it was common in both the Central European and American contexts.

Historically, its emergence was often seen as a radical break with existing art forms. Artist Vito Acconci described it as a temporary phase in an artist’s oeuvre: ‘a moment that turns everything upside down, heralding a new era’.

As performance art evolved, so too did attempts to define it. In 2001, RoseLee Goldberg wrote that the history of the term shows that performance is a permissive genre, employed by artists who wish to explore the boundaries of a particular discipline in direct relation to an audience. In 2016, theorist Jonah Westerman noted that performance is not a medium, and never has been: ‘not something that can be a work of art, but rather a series of questions and concerns about how art relates to people and the wider social world’. In Performance in Contemporary Art, Catherine Wood opts for the following definition: ‘For artists in the 21st century, performance is not the free or indefinable space of interdisciplinarity that some myths surrounding the work suggest. It is often a way of testing the very framework of art and its protocols regarding the relationships between audience, artist and artwork.’

In the visual arts, the term ‘live art’ is often favoured. The adjective ‘performative’ is also gaining popularity, which brings us back to the linguistic and philosophical meaning of the word ‘performance’, whereby philosophers such as J.L. Austin, Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler referred to words that do not merely describe reality, but actually alter it.

Some artists resolutely reject the term and opt for the original discipline: ‘dance in the museum’, ‘choreographic exhibition’, or even ‘actions’ and ‘situations’. Others, such as artist Grace Schwindt, do not wish to place one discipline above another and therefore stick with ‘performance’ – an idea that resonates with a new generation of artists who are thinking less and less in terms of categories.

My performances always include sculpture, music, dance, costumes and sometimes lighting. If I called it a dance piece, the expectations would be within the set framework of reading, understanding and looking at dance. I would be misleading the audience, because it’s not dance – I merely use dance. 

Grace Schwindt (Van Langendonck 2025, 100)

Despite these nuances, the term continues to serve as an umbrella term for everything that does not take place on a stage, and even when it does, employs a visual and physical language. Rather than the definitions themselves, what is important is that it is the realisation that these are subjective, particularly when crossing disciplinary boundaries.

Historical overview in an international context (1970-2000)

Over the past three decades, immaterial art forms appear to have secured a permanent place within the visual arts scene: from local and international institutions to exhibitions, special events such as museum nights, as well as major art biennials, where these artists moreover regularly win awards. For instance, the work of Tino Sehgal, Anne Imhof, Carolee Schneemann, Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė en Lina Lapelytė have all been awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. At this year’s Biennale, alongside Miet Warlop, other performing artists will also be making their mark. They include Dries Verhoeven for the Dutch pavilion and Florentina Holzinger for Austria. Performance art is also making inroads into commercial art fairs.

From an international perspective, the year 2003 was a turning point, when Catherine Wood launched a performance programme at Tate Modern. RoseLee Goldberg’s first Performa Biennial in New York took place two years later, and a further five years on, New York’s MoMA organised Marina Abramović’s influential performance retrospective, The Artist is Present. In 2011, the Hayward Gallery in London presented Move: Choreographing You, an exhibition exploring the historical and contemporary relationships between visual art, dance and performance. 

This increased visibility and recognition also worked in the opposite direction. Alongside performances that appropriate the codes of the museum, theatre organisations and festivals are also paying attention to hybrid forms and interdisciplinarity: on the international stage, examples include Foreign Affairs by the Berliner Festspiele (2012-2016), the special formats at Impulstanz Wien and the Wiener Festwochen, Il tempo del Postino in Basel, Dance First Think Later in Geneva, or The Museum as Performance at the Serralves Museum in Portugal.

It seems as though theatricality is no longer infiltrating art, but art has gradually become theatrical.

(Eckersall and Ferdman. (ed.) 2021, 1)

Key figures in Flanders and Brussels

As Thomas Crombez, Ruben De Roo and Karel Vanhaesebrouck write, the story of the development of performance art in Flanders is every bit as elusive as its subject matter. Not only is it fragmentary and unstructured, but it also takes place outside the established circuits in unconventional venues and is often poorly documented. This is hardly surprising: as an artistic practice, performance art rooted itself more radically than ever before in the here and now, and little thought was given to archiving. This was also the case on an international level. 

In the 1970s, a network of small, often self-invented, experimental organisations and collectives emerged within the visual arts in Flanders. They operated in a new zone, between visual art and theatre. From a cultural and sociological perspective, they were more closely associated with various visual art movements, including Environmental Art, Conceptual Art, Happenings and Body Art. The examples in the list below are far from exhaustive, but they give an indication of just how numerous the venues were that explicitly incorporated performance art and experimental theatre into their activities.

• In Antwerp, we think of A379089, Ruimte Morguen, Ruimte Z, Club Moral, Vacuüm voor Nieuwe Dimensies, Happening News, Today’s Place, the King Kong Cultural Centre, Ercola, De Nieuwe Workshop, CET (Centre for Experimental Theatre) and the ICC (International Cultural Centre, formerly M HKA);
• In Brussels: Reportage and Galerie MTL, ERG Gallery, Galerie 20/27, Le Cube, Artistes Associés/Galerie 9, Théâtre 140 (1963), Plan K (1973), Beursschouwburg (Performance Art Festival 1978), the Kaaitheaterfestival and the Kunst- en Cultuurverbond;
• In East Flanders, we might mention Proka in Ghent (Promoters of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts) and New Reform in Aalst.

All of these organisations worked in the spirit of performance art and waged battle against the established art institutions. We highlight a number of key figures:

Hugo Roelandt (1950-2015)

Ria Pacquée (1954-…)

Jan Fabre (1958-…)

Danny Devos (1959-…)

Roger D’Hondt (1948-…)

The leap to performance art was also made in theatre and dance. Parisiana, by Eric De Volder, debuted in 1975 in the Zwarte Zaal of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. In 1979, the ensemble made its breakthrough when they performed at the Ancienne Belgique during the Kaaitheater Festival. For the No puedo mas solo (from the Vier Korte Dansen production, 1983), Marc Vanrunxt presented himself to the audience with white bandages wrapped around his head and legs. He barely ‘danced’, but hopped and shuffled about, fell over and was helped back to his feet by another dancer. 

In the late 1990s, both Leuven’s Klapstuk and Brussels’ Kaaitheater were pioneers in what came to be known as conceptual dance. The final edition of Klapstuk in 2003, STUK’s iconic dance festival, was curated by choreographer Jérôme Bel, with the performativity of objects as its central theme. From the 1990s onwards, French conceptual dance choreographers were regulars at the Kaaitheater, including Bel himself, as well as Xavier Le Roy and Boris Charmatz. They were criticised for not presenting dance, because there was little or no movement to be seen in their work; they were instead profoundly exploring the conditions and limitations of their media. These choreographers were also the first in the genre to attract the interest of museums.

In the 1980s and 1990s, our local performing arts scene experienced spectacular growth, and with it came numerous collaborations with other disciplines. At the time, performance art played barely any role at all in museums, a period in which the S.M.A.K. occupied a unique position. Jan Hoet and Bart De Baere regularly programmed performance works at what was then still known as the Ghent Museum of Contemporary Art. 

In 1977, Jan Hoet invited Josef Beuys for a lecture performance. Marina Abramović and Ulay followed in 1984, after which Abramović also celebrated her 50^th birthday at the museum. As recently as 1996, during her solo exhibition at the museum, she presented her Urgent Dance performance. With the Chambres d’Amis exhibition in 1986, Jan Hoet set a breakthrough precedent for S.M.A.K., exhibiting contemporary works of art by internationally renowned artists in private homes in Ghent. Luciano Fabro’s work, for example, is highly performative. This was followed in 1999 by Over the Edges, featuring, among other things, Emilio López Menchero’s De kreet van Tarzan (Tarzan’s Cry) and Thierry De Cordier’s Chantoir, a black stage that challenged visitors to actively participate. Another example dates from 1999, when to mark the museum’s opening, a boxing match took place between Jan Hoet and the American artist Dennis Bellone.

In the meantime, in 1994, Bart De Baere invited choreographer Meg Stuart to take part in  This is the Show and the Show is Many Things. Meg Stuart’s contribution can be described either as a ‘dance installation’, or as ten hours of uninterrupted presence. Around eighteen actions took place throughout the museum, performed by dancers, non-dancers, actors and visual artists.

Tino Sehgal’s restaging of Bruce Nauman’s Instead of Allowing Some Thing to Rise Up to Your Face Dancing Bruce and Dan and Other Things (2000) was also commissioned by S.M.A.K. It was his first museum work following his career as a dancer. Sehgal later became one of the best-known artists in this field, even giving the sale of his constructed Situations  –  a set of choreographed gestures and spoken instructions  –  a wholly immaterial character.

The revival of performance (2000-…)

In the first decade of the 21^st century, a number of (performance) festivals sprang up. By bringing together projects from a range of partners, they ensured greater visibility beyond the confines of traditional art venues. In its early years, Trouble, a festival in French-speaking Brussels founded in 2005, focused on body art. MOMENTUM – Platform for Performance Art (2005-2012), was a smaller-scale annual festival, also in Brussels, which drew inspiration from the visual arts. 

Here below, we discuss various initiatives that have focussed on the experimental nature of cross-disciplinary creations. 

Playground (2007-…)

Performatik, Brussels Biennial for Performance (2009-2019)

Kunstenfestivaldesarts

Beyond the Black Box

The Theater aan Zee festival in Ostend has also evolved from a focus on theatre to a more hybrid programme. Performances are still the exception. In 2022, Honoré d’O, in collaboration with the VUB, staged the Laetoli Amfitheater performance, featuring two yellow bulldozers on the beach. In Leuven, the STUK Centre for the Arts has been organising Artefact, as well as Playground, since 2003. It is a festival for art and new media that develops a multidisciplinary programme around an exhibition format. 

In addition to festivals, Flanders and Brussels also host countless exchanges in the context of special formats.

• In 2021 and 2024, WIELS organised INDISCIPLINE at the Grand Casino in Knokke-Heist, an event featuring performances and experimental interventions.
• In 2025, the third edition of De Nacht van de Verbeelding – a night filled with installations and performances – took place in collaboration with S.M.A.K., MSK and GUM.
• KAAP sets up one-off initiatives in collaboration with museums, including Mo(nu)ment with Mu.ZEE in 2020 (Ria Pacquée, Anyuta Wiazemsky Snauwaert), Mind the Artist with Musea Brugge in 2021 (Charlotte Bouckaert, Heike Langsdorf, David Bergé, Maika Garnica) and The Longest Day with Mu.ZEE in 2024. Through guided walks, they responded to the emerging trend of performative walking routes, both urban and rural. 
• Every year, 0090 organises a two-day festival called The Image Generator, situated at the intersection of visual art and live experiences, ranging from performance and sound to movement. The festival was launched in 2015 from the shared Antwerp venue of Platform 0090, Kunsthal Extra City, Lokaal 01 and Kunst/Werk. Today, the programme is supported by a renewed coalition of partners: Platform 0090, C-Takt, Kunsthal Extra City and SoAP.
• There have been several collaborations between the Middelheim Museum and De Singel, such as the Come Closer project in 2024, which explored the relationship between sculpture and performance art through installations and performances by some 25 artists.  

Collaboration and exchange

An ephemeral art form such as performance carries the risk of ad hoc production and presentation, with precarious working conditions, limited budgets and high workloads as potential consequences. In addition to structural embedding within organisations for development and production, European collaborations and networks can also ensure greater consistency. For example, the CORPUS network operated from 2012 to 2018 for the Playground festival. Bozar, too, is commissioning new performances for 2026 and 2027, with the support of the European Perform Inform Transform: Participatory Performance in Art Museums (PIT).  

The establishment of domestic and national networks drawing on expertise from various fields is also on the rise. The Coalition of Care is a network of eleven multidisciplinary cultural partners in Flanders and Brussels, which together offer opportunities for development and creation to new voices in the arts sector. At CC Strombeek, artist residencies are organised in collaboration with Jester in Genk and De School van Gaasbeek.

The production and presentation of performance

The initiatives listed below do not constitute a comprehensive ‘mapping’, but offer an initial overview.

Visual arts

S.M.A.K.

Kunsthal Ghent

NW Aalst

M HKA

Middelheimmuseum

WIELS

Bozar

The Centrale for contemporary art

CC Strombeek

Mu.ZEE

Commercial fairs and galleries

Performing arts

Beursschouwburg

Kaaitheater

De Singel

VIERNULVIER

CAMPO

NTGent

KAAP and BUDA

Development and education

In the last few years, a number of interesting organisations have emerged that regard the development of trans- and multidisciplinary practices as their core mission. Limburg, where opportunities for showcasing work are scarce, is notably represented in this field by C-Takt and Vonk.

• C-Takt is a platform for transdisciplinary arts and talent. This relatively young workshop has grown out of the need for a place where hybrid practices and transdisciplinary artists can develop in peace. Since 2017, C-Takt has received funding from the Transdisciplinary Committee – which, in response to the rising popularity of cross-disciplinary work, provided structural funding for the first time that year. Their pool of artists usually has a background in the performing arts, with a number of criteria applied: the work is transdisciplinary, engages with audiences in a different way, emerges across sectors, fits within ‘changing practices’, or pushes the boundaries of a discipline by excelling within it or by reinterpreting it. 
• Kunstplaats Vonk is an arts organisation that supports the development of visual and transdisciplinary performance artists. Their studios in Hasselt and Genk provide space for 25 visual artists, alongside four to six annual residency places for both national and international artists. They have also organised six editions of Performa, a platform for performances and visual installations.

In Antwerp, 0090 is a workshop and hub for research, residency, creation, production and presentation of transdisciplinary art, with a focus on interstices and hybridity. Morpho is also an artist-focused development organisation that sets up residencies and offers studios in Antwerp. They seek to foster cross-pollination between visual art and other practices that do not thrive as well in traditional organisations: from gardening and cooking to sound art and performance.

In Ghent, Kunstenplatform PLAN B supports artists across various disciplines in producing, presenting and reflecting on their artistic practice, in both urban and rural contexts; Cas-co is a studio and residency space in Leuven.

In Brussels, a vast number of working spaces, artist-run spaces and other grassroots initiatives are interdisciplinary in their approaches. We mention just a few, including Pianofabriek, Hiros, Caravan, Nadine, workspacebrussels, Volksroom, NICC, K.A.K (2013-2023), A Two Dogs Company, Level Five, Kanal Pompidou, and rile*books.

Education

As a discipline in its own right, performance art has only recently been included in the curricula of art academies and universities in Flanders and Brussels. KASK & Conservatorium in Ghent is the only higher education institution in Flanders to offer a degree programme with ‘performance’ in its title. Begun in the 2017-2018 academic year, it is a Bachelor of Fine Arts programme with Performance Art as its major medium. It is a fully-fledged, distinct programme with tutors from various disciplines, including theatre, dance, video, drawing and so on.

Most other advanced study programmes in theatre, dance or the visual arts also focus on the body, performance and/or interdisciplinarity. In French-speaking Brussels, ISAC specialises in choreography, performance and dance at the intersection with visual art. ERG and La Cambre are also interdisciplinary. The Master’s in Dance at AP University College/Antwerp Conservatory organises an Embodied Curating module in collaboration with Curatorial Studies at KASK & Conservatorium. On the other hand, since 2023, A.pass and HISK, schools where artistic interdisciplinary research was central, are no longer receiving government funding. 

Doctorates in the arts have recently gained more visibility through collaborations between universities and art institutions. For instance, Shervin Kianersi Haghighi produced Invisible Performances’ at S.M.A.K. for a year, and Ula Sickle was a guest at NW Aalst with A Choreographic Exhibition, a two-day live exhibition that also served as the presentation of her doctorate: a study into the exhibition of performance and the format of the live exhibition.

Opportunities and challenges for the future

Today, performance art has found its way into the entire field. It seems as though the multitude of small-scale initiatives from the 1970s resonates in a contemporary way. Brussels, in particular, has become a fertile breeding ground for artistic talent and thus continues to fulfil the pioneering role it has always played in the field of interdisciplinarity. As a multilingual capital, the city acts as a magnet for artists from home and abroad, who seem to find each other more easily here than elsewhere.

Room for experimentation and the role of the community lie at the heart of numerous bottom-up initiatives. Anal Pompidou and Villa Canapé are just two examples of this. Moreover, these organisations are often innovative in organisational and financial terms: in the absence of grants, they seek alternative forms of community involvement that go beyond mere financial contributions.

The prominent presence of performance art from Flanders at an international event such as the Venice Biennale is also a significant step. Not only for its potential audience reach – which is often difficult in this genre – but also for its recognition and interdisciplinarity.

The opening of KANAL, the new Brussels museum of modern and contemporary art, in autumn 2026 will also reshape the landscape of performance, both within the city and beyond. KANAL positions itself between the model of an arts centre (such as the Centre Pompidou) and that of an interdisciplinary museum (such as MoMA or Tate Modern). It is developing a hybrid approach: a museum at its core, embedded within a dynamic, multidisciplinary practice. The building encourages a non-traditional use of space, with exhibitions and performances spread across various locations. Notable is the structural integration of live arts – from performance, dance and theatre to spoken word and interdisciplinary projects – within the organisation. KANAL thus presents itself as a ‘living museum’ in the field that will offer new opportunities.

Building on this momentum, we look ahead to the opportunities and challenges for the future of the field.

Performance in relation to figurative art

Dance or performance in museums usually takes place within the context of contemporary art. Could it be that artists are wary of the risk of mimesis in relation to figurative art? Or is it the high insurance premiums for works of art that determine why performance often takes place in the empty spaces of a museum or in semi-public transitional spaces?

The danger of over-professionalisation and standardisation

In the autumn of 2025, Flanders Arts Institute organised a public discussion on the challenges of performance art in Flanders. This revealed, on the one hand, a great appreciation for the opportunities offered by the arts sector in Flanders and Brussels, but on the other hand also the poignant need to experiment without the pressure of producing and exhibiting.

Now that human bodies are increasingly populating museums and some museums are cleverly responding to their visitors’ need for new experiences, we must ask ourselves to what extent, within the context of major institutional frameworks, performance art can retain its ephemeral nature and its often critical stance. How can we counter the logic inherent to such institutional events? How do we present performances without a beginning or an end, or as chance encounters, without ticket sales? It is essential that we continue to search for new forms and methods of presentation that are free to play with the established codes of time and space, works of art, audiences and institutions.

Research, documentation and acquisition of performance art

Historical knowledge of performance art in Flanders is relatively limited. It is often assumed that the generation of the 1980s put performance art on the map, but this was preceded by a significant development in which the focus shifted from text to the body. This evolution culminated in the 1980s in what became known as the ‘Flemish wave’ within the performing arts.

To more clearly chart the history of performance art in Flanders, there is a need for improved accessibility and digitisation of existing and future archives. In addition to M HKA, CKV, Cemper, and meemoo, KANAL will also play a role in this process. Archives are often stored under poor conditions. It is a responsibility for the entire field, and especially the major institutions, to address archiving in a more structural fashion. 

S.M.A.K., M HKA, the Middelheim Museum and others have already purchased performance works, or physical works of art that are the result of performances. The Collection of the Flemish Community also recently made such an acquisition for the first time: Relay, by Ula Sickle, was purchased as a ‘sculpture’ that can only be exhibited when activated as a performance. This is an important first step in the inscription of performance into the art historical discourse, as well as an interesting and important exercise in describing the transfer of intangible art within the contract.

In the context of the visual arts, the documentation of performance works sometimes seems more important than the performance itself. Today, there are voices who wish to emphasise the more immaterial aspect of performance – as a reaction to the material in the visual arts, or the repetitive in theatre – not only at the moment of the performance itself, but also afterwards. Consider, for example, the work of Tino Sehgal, where even the sales process is immaterial. No one seems to question the importance of documentation, but during the panel discussions referred to above, the possibilities of non-visual documentation were taken into consideration. Could the collection of audience reactions and memories, for instance, become a new form of documentation in the current era of hyper-visibility?

The sharing of expertise and the importance of ‘translation’

There is a need for more time to experiment, without pressure to immediately produce and present results. At the same time, there is always the demand to waste less time: less talking ‘past’ one another and more talking ‘with’ each other. The intersection of different disciplines often proves rather problematic. Artists have been experimenting with forms of performance in the visual arts since the 1960s, but going to the theatre often still means sitting collectively in a fixed spot for a certain period of time to watch the staging of a chronological story. Conversely, performers still associate the visual arts with paintings on white walls.

When we look at performance from a visual perspective, we see differences that go well beyond the obvious spatial and temporal parameters. Consider the codes inherent in any particular space (theatre or museum), in a specific time (fixed or durational), or in a specific group (collective or individual experience). Visual artists working in theatre sometimes treat ‘dance’ or ‘theatre’ more as a ready-made, a given part of the media they work with: more as an idea than as a practice. Authorship is also a contentious issue: the creation of performance is a far more collective process in theatre than in the visual arts.

The education and the training that someone has had, and the way they look at art, influence how that person selects, creates or views art. Concepts take on different meanings depending on the context: when does a work of art become a prop in a decor, a programmer become a curator, or a dramaturg a production assistant? Moreover, when codes are toyed with, and it is no longer clear to which medium a work belongs, the framework – theatre, museum, the spectator’s own experience – often determines the meaning. An awareness of this is necessary at all levels of creation.

There is still a long way to go in clearly delineating the functions of development, production and presentation of performance art, particularly regarding financial distribution and transparency. Establishing networks with expertise from diverse fields and sharing good practices is essential. After all, the two worlds can also reinforce each other. Museums have always been more meticulous with the documentation of works of art, even when dealing with the ephemeral medium of performance. From a production perspective, theatres are better equipped in terms of remuneration and practical support for artists, co-production, and touring.

Grey zones

‘Should the building adapt to the artist, or the artist to the building?’ Jozef Wouters posed this question during his speech at the opening of the TheaterFestival 2025. The fact is that in Flanders and Brussels, institutions hosting performances are undergoing extensive renovations (consider the buildings of KANAL, Kaaitheater, Beursschouwburg, Mu.ZEE and S.M.A.K.). Will ‘Grey Zones’ (a term coined by art historian Claire Bishop) be the result, situated between the Black Boxes and the White Cubes? And indeed, is this what artists are looking for?

During the above-mentioned panel discussions, the necessity of rethinking public space became evident. We live in a time when public space is being restricted from all sides. Some performances from the 1970s could today lead to arrest or prosecution, and this is a trend throughout Europe and the Western world. How can art performances help us reclaim the public? And how can museums present themselves as public spaces?

Also noted was the need for other kinds of spaces, such as music festivals. HORST in Vilvoorde and similar venues offer an answer. Founded in 2014, HORST has since grown into an internationally renowned platform for groundbreaking electronic music with inventive in-situ art and interdisciplinary projects, including art performance. 

Performance as an attitude

When Catherine Wood was appointed Programme Director at Tate Modern, she wanted to integrate performance—in the broadest sense of the word—into the way the museum’s entire programme is curated, with performance as a way of working that goes beyond the medium, as an attitude that constantly draws attention to the boundaries of what art is and moreover transcends them. With ‘performance curators’ in new positions in Flanders and Brussels, and with a new ‘living museum’ on the horizon, this could become a very exciting attitude indeed.

Caring for performance

Historically, the term ‘curator’ originates from the visual arts and refers to someone who looks after museum collections and artworks. Performance is an art form that is, in essence, fragile – and must remain so. Yet even more care is needed, on financial (the distinction between production and presentation), technical (precarious freelance status) and human levels. Even though the system is generous, it is also cruel, as became clear during the panel discussion, amongst other things.

Although there is some support for artists who move between disciplines, significant bottlenecks remain. Working in different contexts (performing arts vs. visual arts) brings with it divergent expectations and challenges, which demand great flexibility and resilience from artists. Structural coordination between both fields remains necessary to sustainably support these hybrid practices.

Now that performance is becoming increasingly embedded in educational programmes, residency schemes and museum collections, and as we transform the monumental into the intangible, let us give this practice the human care it deserves.

This text was written by Katleen Van Langendonck, with thanks to Feiko Beckers, Hugo Bergs, Lore Boon, Pieter Boons, Elen Braga, Alice Ciresola, Thomas Crombez, Caroline Dumalin, Melat Gebeyaw Nigussie, Guy Gypens, Laura Herman, Ann Hoste, Eliel Jones, Carolina Maciel de França, Agnes Quackels, Ilse Roosens, Joshua Serafin, Christophe Slagmuylder, Anna Stoppa, Steven Vandervelden, Barbara Van Lindt, Bruno Verbergt, Merel Vercoutere, and Joanna Zielinska.

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