The network was founded in 2020 to bring together Brussels artists and art workers, for meeting, exchanging information and knowledge transfer. Il was initiated by Jubilee’s curalor-coordinator Jesse van Winden and Rob Ritzen of Level Five when asking support from the Brussels Region for precarious art workers and organi-sations at the time of the corona pandemie. With other artist-run initiatives such as Hectolitre, SB34, Komplot, NICC, Sound Image Culture (SIC), Artist Commons and Gilbard a diverse group was created that has continued expanding ever since. They include collec-tive studios, spaces for presentation and groups, sometimes nomadic, for development, creation, reflec-tion or advocacy – and they more often than not combine some of these functions.

This interdisciplinary constellation, with an emphasis on visual arts, performance and audio-visual, each have their own network of artists and art workers. Brussels is pre-eminently an international centre for the arts where many artists and art workers relate rather pragmatically to the arts policies pursued by language communities - the Flemish and French-speaking politica! spheres that cannol really grasp the very diverse art community. The Network is there for all of them.

Until now, the Brussels Artist-run Network has been relatively invisible to the public. The network is constantly growing and is mediated through personal contact, a newsletter and a telegram group. Thus, it is working on issues and themes that are crucial for the first stakeholders, the artists and art workers themselves. Currently there is contact between 773 Brussels collectives, spaces and organizations, plus numerous artists and art workers on an individual basis.

This polymorphous group can be the beginning of a coalition to defend shared values: affordable and accessible space for work and presentation, defying real estate speculation, fighting againsl -isms and for solidarity, informing governments about the realities of working as an artist, press-ing on social policy making, etc.

Activities include thecmatic conversations with artists’ interventions, tours visiting 2 to 4 different spaces in a neighbourhood, informal 'hangout’ gatherings, and a newsletter to share public moments of self-organized initiatives - an agenda of sorts. All in English as a common language.