Jubilee is a platform for artistic research, run by a group of artists and other researchers

What do you do?

Jubilee supports the artistic practices of Justin Bennett, Katya Ev, Ciel Grommen, Vincent Meessen, Hélène Meyer, Maximiliaan Royakkers, Stijn Van Dorpe, Filip Van Dingenen, Clémentine Vaultier and Vermeir & Heiremans, as well as those of Louise de Bethune and Jesse van Winden. They produce and present their work all over the world, while taking up the artistic leadership of Jubilee collectively.

The interests shared by Jubilee’s members form the basis for collective projects. Often questioning the socio-economic conditions of artistic practice, collective research projects are occasions to assemble other artists, researchers, institutions and professionals from different backgrounds around wicked problems through artistic practices. These include Caveat and Emptor on artists contracts and ownership relations in the arts, and earlier Value of our Love (2013), Haben und Brauchen (2014), The Cost of Wealth (2015). Throughout the years, Jubilee has equally developed different research tools: Tracks, a smartphone app for audiowalks, Caveat’s metadata network with a system of twofold keywords, and a new mapping tool for situated practices, Eavatea.

What have you learnt by doing what you do?

There’s a lack of support and space for research within the institutional landscape (institutions, governmental funding). It doesn’t surprise that it’s artist-run initiatives such as Jubilee who are taking up a leading role in helping this landscape evolve. Even if it’s slow, our continued presence on the field and our insistence on the importance of the recognition of artistic research as an important epistemological avenue is making a difference. I’m particularly thinking of our collective research trajectories Caveat and Emptor - reflecting and acting on the ecology of artistic practice. Caveat worked with custom-made and relational contracts to empower artists in their relationship with institutions and collectors. Emptor continues along the methodology and efforts of Caveat. It actively applies the practice-based approach to ’property’, a concept that highly defines the economy of visual arts.

Jubilee also engages with the social-economical conditions of artistic practice through a continuous sharing of our (embodied) knowledge during formal and informal exchanges.