A network that brings together Brussels artists, art workers, and artist-run initiatives for community building and exchanging knowledge. The ‘BARN Core Team’ facilitates, working for a culture of solidarity and empowerment.

WORK IN PROGRESS

This website is still in development. Please note that this is a bottom-up initiative with very limited funding. If there are mistakes, please bear with us :) Would you like to contribute? Let us know by writing us an email on contact@brusselsartistrun.net

Want to be part of the Telegram group? Here’s a link. This is a community platform with 24 thematic ’topics’ (events, space for work, space to live, materials shops & tools, jobs, protest, etc). There are over 2000 users now, and it’s growing rapidly.

Have fun, on behalf of the ‘BARN Core Team’, Esth (Level Five), Mariana (Level Five), Jesse (Jubilee), Milan (Domesticity), Eszter (Artist Commons). Please join us if you like!

* JOIN US ON TELEGRAM *

The BARN Core Team facilitates a form of long-term research-through-practice across the entire body of the network, where collective intelligence is channeled iteratively through the circulation of knowledge, strategies and survival tactics of artist-run initiatives. We develop and refine productive forms of gathering, tools and knowledge and other collective proposals for work and reflection. Through our evolving network of connections and information, the BARN Core Team aims to function as infrastructure, creating time, space, and opportunities for artistic collectives to connect.

Community Building Practices

Events and Gatherings:
we organize biking and walking tours to visit artist-run spaces, international meetups with similar networks, informal dinners where we cook together and reflect on each other’s work, and hangout without any specific agenda.

Advocacy and Policy Related Practices

Artist Workspace Memorandum 2025-2030:
a call for the development of policy working space for artists in the city
Policy research:
local, national and European level policy research concerning artist-run spaces
Spaces for Spaces:
a series of conversations and artistic interventions working towards a ‘framework of competing values’ for space for artistic work in the city.

Knowledge Sharing Practices

Newsletter:
a monthly newsletter highlighting public moments from self-organized initiatives.
Telegram Group:
a space where members connect, share news, updates, and resources, and engage in discussions.
Website:
We continue working on this open-source platform as a soft mapping of the artist-run scene of Brussels, and a tool to share valuable resources.

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS

–– A soft inventory of Brussels’ artist-run initiatives: What do you do? How do you manage? What are your motivations? What resources you have (space, equipment, software, special skills, knowledge, contacts, etc)? What do need? What have you learnt? What do you not want to happen? What are your dreams?)

–– The development of adaptable methods for other informal networks, promoting collaboration and strengthening self-organization.

–– A policy research linked to the Artist Workspace Memorandum 2025-2030

–– The value of the artistic workplace. A series of public conversations with invited stakeholders and artist’s interventions,
working towards a framework of ´competing values´