About the Art Club Borgerhout

 

Starting from conversations in the neighborhood, Art Club Borgerhout is a pilot project in visual art & education, it is about making local youth's needs and talents visible and remunerating artists for their support during the Art Club Borgerhout sessions.

 

Young people have been hit hard by the corona measures, and much talent is lost. As an artist, Eline De Clercq set up this initiative to offer the practice and knowledge that can make unseen talent visible. The experiences of young locals are listened to, and in order to support the development of their talent, the sessions offer workshops by visual artists that have an interesting new, broad vision on contemporary art. It is not the intention to teach, but the club is an educational tool in self-organization. We work on self-confidence, gathering knowledge, broadening areas of interest and offering opportunities.

 

Tuesday evening sessions were open to everyone between 16 and 25 years old, and we mainly made drawings, first in charcoal, then pastels, but also with paints and spray cans. On small and large formats we made the works that were later on shown in the exhibition of Downtown Borgerhout. While we were drawing, we discussed art theory, art history, color theory, contemporary art concepts and technical knowledge. We made zines, totebags, drawings and sketches. We went to see the works of Marlene Dumas at Zeno X and to the artist studio's at Fameus.

 

Eline De Clercq organised the Art Club Borgerhout from July till October 2020, two months longer than planned but necessary because of the lockdowns, the Art Club Borgerhout was further continued by Machteld de Ryck and Claudino Gomes Semedo, and through an open call and their own network, several artists were invited to work on this project. They continue the Art Club Borgerhout from within 't Werkhuys vzw. 

Artists who are interested to participate in the Art Club Borgerhout are welcome to contact Machteld De Ryck at info@werkhuys.be