Vrije Ruimte Festival, de Appel, in collaboration with Amsterdam Alternative – May 16, 2025

Last year we saw many art and cultural institutions get defunded by municipal and national funding bodies in the Netherlands. This has a trickle effect on art workers in the Netherlands and on what kind of institutional, artistic and curatorial practices are supported. How do political ideologies, particularly neoliberal tendencies, shape the allocation and design of art subsidies/ Does the pressure of neoliberal frameworks, commodify art and undermine its potential for genuine political dissent? How can art institutions and artists remain resilient and address structural precarity in the long term? How do we navigate our reliance on state funding under the current political order? How can we collectivise and share resources in light of a funding infrastructure that creates competition?

Quite a few voices from Platform BK in this conversation, as speakers: co-founder Jack Segbars, former co-directors Koen Bartijn and Sepp Eckenhaussen; and as respondents former co-director Harriet Rose Morley and current co-director Arthur Kneepkens.