Stuk Café

Description: 
MISSION STATEMENT

A place for encounters
STUK's core business is creating a public place for encounters involving art. A place where different views on the world can be tested. A place envisioned primarily from the arts and the artists. A place where there is room for risks. A place with an elaborate programme of dynamic, temporary activities and room for long-term projects. A place with an eye for evolutions in and across disciplines, as well as a continuing recognition and/or repositioning of a ‘past'.

A choice for artists
As an arts centre, STUK completes it decretive mission of following developments in the (inter)national arts production by means of creation, presentation, reflection and audience public recruitment. STUK's commitment to certain artists shows the focus on development-oriented, innovative art - with respect for the field of reference. In doing so, STUK never loses sight of the needs of the (Flemish) sector, nor the international perspective or the regional anchoring. But the most important criterion for STUK's choices is intrinsically subjective: STUK makes choices from a love for arts and artists. The house's and programmers' affinity with a maker's work is a basic condition for a long-term commitment and an effective encounter between artist, arts centre and audience.

Context and the thoroughly multi-disciplinary
STUK consciously models its working to the context, therefore choosing for a quantitative and qualitative form of full multi-disciplinarity. It not only organizes a working in dance, theatre, music, visual arts, media arts and film, but in doing so always keeps in mind the specific dynamics of each discipline. That context positions STUK as a unique arts centre in de province of Vlaams-Brabant, with a working? that is de facto supra-regional and initiating, because of the student population. After their studies, students usually leave for other regions. Since their first acquaintance with development-oriented arts often happened at STUK, our programme will have an impact on their viewing experience. The tendencies in the arts are another motivation for STUK to focus on so many disciplines: artists inspire each other and meet across disciplines. Furthermore, the arts practice is already a step ahead of this multi-disciplinarity, replacing it with a ‘multi-personality'-approach. Projects are built around ad hoc constellations of people who share certain affinities. Not the discipline is directive, so much as the personality. STUK's entire organization is aimed at facilitating these new tendencies to the utmost and combining them with a balanced, broad public recruitment.

The public
Concerning that public: STUK starts from the artists and tries to find a broad audience for them. Via several communication tools, entry levels and a wide framework, STUK involves the audience in diverging art experiences. STUK sees challenges in the extension of public participation and interculturality, but chooses for an answer from a strong, integral working, in a visible place in the city. After all, a meeting place for arts needs a balanced model for interaction between artist, arts centre and audience.

These starting points lead to STUK's primary reason for existence: a house of arts that is flexible enough to meet the demands of artists, across different disciplines, for a growing and interested audience, and this in an energetic and animated style of the house that bears witness of an open attitude and a broad field of interests. An arts centre in accordance to art itself.