We look back on a very successful week in which we welcomed many visitors over the course of three days. Koen Kievits and Django van Ardennen photographed the Summer Gathering, while resident artist Maurice captured everything on video. At the bottom of this page you can view the photos and footage.

Day 1 | Sun Day
Artist collective Periphery Center kicked things off after workshops by Sunflower Soup and Hospitality Club, with a spoken word performance and a beautiful presentation of the printed work they produced with us in recent weeks. Curator Lenn Cox interviewed the artists during the opening about their residency period. The spicy Antillean solstice stew they had prepared was a perfect match for the occasion. After the performance, DJ Snobbie took over and treated us to great music.

Day 2 | Letter Day
The second Summer Gathering event began with a letter-stamping workshop by Sunflower Soup, during which our billboard was completely redesigned with new text and images. Many hands worked together to create a piece best described as “activist humorous visual poetry” in which—of course—cats played a central role. After the homemade “Letter Soup,” there was a presentation of the new issue of Zevenblad. Poets and artists read from or spoke—sometimes at great length—about the works featured in the magazine. It was an attentive, thoughtful gathering of the sort we’ve come to expect from Zevenblad. The evening continued long and gently, with the beer table set up outside.

Day 3 | Together Day
The final day of the Summer Gathering centered on a workshop developed by Periphery Center in collaboration with Brussels-based collective Girls Like Us. Participants read aloud together, held discussions, and screen-printed texts onto sweatpants. It was a well-attended afternoon with many new faces. This event, too, ended with a communal meal.

We’ve made beautiful memories and written another chapter in our four-year artistic and social experiment. This past January we began a program curated by Sunflower Soup and Lenn Cox, with Hospitality Club handling the educational component. Rotating teams of artists, poets, and publishers work in our studios for a season. At the solstice or equinox that follows, we celebrate these new additions with a program full of workshops, presentations, gatherings, and soup. The Autumn Gathering will take place around the weekend of 20 and 21 September.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

We are letting go of the traditional idea of an exhibition with a set beginning and endpoint. Instead, this year we are organizing ploegendiensten (residencies) of artists, writers, and collectives. Each season, activities culminate in a festive Gather Together, driven by artistic and social experiment.

Program curator Lenn Cox created Time Out/Tune In, a program focusing on time and the need to slow down. It examines the 'household' of Plaatsmaken and intersections are made with the 'households' of other makers and organizations. The Hospitality Club provides educational and public activities. You can learn more about Time Out/Tune In here.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS

Periphery Center is an emerging collective for artistic practice and shared study. Here, we center the margin as the main site for the production of a counter hegemonic discourse that is not just found in words but in habits of being and in the way one lives.* Here, we meet to inspire one another and co-create the reality we dream of through bookmaking, (graphic) design, publishing, curating, art and writing.

*bell hooks, “Marginality as site of resistance”

Girls Like Us is a queer feminist magazine made by and featuring an ever expanding community of queers from all sides of the spectrum within the arts, culture and activism. The magazine was founded by Jessica Gysel. It mixes politics with pleasure and maps collaborative routes toward a non-patriarchy. To actively build community, Girls Like Us also organizes events ranging from film screenings, exhibiti­ons, talks, workshops, presentations, pop-up shops, to parties. Katja Mater is involved as editor.

With thanks to Mondriaan Fonds and Gemeente Arnhem.