The Aesthetic Experience

In 2019, the Evens Foundation launched a research and experimentation project to explore the conditions that enable a transformative aesthetic experience. It spans ancient, modern and contemporary creation, from the visual arts to music and sound.

Our aim was to look closely at the assumption, popular in the field of philanthropy, that an aesthetic experience and arts education contribute to social and cultural inclusion. This project, ultimately, seeks to experiment with creation of a common space for different publics to come together and share their symbolic worlds.

We have established partnerships with two major cultural institutions, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and a collaboration with Theatrum Mundi, a research centre founded by sociologist Richard Sennett. Three experimental projects, each with a specific focus and several overarching concerns, have been designed that could generate responses to our common questions.

To accompany these pilot projects, in February 2020, the Evens Foundation organised a seminar for the partners to reflect collectively on the challenges encountered during the experimentation, opening up the conversation to a few invited professionals, such as cultural anthropologist Jonas Tinius (Carmah Berlin), Collective Learning curator Jessy Koeiman (Kunstinstituut Melly, formerly known as Witte de With), sociologists Lionel Ochs and Astrid van Steen of Méthos. The event was hosted at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.

Museum in Dialoog/Musée en Dialogue

Museum in Dialogue is a joint initiative of the Evens Foundation and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, realised in partnership with FMDO vzw, to explore how art – and in particular the collections of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium – can be a factor for social cohesion in a super diverse society, and what this means for the more conventional art historical interpretation of the art works.

In the spring of 2020, we launched an open call for participants who would be interested to take part in exploring whether the museums and their collections could be a space for encounter.

Before the actual start of the process, we talked to each of them to explain the initiative and to explore expectations. Despite the pandemic, the group managed to gather four times in autumn and winter 2020, offline and online. Through a series of working sessions, accompanied by external facilitators, they have visited the museums and shared their reflections and ideas about how the institute, and the masterpieces it houses, can serve as a space for encounter and dialogue.

At the end of the first phase the group selected a couple of actions that are in the process of being implemented. One working group is currently preparing a podcast for visitors addressing the main question of the initiative, another group will share their experiences with other departments of the museum in order to raise awareness internally. In parallel, a joint publication is being prepared to share the insights and lessons we have collectively learnt throughout the process.

La Tablée

Launched in partnership with the Centre Pompidou, the project experiments with inclusive mediation practices by creating a device – a set of modular and mobile tables designed by architect Didier Faustino and hosted by a mixed team of museum educators and volunteers.

La Tablée is an invitation to sit, slow down, engage in a creative activity, recount an aesthetic experience, learn about art (or someone else’s experience of it) and question our ways of seeing. It creates a unique space where different audiences can share wider conversations and experience a deeper engagement with artworks and, more importantly, with each other.

In 2020, the modular structure at the centre of the La Tablée project was designed and built but due to the pandemic and the closure of cultural institutions, the experiments could not take place. The Centre Pompidou’s educational team has been working on the programme of activities, which will be implemented when the institution reopens.

Voi[e,x,s] Research Fellowship

At the core of this project is the creation of a new major sound art work, a collaboration between professional musicians and a group of residents – permanent and transient – of the Parisian La Chapelle neighbourhood. In partnership with the Theatrum Mundi, we have initiated a research fellowship and commissioned a study to explore how this shared aesthetic experience could emerge and enrich forms of togetherness.

One of the key objectives of this research is the development of a critical handbook aimed at a broad audience of practitioners, public authorities and citizens, showing how performance-making affects people’s relationship with each other and their environment.

The project, like many other experimental projects involving public workshops with residents, was largely disrupted during the lockdown. Only workshops with migrants at the Porte de la Chapelle could continue – a fortunate exception that makes it possible to work with populations in great precarity even in times of health crisis. Several interviews with migrants were conducted and filmed for research purposes. The project team was also able to work on the publication to be released in 2021.