MISSION STATEMENT
Arts Centre VIERNULVIER - an official Flemish Arts Institution since 2017 - is the beating heart of the arts neighbourhood in Ghent, together with the nearby Minard Schouwburg, Ghent’s city library De Krook and Capitole. 350,000 visitors pass through our doors each year for performance art, music, literature, theatre, debate and so much more. The VIERNULVIER Café, located in an impressive centenary monument, functions as an important meeting place in the city.
“VIERNULVIER is a central platform in a dense network of artists and organisations from a variety of sectors, informed and inspired by a turbulent world and an ever-evolving world of the arts. Maintaining a contemporary vision with respect to the future, Vooruit seeks to facilitate greater cross-pollination between the arts and the local and global communities. We serve both as a welcoming meeting place and as a lab for development, production, presentation, participation and reflection. We continue to build on our proud history of innovation and social engagement.”
VIERNULVIER AT DE VOORUIT
As an art institution, VIERNULVIER makes a distinction between its activities and De Vooruit, the location where it operates and where it receives its visitors. VIERNULVIER's programme is diverse in scope and spread across various locations in Ghent, as well as places further afield.
MAIN PILLARS
- Support: To offer support to local, national and international artists and (artistic, social, educational, …) organisations, while focusing on innovation and cultural diversity, both on and beyond the stages of our multifaceted and inspiring monument.
- Experiment: To be a platform for experiment, creation and transition, with a view to creating a varied, low-threshold artistic programme.
- Engage: To invest actively in facilitating engagement within the arts, our own organization and society at large, with the aim of creating a fairer, more sustainable and diverse society. This includes a far-reaching equal opportunities policy, in our programming as well as in our audiences and our internal operation, with extra focus on vulnerable groups in society.
- Connect: To connect artists, organisations, audiences and society, with our monument playing a key role thanks to its central location within the city and the region. In this way we create an inspiring place where our operations converge with those of many other players in and outside the city. We are an open house, where all are welcome.
- Reflect: To offer a free space for different opinions, worldviews and choices. To invest in knowledge sharing, expansion and (self-)reflection.
- Celebrate: To make time for optimism, collegiality and generosity. To be a place where there can be celebration – a place to be proud of.
POLICY PLAN 2023-27
ORGANIGRAM
“VIERNULVIER is not a model, however, but an attitude. The attitude of an arts institution that seeks to challenge both itself and the field of art, that seeks to attend to the interests of its artists, audience, volunteers and employees.”
VIERNULVIER is making the change to a horizontal organisational structure. The process is guided by a team that meets once a week. This team consists of a fixed core of twelve people, supplemented by all VIERNULVIER employees who wish to table an issue for discussion. VIERNULVIER's 92 (!) employees are organised into a coordination team, expert teams, realisation teams and future teams.
In this collaborative model, the focus is on roles in addition to functions. These roles change and adapt, such that everyone at VIERNULVIER can adopt a leading role. Together we develop plans and realise goals, but we rely on our own initiative as individuals. In this way the guidance and performance of duties add up to a whole, allowing the expertise and skills of each individual to be utilised to the full. Transparent internal communication is crucial in making this a workable model.
SUSTAINABILITY
Kunstencentrum VIERNULVIER was one of the first cultural organizations in Flanders to actively focus on sustainability and ecology, both artistically and on an organizational/productional level.
In the plans below you will find a clear overview of our achievements and you can see where we can still go the extra mile.
INTEGRITY POLICY & FAIR PRACTICE
ANTI-DISCRIMINATION POLICY
Solidarity is at the core of VIERNULVIER’s values. This value speaks not only to our history and programme, but also to our daily actions. Solidarity is expressed in the people of the majority listening to the experiences of people in the minority and working together to create spaces that are inclusive and equitable for all. For us to live by our values, we understand that stronger anti-discrimination policies are necessary.
YOUNG BOARD / YOUNG PANEL
For a number of years now, VIERNULVIER Arts Centre has been toying with the idea of establishing a young board of management that would operate both together with and independently of the existing board of management.
ANNUAL REPORTS
