Reinier Postma, 2/5, home blogger ArtEZ Business Centre

Keep busy

It’s six months ago now that I graduated from the Academy. At first, it felt like an endless summer break: going on holiday, no obligations, no deadlines, no pressure to perform, just freedom to enjoy doing nothing at all. By now, that feeling has gone. The relaxed holiday mood has morphed into a world of questions and worries. How do I make ends meet without student loans? How do I make the money I need to survive? How can I continue doing what I’ve trained to do, and earn a living in the process?

But I haven’t quite figured out how I can make a living doing so. If you’re a painter, you’ll earn a sum of money the moment your paintings are purchased. But my projects don’t tend to result in products that can be displayed above your sofa. Does that mean I have to depend on subsidies and grants, or might there be other ways to get financing for my projects?

I spoke to artist Domenique Himmelsbach de Vries after the recordings for his show ‘Kunst is lang’ [Art is long]. In this program, he tells us about his projects which he describes as ‘social-artistic engineering.’ His projects are often concerned with social impact. He mentioned the difficulty involved with getting subsidies for his work. Because I don’t have any experience with this, I decided to ask him for advice. His tip was to keep making work, even if it doesn’t initially pay anything. “It’s important to keep busy and to make sure people are aware of what you’re up to,” he said. By remaining visible in the public eye, he often gets people to ask him for lectures and presentations about his projects, for which he does receive compensation.

So that’s what I’m going to do for now: keep busy. I keep my costs low. I live in temporary anti-squat housing in Rotterdam South and bought a folding bike to save on travel costs. My low expenses allow me to get by with a part-time job for two days a week, and so I have enough time and energy left to invest in setting up my own business.

To ‘keep busy’ in a productive way, I’m currently building my workspace in an old industrial loft. Working at the kitchen table wasn’t inspiring to me and provided too many distractions. I hope this new workspace will enhance my productivity, inspire me and result in interesting collaborations with the other users of the loft. 

In my last blog I wrote about ‘Creative Tinkers’ and the social artistic projects I’ll be working on as a part of this collective. These projects will be starting in January. We’ll be looking for clients who face various social challenges and the members of Creative Tinkers will experiment in the field to develop ‘creative’ solutions. This way, we’ll work on a portfolio, collect new insights and build a movement.

I also wrote extensively about my graduation project ‘Alles voor de kunst!’ [Everything for art!]: the project with which I raised attention to our relationship to art in public space, using interventions centered on five public artworks in Enschede. In November, there was a debate about the future of art in public space at Motel Spatie in Arnhem and of course I was there! 

The debate reaffirmed my commitment to my graduation project and my decision not to restrict myself to public art in Enschede. After all, the project is called Everything for art! and not A little bit for art! The gathering in Motel Spatie gave me some new clarity on the future of art in public space. One thing I realized is that we have to ensure that people feel more ownership of public space and are prepared to take care of it together. I think that’s a great starting point for the continuation of my project. But to get started, I’ll need funding, so I’m going to apply for grants. That’s something I’ve never done before and something I didn’t learn at the Academy. Fortunately, I know people in my direct environment who can help me and I hope I can share some good news with you in my next blog.

Translation by: Witold van Ratingen