Research clusters

Z33 is a house for contemporary art and design. Z33 organizes temporary exhibition projects both inside and outside our own house. The projects we develop come from a very specific vision on art and design. We do not believe in the old paradigms of art for art’s sake or design as a creator of products. The artworks, installations and projects we select are never just objects; they are thoughtful objects that contain critical visions, questions and reflections and offer pertinent statements about our current way of living.

In Z33 we believe that art and design play an important role as a constant instigator of debate, offering a much needed different perspective on things. The projects and artists we choose touch on specific societal issues but we never expect their ideas or proposals to be scientifically true, economically productive or politically correct; it is not consensus, but dissensus what we look for in art and design. Alternative visions, multiple voices, fluctuating meanings and interpretations provoke us to re-think certain issues with a fresh and open mindset, an openness that is triggered by the imaginary and poetic character of art and design.

Since 2013, Z33 has started to redefine its core mission as a project based exhibition maker, to a research-based institution. Our exhibitions have always been strongly research-based, looking into phenomena not only from the perspective of art or design but interlinking these views with theoretical, scientific and philosophical thought. Exhibition projects spread out over several years are constantly recapitulating or reconsidering themes, projects and artists of earlier exhibitions. In order to re-enforce and articulate some of these continuous strands of thought we started redefining our own institutional practice in terms of research clusters that will be explored throughout different projects and in different time frames.

Research Clusters

Studio Future concentrates on future thinking through different exhibition projects as well as online and offline publications. One of the starting exhibitions in this cluster The Machine: – Designing a new industrial revolution, focused on current trends that are drastically redefining the relations between producer, consumer and distributor, between local and global, between digital and physical; an exhibition that was soon to be followed by Design beyond production which featured a perhaps more pessimistic and certainly more critical note on this same thematic. Very closely related to the themes developed in Panorama – Konstantin Grcic, the group exhibition Atelier à Habiter, challenges designers and architects to face the challenges that lie before us and come up with new paradigms of thought for architecture, urban planning and domestic living. Following onward from this, Future fictions from the Present reflects on future thinking as a practice in itself and takes a critical look at who is formulating and predicting the future, and why, and what role artists and designers can play in this often dark world or future-making.

The Meta Studio cluster, considers the ongoing research Z33 has been doing on the role of the exhibition format and design as a motor for experience-based thinking, using the exhibition not as medium but as a toolbox. Throughout the years Z33 explored different formats and curatorial approaches where the exhibition becomes a performative, participatory or narrative experience that is activated through interaction with the public. (SuperStories, Design by Performance, The Grey Zone, All the Knives, Kris Verdonck, Sarah & Charles, The Wilde Things,…)

Studio Limburg collects the Z33 research on its regional role. Z33 is rooted in and involved with its regional context. Since 2009 we are developing a large art in public space programme in Belgian Limburg, the region Z33 is based in. Also the (possible) role of an institution as Z33 for its local artistic, social, economic context are discussed in this research cluster.