NEW DIRECTORS at WORM 2024

WORM, an alternative cultural institution at the forefront of experimental arts and interdisciplinary collaboration, proudly announces the appointment of Teun de Booij as Business Director and Charlien Adriaenssens as Artistic Director as of January 1 2024,

Teun de Booij brings extensive experience from his tenure at Rotterdam Volksuniversiteit and various projects in arts and culture. His expertise lies in cultivating management strategies, policy planning, and fostering inclusive, socially conscious work environments. 

Charlien Adriaenssens, an artist with a background in law and a career coordinating arts and performance programs, will spearhead WORM’s artistic direction. Her responsibilities encompass programming, nurturing innovative concepts, and amplifying the institution’s artistic profile globally. 

“I strongly believe that art offers new perspectives. Especially in a world where it’s increasingly hard to break out of your bubble, we need art in every form to surprise us with new thoughts, feelings, experiences. It helps us embrace and value the unfamiliar and I feel that’s something our society needs” – says Teun.

Previously, De Booij worked as a director for the Volsuniversiteit. Before that as a freelancer on many different projects combining education, arts and culture and city development. In these projects he has had leadership- as well as operational- positions. 

“A 1000 years ago, I played records at different venues and small festivals and had a DJ-residency in a jazzbar. When the pandemic hit, I picked up an old hobby like many and started DJ-ing again. I had only played jazz, funk and soul in the past and had an arrogant approach to playing and mixing electronic music: ‘I can do that’. Turned out: Of course I couldn’t. So now I’m taking baby steps up a slippery learning curve and learning a lot about new electronic music as an amateur.”

Why WORM?

Teun first stepped foot into WORM when it was still located in Delfshaven. Back then, the cultural landscape of Rotterdam was limited. There were only a handful of nice bars where you’d meet the same people over and over. At least, that’s what he thought… “Visiting WORM for the first time made me hear music I had never heard before, and introduced me to people and communities whom I had never seen or known about. WORM enhances much needed new perspectives by embracing ‘the unknown’ and seeing the value of experiment. I don’t mean to sound dramatic by using big words, but I very strongly believe we need networks and institutions like WORM to help us grow as individuals and build a better and more inclusive society. I’m really motivated to contribute to that.”

“WORM deservedly celebrates chaos and experiment and has therefore accumulated great knowledge, a huge network, a very involved staff, and is pioneering in so many different fields. Understandably WORM therefore has a challenge creating a structure or framework that works fór chaos and experiment instead of limiting it. I’m hoping to use my experience in constructing multiple year policies and setting organisational goals contributing to WORM’s mission together with Charlien and the rest of the team.”

1. Tea or coffee? Currently: Coffee
2. Punk concert or an evening in the opera? Guerilla punk inside the opera
3. What’s your secret indulgence? Wasabi Nuts from Albert Heijn
4. Gain a superpower – which one? To be able to heal anyone or anything. And flying. And time travelling. And not needing sleep, ever. And being able to turn invisible. You said five, right?

Charlien Adriaenssens studied law in Leuven (BE) And Image & amp; Language at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. She is an artist and used to coordinate programs at WORM. She started as a ‘manusje-van-alles’ (Dutch for someone who does a bit of everything). 

When WORM opened and needed someone to produce an art & performance program there. In the first year Charlien was hanging lights, renting out the space, inviting artists, making programmes, cleaning other peoples’ traces, building connections, participating in festivals… It was intense, but also a good way to get to know everyone, from the floor to the management. Year by year she grew more into programming, co-producing and building external relations with (DIY) organisations and institutions.

Her new role creates the opportunity to coordinate the programmers team as a whole, find ways to collaborate more, and build frameworks for bigger projects where external partners and WORM-programmers work together. Charlien will work less on ‘incidental’ programming, and more on the long run. But you will rarely find her behind a desk – she will still be running around, meeting people and imagining new projects (…and writing for funding to make it possible). 

Why WORM?

To work at WORM for Charlien is something “Inspiring, challenging, intense, wonderful, fast, sometimes stressful, sometimes generous, sometimes very proud of it, beautiful, weird, surprising, warm, critical, I often forget to eat so I’m always hungry. I am inspired by many people. First of all, most of my colleagues in WORM are artists, and every day they come with films, music, writers, thinkers,…that I never heard of before. ” 

One of the things Charlien would like to try at WORM is to create “a city-performance festival with art academy students, they’ll gather in WORM and have dialogues with different people from our city, and they will also go outside to observe and mix with everyday life. They’ll create new performances from the encounters they have and try them out on the street. WORM should be the safe base-camp, the discussion forum, while the street should be the stage.”

1. Give up desserts or give up wine? Wine
2. Night owl or early bird? Night owl!
3. Your artistic direction in a song?! Play simultaneously: “people have the power” (Patti Smith), “Good news for Women” (Gruppo di Pawlowski) and “yaz gazeteci yaz” (Selma Bagcan)
4. Sit next to anyone on a 12-hr train. Who would it be? My partner Louis van der Waal 🙂

These appointments signify WORM’s dedication to ensuring alignment between artistic goals and sustainable growth. The duo will collaborate to strengthen WORM’s position, nurturing partnerships with international cultural sectors, government entities, and educational institutions.