S/ash Gallery is an exhibition space for fast changing presentations, small scale performance events, workshops and artists-in-residence. The former garage at Boomgaardsstraat 69 became WORM’s not-so-very-white cube, or “performance bar slash gallery”. In S/ash Gallery, WORM likes to host surprising and new art and, just like a car in that old garage, drive it out onto the streets of Rotterdam.
S/ash Gallery hosts forward-thinking visual projects, offers try-out space to art academy students and invites (international) residents to make work such as site-specific installations. The focus is on live interaction, and collaborations with local artists and WORM’s neighbours in the Cool district. S/ash Gallery shares space with The Performance Bar on Friday and Saturday nights. This makes S/ash the only night gallery in town! Thanks to our regular collaboration with The Comedy Gallery, S/ash becomes a space for laughter, too.
Facilities
S/ash Gallery is an open space measuring 7 metres wide and currently 11 metres deep from street to the Performance Bar border/curtain. (The depth is subject to change due to the installation of new toilets in Spring 2021.) There are two hanging walls. Specific lighting wishes and sound (up to 90 db maximum) can be arranged in advance. There is a toilet (see above). The space has an active alarm. Each resident or working artist will receive a key and instructions about the alarm from WORM Production.
You can hire out S/ash Gallery or pitch to be part of WORM’s regular events programme. Hiring costs are negotiable / There is a fixed hiring cost. Send your mail to a programmer whose brief best fits your vision. For questions regarding production and venue specs / floor plans, please mail Anka Pajor: anka [at] worm [dot] org
S/ash Gallery has no fixed curatorial practice. So propose something! We will explore the possibilities through conversation. But a tip: interaction, research and political playfulness is what S/ash Gallery looks out for. See the space as a studio for trials and errors and one that is expected to be open for public interaction. S/ash Gallery also favours dedicated workers and open communicators, not divas. We especially encourage collective projects!
History
S/ash Gallery was always meant to be a place for encounters. This was embodied in the Face To Face series (2018-19), which brought artists in contact with the spectators through practice-sharing events, interviews and performative programmes such as: ‘Who Am I Becoming’ (Natalia Papaeva); ‘Cafe Disorient’ (Susanne Khalil Yusef); ‘Meet The Neighbours!’ (graduates from HKU, Rietveld, WDKA and KABK); ‘Talking Demons’ (Tommasso Buldini x I Love Degrado); ‘The Museum of Photocopies’ (Richard Foster) and ‘Congo Poker’ (Eddy Ekete).
Other recent events in S/ash Gallery (2018-20) looked to bring artists together, or show ignored or marginal artistic and socio-cultural experiences to a wider public. WORM can point to: ‘Facing the Red Light: Facts and Fictions of Sex Work’; ‘Peoples’ Collaborations (barbers and dj-podcast makers Ivan Winter and Donn Stone with various Rotterdam-based artists); ‘Jan van de Pavert x Lily Lanfermeijer x Jochem Baelus’; ‘Loui Meeuwissen x Driewieler Collectief x Tommy Ventevogel’. S/ash Gallery ran experimental series such as: ‘Kill Your Darlings’, where artists reflected on or reacted to their past work on the stuff (incl. Eothen Stearn, Rowan van As, Mette Sterre, Zoë Reddy, Marta Wörner, Raoni Saleh). Events are based around societal issues such as: ‘Pizza Cigars and Art’, celebrating feminist art and call for equal participation in public life for all humanity. Social and local collaborations include: HipHop In Je Smoel, MINT, Bcademie, Piet Zwart Institute and festival friends like Motel Mozaique, Tec Art, IFFR, etc.