During the evening program of the openingsweek of the Design Museum Gent, on Friday, October 9, artist collective Shif—t* invites you to a participatory screen printing session in 019.

Platforming Emese Veszely from our growing The Breadwinner Registry*, together we dive into the forgotten history of the napkin. In the history of the napkin, etiquette, survival and status intersect. It serves as a boundary between body and food, as a storage place for remnants, or as a knot around the neck that softly recalls the folk myth of the origin of the term 'to make ends meet.’


Come by and discover these stories, screen your own napkin or handkerchief with a unique design and take it home either as a souvenir, or a practical tool.

we hope to see you on the 9th of october, until then!

When ? Friday the 9th of october 2026, 18:00 – 20:00

Where ? 019 (Dok-Noord 5L, Gent)

Entry: free / voluntary contribution

*The Breadwinner Registry is an archive initiated by Shif—t* that brings together creators and thinkers who sign a kinship agreement for future, as-yet-undefined collaborations. As an open alternative to closed networks, it serves as a registry for finding one another, connecting, and dreaming together.

Since launching Breadwinnerº1 at Kunsthal Gent, we've let the registry rest and ferment for a bit. During the OFF SEASON* by 019 we organised Breadwinner°2, a playful 'speed-dating' format to meet the people behind the registry.

Throughout the afternoon and evening, visitors were invited to become part of the growing Breadwinner Registry through a tactile participatory activity, followed by a home-made buffet and tunes from DJ Pusjka.

*During 019’s summer break, artists and collectives used their project space to build, rehearse, print, cook, research, listen and share. Without a predetermined format or final outcome, 019 offered time and space for research, exchange and experimentation.

For this birthday edition, Jagers & Verzamelaars invited us to gather outdoors in Brussels to talk about a project we would like to discuss with their community. This edition explored how the artwork(er) is shaped by their material contexts.

Following the launch of our Breadwinner project earlier this year, we are taking this moment to reflect on open-call culture; its structural frustrations, unfair practices, and the ways we can reimagine it together. During the moderated discussion, we opened up these key questions with the audience: How can we meaningfully activate this network? How do we communicate a registration process that rejects traditional selection criteria? And how can we keep this space accessible for those who cannot join physical gatherings?

Find us in ELLE Magazine this summer, featured in a piece spotlighting diverse practices from different Belgian based grass-root initiatives.

Interview by Hinda Bluekens.

A screening program exploring queerness, feminism, and radical world-building. Centered around encounters and the beauty of works-in-progress, where unfinished processes and fluid identities claim their space. The screening was accompanied by a Q&A.

Anne Schoemaker | Kind van Het Onland
Kind van Het Onland travels back in time, to Het Onland, the marshy region where Anne's great-grandmother was born. Little grew there but reed and willow, and it was where families of little means once settled in caravans. Her great-grandmother left letters behind, memoirs of a life raising five children in a small house on wheels. Working from those quiet reflections, Anne turns the same attention onto her own path and asks which ghosts have been travelling with the family for a hundred years. Her camera is an eye that is slow to judge and wary of the obvious story.

Natalija Gucheva | In the Fold of the Self
In the Fold of the Self is a meditation on loss in three parts, tracing the death of a beloved dog. It takes small personal fragments and lets them ripple outward, so that grief becomes less a wound to be sealed than a space to remember in, and to imagine a gentler goodbye.

Martyna Pekala | Lips Made of Petals
Lips Made of Petals follows a video game character on a quest to touch grass, so that they might be allowed back online. The idea comes from a real app that asks its users to photograph themselves touching grass before it will unblock their social media. Real footage meets animation in a feverish landscape, half real and half invented, and the film ends in a tulip field, that most polished image of the Netherlands. The tulip is not native to the country, though, and through it Martyna reflects on migration and on her own place as someone who arrived from elsewhere.

Helle Monne Huisman & Laura Smekens | Casting The Circle
Casting The Circle engaged the two artists in a dialogue—creating imagery that celebrates shared energy, inspiration, and a sense of belonging, with motifs of nature, elemental forces, and the archetype of the witch.

Seppe-Hazel Laeremans & Jordan Waever | Peaches, Plums and Pears
Peaches, Plums and Pears began as a text by Seppe-Hazel, written after a series of encounters on a cruising beach at the edge of Tallinn. Jordan answered that text with images, and the film that grew between them sets word and picture against one another, complicating its own telling and queering the way a story is allowed to unfold. Two chapters of the original writing are not in the film, but you can find them in the handout.

As part of the S.M.A.K. Beweegt program, Shif—t* held three public activations reclaiming the figure of the witch as a living, contemporary battlefield. Facing the institutional absence of queer voices and women artists (16.5%) in the S.M.A.K. collection, we sought to make these frayed edges of history visible.

Drawing from the archives of Fonds Suzan Daniel, we revisited the legacy of Ghent's 1970s collective Liever Heks (Rather Witch). We invited participants to bring personal materials and reactivate archival imagery alongside discussions on what witchcraft means today. Through screen printing, collage, and collective montage, individual contributions grew into a raw, polyphonic whole that celebrated the practices flourishing in the shadows.

Read further on the S.M.A.K. website.

Bre­ad­win­nerº1 started as a sta­ged event during our residency at Kunsthal Ghent in the spring of 2026. Fra­med like an open call or job vacan­cy, it invi­ted par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on whi­le reve­a­ling the per­for­ma­ti­ve ritu­als artists are expec­ted to adopt in order to survive. It mas­que­ra­ded as a soli­ci­ta­ti­on model to expo­se the imba­lan­ce bet­ween sup­ply and demand in the art field.

By exag­ge­ra­ting the­se trans­ac­ti­ons, the event showed how value is often extrac­ted from artists through visi­bi­li­ty and pro­mi­se rather than fair­ly exchan­ged. During the exhi­bi­ti­on, the work was pro­du­ced live: sub­mit­ted CVs and moti­va­ti­on let­ters were com­pi­led and pre­sen­ted, whi­le con­ver­sa­ti­ons with artists and cul­tu­ral wor­kers addressed ques­ti­ons of work, labour, and pre­ca­ri­ty in the cul­tu­ral field.

From this ten­si­on emer­ged a call to acti­on led by a col­lec­ti­ve of artists moving toward wor­king as a plat­form. Rather than repro­du­cing scar­ci­ty and com­pe­ti­ti­on, we pro­po­se a sha­red struc­tu­re root­ed in what peo­p­le alrea­dy car­ry together. Bre­ad­win­ner does not end at expo­su­re; it marks a shift toward buil­ding an alter­na­ti­ve held in common.

A temporary queer lobby in the heart of Ghent, hosted at BLANCO. For two weeks, the space functioned simultaneously as exhibition, meeting place, and open studio. Visitors were invited to drop in, linger, read, move, or simply exist alongside an evolving scenography.

The program unfolded through an extensive public program of performances, readings, film screenings, live music, DJs, and live printmaking. Highlights included intimate readings, “Table for Six” sessions, improvised sound sets, filmscreenings, a vitrine-stage concert, and a closing day of prints and pulses.

A special thanks to ...* for making our LOBBY so special:

1) DJ set by Hennie Imogen & Romane Parmentier (rotbrijn)

2) Filmmaker Anaïs Kabore (Touch Me With Your Eyes)

3) Graphic design by Marthe Huyse (Table for Six)

4) Reading on friendship by Lyra Oey & Emma Onghena

5) Theater maker by beaudine dermine (re: i hate to kiss like this)

6) Music by Mette Orla

7) Poetry reading & DJ set by Pusjka

8) Pillow talk by Celly Tubmaker & Nina Van denbempt (Softcore Production)

9) Performance by Adriana Joëlle Jochems (losing her, losing hair, losing loss)