The Studio is over the moon with the news that our plans for 2021-2024 will receive generous funding from the FPK (Dutch Fund for Performing Arts) and the municipality of Utrecht. In our application Dries wrote the following: “I strive to ask hesitantly questions about our living environment with resources and places that have not yet proven themselves. In the art world right now, voices are in favor of clear position determination.Sometimes, the motto seems to be that the artist have to speak out when it comes to about moral and political issues. I want to swim against that movement. I believe that our thinking benefits from ambiguity, from gestures that complicate our thinking and suspend a firm opinion. The artist prefers not to function as a compass, but as a magnet that disrupts the compass.”

At the same time, the Studio regrets that a huge group of positively rated makers will not receive funding due to a lack of budget. The Studio aims to promote an art field in which many new and radical voices claim and receive a place. Plowing a large group of artists keeps the field fertile, it ensures that we never rest in what we already know and think we know. We therefore see the denial of support from the FPK for Lotte van den Berg and Urland and from the Municipality of Utrecht for Julian Hetzel as a major loss.