Free Saturday Workshop #1: What comes to mind when I say…? by Jip van der Hek

FREE SATURDAY WORKSHOPS AT KUNSTINSTITUUT MELLY

EDUCATION & PARTICIPATION SPACE

Since the opening of our Education & Participation Space, Kunstinstituut Melly has become a vibrant place for workshops, lectures, and collective learning experiences. Every Saturday, we organize free workshops open to everyone, where creativity, connection, and personal expression are at the heart of the experience.

WORKSHOP SERIES - What comes to mind when I say…?

Kunstinstituut Melly will host in September 2026 a special workshop series led by Jip van der Hek.

In relation to the exhibition Draw Withdraw Redraw, during the workshops you can approach drawing as a way of leaving a trace and leaving space around the silhouette you have drawn. In collective drawing, this is a constant process of negotiation between the individual and the collective. Can we develop a visual language that does justice to the complexity of the city; a place where visibility and invisibility, the individual and the collective, humans and animals come together? How can we depict the multifaceted reality of the people in the city?

Together, we will create a large, site-specific textile work that documents the city at a specific time and place: a layered whole in which fragments of older layers remain visible and new meanings can emerge. The work becomes a space for multiple world-making: organising and disrupting things to question hegemonic structures and power relations.

Workshop #1 — What comes to mind when I say...?

You’ll be introduced to the theme and concept of ‘representation’ (Stuart Hall). We’ll compile a shared vocabulary and, through quick exercises, translate the words into images; we’ll then take more time for your first, personal drawings. The foundation for the silhouettes will be laid. What story does your chosen shape tell?