There Will Be Light: An Open Conversation about Wealth Distribution

There Will Be Light is the new project by Studio Julian Hetzel to premiere at WEST Den Haag from 22 - 30 April. The project repurposes cultural money as a basic income given to one person for one year. A performance about the precarious economy of hope.

In the context of There Will Be Light, on April 28th, Studio Julian Hetzel i.c.w. WEST Den Haag organise an open conversation with Denise Harleman from Collectief Kapitaal, Evely Wan from Utrecht University and Joeri Oudshoorn from Timebank.cc to discuss some pressing questions around wealth distribution and Universal Basic Income. We welcome anyone to join and think with us.

Can we enact utopia here and now?

How to re-define work, how to re-think labour?

Is a philanthropic gesture an act of solidarity?

How can we overcome power dynamics?

How can we deconstruct the narrative surrounding poverty in the Netherlands?

The evening gives room for an in-depth conversation between audience, artists, experts from the arts, academia and everyday life. Let’s open up the discussion. Let’s gather, talk, and think together.

Read more about There Will Be Light at https://therewillbelight.com/

Get your tickets at: https://sideprogram_twbl.eventbrite.nl

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About the speakers:

Studio Julian Hetzel

Julian Hetzel works as performance maker, musician and visual artist. He develops works along the intersection of theatre, music and media that have a political dimension and a documentary approach. He is artistic director of Studio Julian Hetzel, an Utrecht based organisation that realises and produces his artistic work. Hetzels creations are produced internationally. His work has been presentend in more than 20 countries all around the world. In 2017 Hetzel received the VSCD-Mimeprijs for The Automated Sniper (by Frascati producties and ism & heit). In 2019 All Inclusive (by CAMPO and Ism & heit) was part of the official selection of the Nederlands Theaterfestival. SELF by Julian Hetzel was the national entry of the Netherlands at the Prague Quadrennial 2019. In August 2019 Hetzel presented three works at the Venice Biennale del Teatro. Julian Hetzel is associated artist at Kunstencentrum CAMPO Gent (BE). Since 2021 Studio Julian Hetzel receives structural funding from Fonds Podiumkunsten (FPK) and the City of Utrecht.

Denise Harleman, Collectief Kapitaal

Collectief Kapitaal started as a social-financial experiment on financial (in)security. The project started in the summer of 2021 when 100 people contributed €400 each to offer to five other people €1000 for eight months. Apart from the legal frameworks, no conditions are attached to the use of this income; it doesn't matter what choices are made, it's about the possibility of choices. By keeping track of how the experiment goes, Collective Capital not only tries to improve the living standards: in the long run it also wants to connect the knowledge gained from the process with the ‘system-world’. Collectief Kapitaal is an independent experiment, working together with partners, including: the Municipality of Amsterdam, Tolhuistuin, Nibud, Protestant Diaconie and Aanmelder.nl.

Evelyn Wan, Utrecht University

Dr. Evelyn Wan is Assistant Professor in Media, Arts, and Society at the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. She also conducted postdoctoral research at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society at Tilburg University. She graduated cum laude from her PhD programme with her dissertation, 'Clocked!: Time and Biopower in the Age of Algorithms', and was awarded a national dissertation prize by the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation in the Netherlands in 2019. Her work on the temporalities and politics of digital culture and algorithmic governance is interdisciplinary in nature, and straddles media and performance studies, gender and postcolonial theory, and legal and policy research. Her writings has appeared in International Journal of Communication, GPS: Global Performance Studies, Theatre Journal, and International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, amongst others.

Joeri Oudshoorn, Timebank.cc

Joeri Oudshoorn is a board member at Timebank.cc – a tool, accessible to all, to help, work and cooperate with each other. It allows exchanges with time-based transactions instead of conventional money, where one bank hour of time is exactly equal to one hour of work. Timebank.cc is an open platform that facilitates and encourages user-initiated projects in parallel economies. The services that are exchanged range from piano tuning to web application programming. The community has grown into an active network of over 900 users. Timebank.cc is the largest community currency in the Netherlands. It started in 2011 in The Hague as a venue for an e-flux artwork, in 2013 Timebank.cc became independent as a non-profit association. Since 2018 Timebank.cc collaborates intensively with a market for fresh vegetables and dry food Lekkernassûh. In the Lekkernassûh market Timebank hours are accepted to pay groceries, all people who work delivering vegetables, cashiers or communication equipment are valued in hours. Timebank.cc doesn't depend on subsidies from the state or the city council, this facilitates finding new paths without having an end goal in mind. A time bank has the power to change communities and go through this neoliberal world with a bit of flexibility. It's fun and one feels rich having more options than paying with the euro.

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Photography: Nosh Neneh