What's the point of institutions like the Rooseum?

It's tempting to say 'to offer hope, faith and charity in complicated times' but it's too glib. Some time ago it seemed that art institutions might find themselves constrained by the modifier 'art' and its popular meanings. Now, the term 'art' might be starting to describe that space in society for experimentation, questioning and discovery that religion, science and philosophy have occupied sporadically in former times. It has become an active space rather than one of passive observation. Therefore the institutions to foster it have to be part community centre, part laboratory and part academy, with less need for the established showroom function. They must also be political in a direct way, thinking through the consequences of our extreme free market policies. Secondary questions are whether individual institutions will have the courage to find their own balance in this mix or follow the old centre-periphery model and whether funders can be persuaded to drop the touristic justification for art institutions in favour of increasing creative thinking and intelligence(s) in society. These are the things we will try to deal with over the next five years.

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The first step is to reorientate the direction of the organisation through shifting the identity of the architecture of the old electricity works. The three levels will be separated in terms of function with studios and a project room upstairs, a main hall for large scale exhibitions and productions on the ground floor and an archive and microcinema downstairs. The 2001 programme will be provisional in as much as we will be learning practically how to use the building and develop an audience in the city and region. Now and in the future we want to keep flexible and dynamic, so the programme here is only part of our activities for the year. In total, there will be around 20 projects of different sorts, from talks and one night performances to studio residencies and major international exhibitions.