'De Collectieve Collectie' (‘The Collective Collection’) is a shared process involving bargaining for and interacting with objects. It engages the imagination in an exploration of our relationship to everyday objects. For this artistic research project, artist Kristof Van Gestel – in collaboration with visitors to Kunsthal Extra City and various working groups – is developing strategies and techniques for donating, describing, ordering, valuing, assembling, interpreting and adopting everyday objects. The chapel at Kunsthal Extra City will become a unique hub for the reuse and adoption of objects.

Want to join in?
There are a number of ways you can participate in this art project as a Kunsthal Extra City visitor: bring in your own object to the reception; sign up for one of the workshops; adopt one of the assemblages from the weggeefmarkt (‘giving-away market’) for your own collection.

Kristof Van Gestel (1976) lives and works in Antwerp. His practice consists of long-term projects involving various interlinked monuments and processes of co-creation, participation, publication, residency, distribution and reflection that all drive each other forward.

Since 2015, 'De Collectieve Collectie' has grown as an 'end-to-end’ collaborative project out of the Performing Objects collective (Enough Room for Space, Brussels). Since September 2019, the collective developed the project further during a residency in De Warande, Turnhout and with Erfgoed Noorderkempen. The collage books have since been further developed in the project 'Generaties Lijmen' of Museum Ghuislain, by residents of Albe vzw in Kapellen and in the social-artistic project De FactorY in Leuven. For the summer exhibition at Kunsthal Extra City, Kristof Van Gestel is working together with Atlas, De Steenhouwer, Wereldhelden/Zomerschool Antwerpen, Kras, De Zandberg, participating artists and visitors of Kunsthal Extra City. This project was co-organised and co-supported by Kunst in Zicht (Turnhout) and the District of Antwerp.

Your visit during COVID-19
To ensure everyone a pleasant and safe visit, during the COVID-19 pandemic we are limiting the number of visitors to our exhibition spaces. For this reason we ask that you reserve a timeslot beforehand. You can pick up your ticket when you arrive and pay at the reception desk.