U R ART Festival - A day for, by and with everyone!

The interactive U R ART festival will take place on 21 September on 7 locations in 5 European countries. This includes the Van Abbemuseum and that means an opportunity for everyone to discover the museum in a new way. Make sure to experience art through your body and join the various workshops, a multisensory tour or the renewed theatrical tour. This will also include a meme workshop, an interactive sound artwork, various pop-up activities and of course the short-term exhibition Eyewitnesses of Conflict, with work by artists like Goya, Beuys and Dumas. Children will also find plenty of things to do and discover. They can, for instance, create their own artwork in the Children’s Art Club. In between activities, you can listen to the museum choir or shop at the Digital Art Market by Wall Street Eindhoven. The day will conclude in a festive way with a DJ in the museum café. One thing is certain: you will never be able to see the museum the same way again.

U R Art takes place simultaneously in 5 European countries, at 7 locations. This project is part of the smARTplaces programme, in which Van Abbemuseum is a partner.

MULTISENSORY GUIDED TOUR (ENTRANCE HALL)
11.15 - 12.15
13.30 - 14.30

Are you curious how blind and visually impaired people experience the Van Abbemuseum? In a special multi-sensory experience, visitors will be involved with the collection in an interactive way: by using feeling reliefs, scent, music, 3D prints, poetry and original artwork! This goes much further than merely listening to a description of an object.

GUIDED TOUR EYEWITNESSES OF CONFLICT (ENTRANCE HALL)
11.15 - 12.15
13.30 - 14.30
16.30 - 17.30
18.30 - 19.30

During the festival, there will be a series of guided tours through the exhibition Eyewitnesses of Conflict: Goya, Beuys, Dumas. In this exhibition, you will discover how fourteen artists from three centuries of art history have translated war and conflict into 70 interesting and varied works of art.

THEATRICAL TOUR (ENTRANCE HALL)
11.15 - 12.00
13.30 - 14.30 with sign interpreter

An active family tour for real explorers. Loek, the small sign indicating your location in Google Maps, takes you through the internet, around the world. He loves art and now he wants to join you in the real world in the Van Abbemuseum. Are you going to help Loek to discover the art and the world around him?
In cooperation with: Theater in Context, Ingrid Duindam and Mirjam Veldhuijzen van Zanten. Actresses: Rebecca Schoolmeesters and Raisa Melo Fortes.

HIGH TECH HONEY TASTING (COLLECTION BUILDING, 1st FLOOR)
12.30 - 13.30
15.00 - 16.00

When you describe art, you generally use specific words. But how do you describe how something tastes? The makers of High Tech Honey are fascinated by bees: how they organise themselves and how important they are for our ecosystem. Because the bees use different flora each season, the honey will taste different every time. Come and taste for yourself during the High Tech Honey tasting during U R ART. The High Tech Honey stables started in 2014 as part of a communal garden on the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven.

CHILDREN’S ART CLUB (CLASSROOM)
13.00 - 16.00

Children can express themselves creatively in the Children’s Art Club. They will be inspired by the large and colorful sculpture ‘The Tick’ by Swedish artist Josefin Arnell, that is currently on show in the museum. The kids will be allowed to take their artwork home afterwards.

PRESENTATION CHILDREN’S BOOK (AUDITORIUM)
13.00 - 14.00
READING SESSIONS (AUDITORIUM)
15.00 - 15.30 with sign interpreter
16.00 - 16.30

The Dutch children’s book series Then & Here Eindhoven tells the history of Eindhoven in a series of exciting stories. In Anja Frieling’s latest book, the Van Abbemuseum is central to the plot. Discover this secret plot during the special (Dutch) book presentation and the reading sessions during the U R ART Festival.

WORKSHOP EXPERIENCE ART THROUGH YOUR BODY (ENTRANCE HALL)
14.00 - 15.30
16.00 - 17.30

During this workshop, you’ll learn to experience art through your body. Because how do you look at art? Does your experience differ when you are completely physically and mentally present in the museum? What happens to your experience when you rush into a museum or when you enter a museum when you’ve just meditated? Experience these differences during this workshop by Marieke Verberne. Experience with practising yoga is not a requirement, an open mind is.

OPEN ATELIER LIVING MUSEUM (COLLECTION BUILDING 1ST FLOOR)
13.00 - 18.00

The Living Museum is a place for creation and meeting. The artists of The Living Museum often have a background as a homeless person, or they are psychologically or otherwise vulnerable. But that’s not what defines them. They are also smart, or funny, or strong, or optimistic, and certainly driven and talented. Join them and experience their special look on the world. You are cordially invited to have a look and a chat in their studio in the Werksalon.

DIGITAL ART MARKET (OLD BUILDING, ROOM 9)
14.00 - 18.00

As part of the U R Art Festival, Wall Street is organizing The Digital Art Market; a practical and accessible research into the value of digital art and data. Artists and designers offer their disused digital files on this flea market. Because these days, we don’t only have clogged sheds and storage booths, but also full hard disks that can use some tidying up. And we should ask ourselves: is it art or should we throw it away?

WORKSHOP BLEND, BEHAVE, BELONG (COLLECTION BUILDING 2nd FLOOR)
12.00 - 13.30
18.30 - 19.00

The ‘Internationalocals’ (members of the Expat Spouses Initiative in Eindhoven) invite you to the workshop ‘Blend, Behave, Belong’. They investigate how people behave in groups and new environments, using the interactive works of art from the famous German artist Franz Erhard Walther. For these expat partners, it is sometimes difficult to get their new lives on track. The ESI helps them reinvent themselves.

GUIDED TOUR WOENSEL SUPERTOLL! (ENTRANCE HALL)
15.00 - 16.00

The ‘Woensel Supertoll!’ Project by the Eindhoven-based artist Tijs Rooijakkers was founded in 2013 when he invited rapper Fresku to draw and write texts on a large wooden wall. In the years after that, the work evolved: Rooijakkers transformed the planks into one giant wooden spinning top and then he asked residents from the Eindhoven neighborhood Woensel (led by design collective Tante Netty) to write down their ambitions and motivations on the shelves. That way, the work symbolises the variety of voices that the museum values so much.

CALL FOR ART & PERFORMANCE COLLECTION PIECES (STUDIO)
16.00 - 17.00

For the occasion of the U R ART Festival, the artwork Call for Art by Doreen Westphal was translated into all the languages of the European smARTplaces partners. During the festival, the choir will perform the work in all languages. Subsequently, they will also perform a few new collection pieces. These are composed in collaboration with three artists: Patricia Kaersenhout, Jacques van Erven and Yael Davids.

COMBI TOUR VETERAN (ENTRANCE HALL)
16.30 - 17.30
18.30 - 19.30

Tour of the exhibitions Eyewitnesses of Conflict, Occupied Eindhoven and the collection presentation with the common theme ‘75 years of freedom’. A museum tour guide and a veteran will help you to discover the various perspectives on freedom, imagined in various works of art that are now on show in the Van Abbemuseum. In co-operation with Foundation Veterans Brabant South East.

MEME WORKSHOP & GUIDED TOUR (LIBRARY)
16.30 - 18.00

Memes are more than funny pictures and videos that go viral on the internet: they show recognizable situations from our daily lives, but often they also reflect relevant contemporary problems and current events. A meme places an image in a new context, usually through the text that is superimposed on the picture. During U R ART, the students of the International School Eindhoven offer a special workshop, during which you a tour the museum and create memes yourself.

SHOWCASES & JAM SESSIONS (INTRODUCTION AREA)
17.00 - 19.00

Mind Body & Soul School of Art is a development track for unique talent when it comes to street and club dancing styles, intended for talented children and young people from all over the country. MBS School of Art is specialized in a free form of dance, called freestyle.

CATWALK OF THE CITY (COLLECTION BUILDING)
19.30 - 20.20

What dreams do Eindhoven-based people share? How do new residents, like expats, feel about this? Allow yourself to be surprised by the stories and dreams of the 40 participants of this Catwalk of the City. During the day, they will also walk through the museum. You can recognize them by their special t-shirt. Feel free to strike up a conversation and get to know some interesting Eindhoven people.

DJ AT THE MUSEUM CAFÉ
22.00 - 24.00

DJ Gijs will provide a festive conclusion to the day in the Karel I museum café. He’ll bring suitcases full of vinyl. Fun fact: when Gijs isn’t playing music during parties, he makes exhibitions in our museum with his colleagues from the technical service.

DU, GERÄUSCHMACHER! (OLD BUILDING ROOM 10)
CONTINUOUS

This is a participatory sound artwork that feels a bit like a workshop. It transforms you as a visitor into a creator that exhibits in the museum. During the day, the project will grow into a collection of sound objects, that you can experience in an interactive way.

EXHIBITION DIEWKE VAN DEN HEUVEL (OLD BUILDING ROOM 8)
CONTINUOUS

Admire various objects on colored pedestals in combination with a video artwork. Trigger your brain to look beyond your first impressions and listen to the stories of different Eindhoven residents.

22.00 MUSEUM CLOSES

24.00 MUSEUM CAFÉ CLOSES