VZW Zonnelied, a service center for persons with disabilities, has housed in its facilities creative studios for residents and daycare workers for several decades. In addition to building its own collection of the visual work produced there, vzw Zonnelied also regularly organizes exhibitions of that collection. For example, on the occasion of its 40th anniversary in 2021, a retrospective exhibition was organized in Community Center De Markten in Brussels. Work from Zonnelied's collection is regularly exhibited in museums at home and abroad and is included in private collections.
In order to visibly anchor the functioning and output of the creative studios within the operation of Zonnelied asbl, the service center has expressed the ambition to set up a place where its own collection can be permanently displayed and preserved.
Within the world of modern and contemporary art, the visual art of people with disabilities is generally considered to belong to the category of 'outsider art'. The artistic value of this work is widely recognized, yet it is rarely shown within the regular circuit of contemporary art institutions or traded within the contemporary art market. On the other hand, there are numerous institutions and collections of 'outsider art' or 'art brut' at home and abroad, but usually 'alongside' the regular circuit.
VZW Zonnelied expresses the desire to come up with its own, inclusive platform that allows the visual art of its day residents and permanent residents to be displayed and preserved in a professional manner and that no longer approaches and treats its makers as outsiders but as full participants in the world of contemporary art.
Commissioned by vzw Zonnelied, the research group KB45 (Art in Belgium since 1945) made a study of a display and storage place for Zonnelied's art collection. The study maps out institutions in Flanders and the wider international environment, looking at both places that focus specifically on visual work by people with disabilities and places where it is already featured (or not).
The study was completed in 2022. The document provided the basis for consolidating the artistic workings within vzw Zonnelied. On Sunday, March 17, the first stone of the Kunstwerkplek De Loods will be officially laid on the campus 't Zinneke in Brussels.