We rush to open the door. The sound of our steps reverberates all through the corridor. X passes by my side holding a slide projector while striding towards the room in the back. Nobody uses slide projectors anymore, I think to myself. They have the quality of the analog, the beauty of the light, the color of decades long gone, however I don’t trust them: how could you not trust a slide projector?

The fact that we are able to continue in a more or less peaceful manner. The very fact that every couple of weeks we gather to perform our beloved ritual of self-exploitation must mean something. The fact that we work extra hours to write a press release means something. The work requested every day to keep the place running definitively means something. Success is such an abstract constellation of givens, accomplished desires but also frustration. In the universe of an independent art space such as Goleb, failure could maybe be easier to grasp: cease to exist or its evil-twin: the bare life. When stagnation drips down the walls, time stands still and art no longer produces any noise. The floor at the Vlugtlaan is something difficult to name: it semantically resists to be fixed in a single definition, it has always been and will remain full of possibility. it might be that by refusing a single meaning, the space creates a crack on an utterly homogenised ecosystem that works as a strategy to open a place where to deploy subjectivity.

The last batch of emails has been sent. For a couple of hours we organise the material to be uploaded on the web page. As one goes through the images, we are overwhelmed by a multitude of feelings coming back to pay visit. X tells about the need to behave more like a cultural organisation; it is the only manner in which we will be able to continue and prevent exhaustion. X sits relaxed, he wears red sneakers and a thick wooden sweater, he takes little sips from a glass almost full of dark beer. He sits casually trying to analyse the effect that his words cause on the table. There are three more persons sitting. I open my laptop, it displays a timetable, we know it will change. Sometimes some reassurance is required, even if we all knowingly accept that the shared document is closer to a work of fiction.

It is snowing again. Steadily snowflakes fall covering the courtyard in dirty white. Smell from a neighbor’s kitchen comes to us briefly, then dissipates . As people start entering the building, the familiar feeling that something nice is about to happen warms us up. The notes on my notebook remind me to “curb my enthusiasm” since now it is a fact: if we do not find structural resources we are not going to survive in the present state. Maybe we will adapt like shapeshifters. We will change skin or even our body structure as well. Our past will be preserved in the natural museum collection, as one more iteration of the flexibility that the cultural worker has to master in the present condition. X smiles while asking how is it that we have so many new people. She squeezes her lips then walks away. X approaches now, he kindly smiles, he comments about the news of the week and the upcoming elections. The snow keeps falling. It is going to be a slippery way back home.

While glueing dozens of invoices, one on every sheet of paper, two or three if they are related, I cannot help but to feel a little pressure. By traveling forward in time, it is summer again. More than a year has passed since we decided to embark on this journey: to build a kitchen design discursive events and how did we manage to bake such a cake. As we stick the little pieces of paper, marking them with an identification number, some lyrics from Tom Waits'’s song, oh lord, is looped in my head: “Be mindful of the prayers you send. Pray hard but pray with care. For the tears that you are crying now. Are just your answered prayers”.. And then: how to continue? That is the question we ask ourselves every day. What shape are we going to take? Since this ‘one hit wonder’ scenario seems utterly unbecoming.

At the cafe, we agree upon a quote. Kind of a worn-out quote, but an accurate one. It summarises an experience embodied through intense physical, emotional and intellectual activity: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better”. Samuel Beckett at the end was an optimist.