Because we no longer find it appropriate to place ourselves, our artists or our work at the centre, we transform from a platform to a practice; we (practice), we are a practice, constantly in motion. We turn ever further outwards, towards that which and who we are not, and towards the other-than-human.

Practice and work intermingle. The artistic practice influences the work, and the artistic work reveals which practice is necessary, appropriate in each case. Our objective in working as Space oriented Artistic Practice is awareness of how our work moves in relation to the world around us: that includes relating to different tempos, to different ways of dealing with human and other-than-human partners. Our mission is to develop and build innovative, artistically high-quality and socially relevant projects, always in collaboration with others.

SoAP is not a group, not a one-maker, not a collective, not a production house, not a sales agency. Because of this ‘not being’, we are able to move differently and it is also possible to make different kinds of proposals, we can temporarily join established organisations and more and more space is created to initiate less common forms of work and presentation. By engaging diverse artists, connecting them to each other and securing their unique input, SoAP can act as a fascia of itself. This movement and its growing awareness enables us to safeguard our progressive way of organising and turn it into both remarkable and necessary work that continues to invite the viewer/participant to change perspective.

In the coming years, SoAP sees joining as an active act, in which our senses are on edge and open, in which we do not necessarily let go of everything we know but make space for who and what is unknown. It is we who join, append. To a making practice, to an initiative, to an organization. A shared, new ground emerges. Joining is not a big, formal movement. Rather, it is a gentle movement, an involved restraint from the undeniable importance of empathy and connection. A reaching out, a gesture, a being present, a joining.

Johannes Bellinkx, Rita Bifulco, Hester Bonne Bulthuis, Maria Lucia Cruz Correia, Selin Elbertsen, Christina Flick, Judith Dhondt, Iris Donders, Breg Horemans, Rita Hoofwijk, Vinny Jones, Margarita Mendes, Delphine Mertens, Salomé Mooij, Ilias Odman, Paulien Oltheten, Brunhilda Pali, Alice Pons, Olivia Rechovsky, Robert Ssempijja, Gert-Jan Stam, Nick Steur, Anneke Tonen, Benjamin Vandewalle, Huseyin Umaysiz, Lode Vranken 

SoAP Maastricht receives an activity subsidy from the Performing Arts Fund for the period 2021-2024. The core team and the SoAP board subscribe to the Governance Code Cultuur.