Anna-Rosja Haveman + Vanessa van 't Hoogt: As directors you give the artists a lot of freedom. For instance, the titles are always chosen by the artists themselves. How do you interpret the exhibition title “Little Nostrum” chosen by the residents?

Karina Bakx + Ellen de Haan: Nostrum has two meanings, it can represent both an unqualified or fake doctor and a political scheme. The sensitive topic of (gay) intimacy and the connections that the artists made during their residency have both of these qualities in them. On the one hand they each investigate their own fields of interest without making blunt statements or claiming truths, on the other hand being an artist means that you are always making statements and claiming your own truths. You could say that every artist is a faux medicine man in one way or another, bringing the people salvation for their self-proclaimed problems with their fake truths. The political scheme part lies in approaching gay communities as a ‘hot topic’ (which has become somewhat of a trophy in the cultural field, as a way to show off your inclusiveness) but in a friendly, artistic and intellectual way.

about the location

't Pakhuisje closed its doors on 12 June 2016. The sauna existed for 36 years and obtained a household name for the gay community in the north of the Netherlands. From the outside it was not easily recognizable as a sauna, it rather looked like an empty warehouse with it’s boarded up windows, a rainbow flag as a single sign of life for the outside world.

Het resort would like to highlight the former function of the building that existed so clearly for the gay community, but was also hidden from the public behind boarded-up windows. The hiding but also advocading of intimacy brings a sense of duality to this sauna episode.