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Agency vzw was founded in 2019 by artist and activist Kobe Matthys (1970–2023) together with a group of people to support the activity of Agency as a practice.

Agency is the generic name of a Brussels-based agency that was established in 1992. Agency constitutes a growing list of things that resist the split between the classifications of “culture” and “nature” and consequently between ‘expressions’ and ‘ideas’, ‘creations’ and ‘facts’, ‘subjects’ and ‘objects’, ‘humans’ and ‘non-humans’, ‘originality’ and ‘tradition’, ‘individuals’ and ‘collectives’, etc... These things are derived from juridical processes, lawsuits, cases, controversies, affairs and so forth around intellectual property more specificaly copyrights, patents, trade marks, etc... The concept of intellectual property relies upon the assumption of the division between ‘culture’ and ‘nature’. Each thing on the list calls forth the moment of hesitation in terms of this division. Agency invokes things from it’s list in varying assemblies. Each assembly explores topologically a different question of the performative consequences of the apparatus of intellectual property for an ecology of art practices.

The organisation’s purpose is to explore the interference of the apparatus of intellectual property law for an ecology of artistic practices and to revive a sustainable diversity of practices.

A praticotheque is what Kobe envisioned the ensemble of the space, the List and library to be. An environment built to allow research, debate and alliance between practices.

In a trajectory supported by the Flemish Community, Agency vzw is today working on ways to open up the praticotheque to the public and continue the practice of Agence.

AGENCY VZW WIKI

The Agency vzw WIKI is an experiment in creating a user-driven and -governed inventory of the praticotheque in a wiki-environment.
For the moment it is under construction by a dedicated working group and can only be consulted with an access. If you wish to have access to the wiki, please send us an email (see below: contact).
You'll find everything you need to know about Agency's wiki and wikis in general in the Agency toolbox.
To see the old website, please go to agentive.org/m.

PUBLIC MOMENTS

UPCOMING

2026-06-16 12:00 > 14:00 : Curated visit ♯4 Katrien Reist.
Katrien Reist will elaborate on the role of Agency in the process of rethinking the question: "How to define who is an artist?" and its effect on the Belgian law around the Statut d'artiste.
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2026-06-18 18:00 > 20:30 : Reading Room ♯51 Eszter Nemethi.
For this reading room, organized as always in partnership with Jubilee, theatre maker and researcher Eszter Némethi has choosen “Cannibal Metaphysics” by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s.
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2026-06-18 15:30 > 18:00 : Editathon ♯4.
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2026-07-21 tba > tba : Misc. ♯ Fabulation pour un procès.
An invitation to collectively imagine a legal ruling that recognizes the legal obstruction of the collective work of Bureau des Dépositions as an attack on dignity and the right to exist in dialogue with selected ‘things’ from Praticotheque’s List of boundary things and documents from the library.
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2026-07-22 tba > tba : Misc. ♯ Pre-enactment pour une plaidoirie.
Presentation of and exchange around ‘Pre-enactment pour une plaidoirie’, an audiovisual and sound work in development following testimonials of co-authors, institutions and other collaborators of Bureau des Dépositions. As the creation of a resistance archive, the “filmed dossier” seeks to prevent history from suppressing the collective experience of Bureau des Dépositions.
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RECENT PAST

• 2026-05-29 18:00 > 20:00 : Reading Room ♯50 Louise de Bethune & Julie Van Elslande (Eavatea). https://www.jubilee-art.org/news/reading-room-50-agency-lawscape
• 2026-05-18 12:30 > 15:00 : Curated visit ♯3 Séverine Dussolier. https://www.sciencespo.fr/ecole-droit/en/directory/dusollier-severine/
• 2026-05-09 14:00 > 17:00 : Editathon ♯3.
• 2026-05-07 09:30 > 12:30 : Misc. ♯ Breakfast for Insatiable Researchers (OpenField). https://apass.be/openfield/
• 2026-04-29 18:00 > 20:30 : Reading Room ♯49 Jonathan De Maeyer. https://www.jubilee-art.org/news/reading-room-49
• 2026-04-15 18:00 > 21:00 : Misc. ♯ Nuit des Galeries (Parcours d'Artistes in Saint-Gilles). https://parcoursdartistes.be/spip.php?article3199&lang=fr

RECENT COLLABORATIONS

• experimenting ways to navigate the List of boundary - workshop with ERG students (Diego Thielemans, Raphaël Pirenne, Aliki Christoforou, Feli Lenaelou, Fanny Nagy, Jesse van Winden, Alice Mahiant)
• Documents et centres de documentation en art: le cas d'Agence – Master-thesis by Alice Mahiant
• Exploring the inventory of the Praticauthèque in a wiki environment – with Michael Murtaugh and Alice Mahiant
• Drawing a legal framework for Eavatea – research and workshop by Louise de Bethune and Julie Van Elslande
• Etat des lieux 'Archives' - artistic research supported by nadine vzw

NEWSLETTER

Sign up by sending an e-mail to info@agentive.org.

CONTACT

Agentschap Agence Agency
Rue Theodore Verhaegenstraat 18
1060 Brussels
info@agentive.org

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