Tolhuistuin
Cultural venues have a social urgency and contribute significantly to an inclusive society through imagination and creativity.
The assignment was to recruit a new director, but this was only possible after the aforementioned challenges were resolved. By using a different approach, a new substantial strategy, and through various organisational tweaks and measures the Tolhuistuin has acquired a future-proof and operable structure. The position of the Tolhuistuin has now changed from landlord to garden of culture, offering a divers cultural program with inclusiveness and sustainability as focal points.
Marjo van Schaik was a perfect fit for this position from her conviction that cultural venues have an important role to play in the city, and that their effective functioning is essential. There is a great social urgency for providing different demographics with a space that has room for imagination and that stimulates genuine encounters. Mare is therefore proud that Tolhuistuin has been able to provide organisations like Doras and Inmybackyard with a permanent location in the garden.
The Tolhuistuin is characterised by a complex interplay of different interests that do not necessarily harmonise. As principal tenant of the estate, the Tolhuistuin acts as subletter for the larger and smaller properties and administers the garden. Since 2017, the foundation has received structural subsidies of the Amsterdam Municipality as a cultural venue, and must deliver a programme aimed at specific demographics in the Noord neighbourhood. However, because of an accumulation of conflicts, the foundation lost its connection with its cultural and commercial tenants, and its performance failed to meet its targets. Early 2017 and 2018 many employees left the foundation: consecutively the programme makers, the managing director and financial director left. Simultaneously a cooperation agreement had to be reached, between the foundation and its largest tenants, Paradiso and the THT restaurant. Moreover, this cooperation agreement had to leave the cultural character of the venue intact, and compensate for the tripling of the rent, which had been announced in 2009 already.
More information? Please contact mare@marjovanschaik.nl