'OCMW micro archive or De geschiedenis van het sociaal werk' (working title)

Long-term trajectory, 2025-2027

Together with Stijn Van Dorpe

With the support of BNA-BBOT 

We are developing a multi-year artistic trajectory rooted in the Marolles, a neighbourhood historically linked to the redistribution of resources and social support. Central to our work is a collaboration with the OCMW-CPAS Museum in Brussels, whose collection spans centuries of history: from the late medieval poor tables to the French Revolution and the emergence of state responsibility for fundamental rights such as bread and shelter. The museum's extensive archive — comprising personal files, administrative documents, and a unique collection of donated artworks — offers a rich entry point for investigating historical and contemporary tensions between care and power. These archives reveal how care has historically functioned as both support and instrument of control, reflecting how welfare and social systems operate as sites of normalisation and discipline.

In this context, our research addresses several key questions: How were individuals historically classified? Which documents or procedures granted access to care? What norms, values, and judgements were embedded in administrative protocols? Through historical reflection, we seek to interrogate contemporary social support structures and present-day relations of care, vulnerability, and power.

To date, we have held several conversations with local archivists, who provided us with precise details and a clear historical overview. From these conversations and our rummaging through the archives, we selected fifty stories — or fragments thereof — which found a place in an easily portable micro-archive.

With this micro-archive, we are planning a tour of various OCMW-CPAS offices, entering into conversation with staff in order to speak from the past about the present and the future. From this, a third strand will emerge: a performative setting in which diverse audiences come together around documents and observations that give rise to a range of sensory encounters. In this way, we aim to intervene in ideas and imaginaries around care, solidarity, and democratic coexistence.