With Distant.Gallery, artist Constant Dullaart has developed an online platform where artists from around the world can showcase their work – especially when they find no connection to the dominant (Western) art infrastructure of fairs and museums. It also serves as an alternative to Big Tech, a place where people can come together without having their data sold and being played off against each other through likes and algorithms. So far, it has featured exhibitions from Košice to Tilburg, from Khartoon to Kyiv, and from Tapei to New York City.
On the 9th of November, 2025, we organized a Distant.Gallery program at De Balie in Amsterdam. Curators, journalists and artists from Georgia, Sudan, Germany and the United States shared their experiences through the online platform. Following these international perspectives, we turned to voices from Dutch arts organisations to reflect on the Netherlands’ cultural infrastructure within a global context. In a panel discussion with Constant, Sepp Eckenhaussen (INC/Caradt), Astrid Weij (Kunsten 92), Joke de Wolf (kunsthistoricus), moderated by Merlijn Geurts (De Balie), we asked: What can the Dutch art world take along from their case-studies? What are the needed conditions to preserve and sustain art practices when both the physical and digital realms are co-opted, collapsed or rendered hyperreal? How to best pursue the (private) funding to ensure artistic and academic freedom when they are under pressure from the state, social conflict, or media attacks?
About Distant.Gallery
Distant.Gallery is a (non-profit) foundation and online platform where people can come together informally, and meet online. It is constructed in such a way that it respects users’ data, does not store or resell it, and does not play visitors off against each other through likes and algorithms. This capacity for social connection, an alternative to “Big Tech” built for a cultural landscape, is the platform’s strength. We engage with a variety of communities involved in digital and networked art, with an emphasis on bringing groups together that would not necessarily be able to find each other, nor interact in the Western-dominated art world. Building professional and creative relationships cannot be reserved exclusively for those privileged enough to fly from art fair to biennial, have a nanny, or happen to be born in a particular place. distant.gallery provides online spaces for artists, in an equal non-commercial context where independence and online privacy is guaranteed.