By studying the place-making dynamics of the meeting place, it immediately becomes clear how rituals play a central role in shaping its daily practice. These rituals create a stable foundation and a safe harbor for the visitors of the meeting place, and become visible through the continuous (re)production of ‘hotspots’ in space and time. At the same time, place-making rituals are engaged in a continuous balancing act with the at times acute mental health and social needs of the visitors and the ‘survival rituals’ they bring into the meeting place. Another driving place-making force within the meeting place are the many creative and artistic processes, through which the meeting place opens up its pores to the outside world and visitors (re)create a language to engage in human encounters. In what follows, these dynamics will be discussed in detail.
The (beating) heart of the matter: rituals of hospitality
One of the most characteristic rituals of the meeting place is the way both visitors and staff members greet each other very cordially, often accompanied by a kiss or a hug. This physical closeness, which is exceptional for a therapeutic setting engaging with this population, is a thread throughout many of the place-making rituals of Villa Voortman. Several participants pinpointed the essentiality of this ritual:
“It is almost impossible to arrive at the villa and not greet everyone. If you don’t do that, it is somewhat incomplete. Something’s not right if you don’t do that. Not everyone kisses or hugs, but still… there’s something that needs to happen. And if that something doesn’t happen, something’s wrong. You can feel it immediately, if someone doesn’t greet you, then something’s… something’s not going well. Either that person is not feeling well, or… something’s wrong with the vibe…” (staff member)
“Yeah, since people don’t hold each other anymore and stuff, they will… You have less connection with each other. Otherwise, you come in, you give each other a hug, and you feel more connected.” (visitor)
Another ritual that stands out is the daily process of cooking and eating lunch together. This ‘lunch ritual’ is an important act of shared territorialization in the meeting place, as visitors take ownership over the entire process, from deciding what to eat over cooking and eating together to doing the dishes afterwards. Due to the existing corona measures, this ritual was stripped of its essence, as visitors were no longer allowed to enter the kitchen, help in the cooking process or eat all together. Instead, cooked meals were provided by the nearby hospital. Whilst this made it possible for the meeting place to be open all day, a staff member explained how it also had a detrimental effect on the ownership visitors usually have over this ritual:
“So the [cooking together] is no longer possible. (…) And the activity is gone, but also the choice. People can no longer choose. (…) They don’t even have the choice to say ‘hey mate, I’m not helping’. They don’t have the choice to decide what to eat. There is no choice of whether or not to go shopping. That really does have a big impact. (…) So all that foreplay for that meal, anyway, what precedes it… Sometimes fierce discussions, but it is interaction that we now miss.” (staff member)
Place-making rituals are also marked in space and time and become visible in the continuous (re)creation of ‘hotspots’ in the meeting place. One of these hotspots is the sitting area, described by participants as “our common living room” or “the heart of the villa”, as it is a place buzzing with interactions and physical closeness. To comply with corona measures, the sofas of the sitting area have been removed, preventing too many visitors to sit together too closely. This is not just a loss of physical space, but also implies a fragmentation of the relational processes and physical proximity sparking in that hotspot:
“I find it a shame that the living room is gone, because that’s where the day started. (…) All together, cozy in the sofa with a cup of coffee, chatting a bit, laughing a bit, fighting a bit, whatever. But that’s where the day started. The heart of the villa, that’s where it was. (…) But in that living room is where things happened. (…) Many conversations just don’t get started anymore, because the space is not there. (…) And you sit close to each other, because the living room doesn’t have enough capacity to all sit there. So often you have to sit buttock to buttock, like ‘man, move up!’.” (staff member)
“What I miss the most? Yeah, the sitting together and stuff. Yeah, we really had our corner here. And there [points to the dining area], it’s just not the same.” (visitor)
Likewise, the fact that the kitchen became forbidden terrain for visitors due to corona measures is experienced as a big loss, as it prevents visitors from making a pot of coffee, clean up after spilling something in the sitting area, have informal conversations during washing up, leave a mess or help with cooking. Whilst these acts seem mundane at first sight, they turn the kitchen into a hotspot in which the horizontality between staff members and visitors is continuously rebalanced. One of the staff members, expressed his worries about the danger of fragmentation that the temporary ban on kitchen access might bring along:
“What we see now is that we are actually splitting up a lot. We [staff members] are still allowed in the kitchen, the visitors are not allowed in the kitchen, still not. [During the first lockdown], we were allowed inside [the building], they had to stay out. (…) They are not allowed to make coffee themselves. (…) We are in danger of getting back to that… sort of hierarchical thing, or at least that separation, that’s the team and that’s the visitors. And that affects our structure.” (staff member)
In addition to the small rituals (e.g. cooking, making coffee) and hotspots (e.g. the sitting area) that are continuously (re)performed and (re)created every day, multiple participants also pointed to the impact of bigger and less common rituals such as the annual Christmas party or certain artistic events (cf. infra), that leave important markings in time, strengthen the feeling of togetherness and have an expanding effect on the relational atmosphere in the meeting place, as one of the visitors explains:
“Whenever we organize something big, there is always some kind of echo, a kind of afterglow, a kind of reverberation. (…) After something really good there is a more positive atmosphere in the villa for a while. And people are more cheerful and positive. Just like after the Christmas party.” (visitor)
Although the corona measures were often experienced as barriers to performing place-making rituals and a cause for fragmentation of hotspots, they at times also gave rise to an intensification of these hotspots and a search for new ways to perform rituals. For example, during the first lockdown, the meeting place was only opened during limited opening hours to hand out meals through the window. At times, this single moment turned into a heated concentration of interactions and dynamics, characterized by heated encounters between visitors, a chaotic atmosphere and a more compelling demand for care and support. At other times, the temporary limited access to the meeting place made visitors actively search for other positive ways to create new hotspots in the surrounding area. One of the participants made a striking comparison in that respect:
“[In the first lockdown], we became a kind of take-away restaurant, where people stuck around by the door. It created a different dynamic, which was fun sometimes, as long as the weather was nice. Maybe it was even more fun because you could see some of the old atmosphere coming back. Like visitors who manage to take a table outside and get installed in the park, and then you just think… Awesome.” (staff member)
Rituals as a counterweight: the entanglement of care and the encounter
Through the performance of place-making rituals, the meeting place is ongoingly (re)produced as a welcoming, trusted and literally ‘home-made’ environment. Whilst these rituals provide a sense of stability and familiarity for the visitors, they are also subject to and interacting with influences and interruptions both from within and outside the meeting place.
Because of the complexity of the visitors’ needs, it is not uncommon that they arrive at the meeting place in a state of crisis, caused by (an accumulation of) factors such as an acute psychotic episode, exhausting homelessness, intense substance use, social isolation and persistent confrontations with social exclusion. These factors are not characteristic to the meeting place, but they are inherent to the lives of the visitors through whom they find their way in. One of the visitors offered a striking example of the way homely rituals can have a cushioning effect that takes the edge off such crisis situations. Also, through his example, it becomes clear how the current decimation of hotspots such as the living room, due to the corona measures, obstructs these softening interactions:
“So think about Jamie. Jamie doesn’t communicate with most people, and he is aggressive. But if there would be a living room, the chances would be much bigger that he… If it would be more homely, if we could cook together… Then there would be more opportunity to get in touch with him, to let him come down from his psychosis a bit. (…) The homeliness has a huge impact, you see? If you are raging, and then you enter the villa… Then poof. It is soft, it is warm, people are friendly. And that has a huge impact on the way you see things. And now, when you enter, it is like a visitor’s room in prison.” (visitor)
Outside the meeting place, many of the visitors have developed strategies to cope with difficult living circumstances. Whilst these behaviors (e.g. substance use, small thefts, picking things out of bins) are considered unacceptable or destructive in society, they serve as important ‘survival rituals’ in the daily lives of the visitors. As such, these behaviors also find their way into the meeting place and endanger the safe climate that is continuously reproduced through place-making dynamics. However, there also is an advantage to these ‘survival rituals’ coming in, because that way, they can be questioned and counterbalanced in a non-intrusive manner within the meeting place.
“Sometimes it is good when street life comes inside [the meeting place] a bit, so that some of the normality that we try to install here, like… So that you can hold up a mirror to them, like saying ‘guys, you don’t do that here. (…) You can’t rummage through the waste bins here’.” (staff member)
The above examples show how the human encounter, that is continuously (re)produced in the meeting place, is an essential mediator in responding to the visitors’ needs. This entanglement is pre-eminently materialized in rituals that physically bring people closely together in the meeting place, such as sitting packed together in the living room, greeting each other with a kiss or a hug and smoking cigarettes together on the curb. In that sense, the necessary rules on social distancing to keep COVID-19 at bay are experienced as a big burden by all actors in the meeting place, which means that they are not always strictly adhered to. However, it would be too easy to interpret situations in which social distancing measures are breached as acts of carelessness or nonchalance. They rather bear witness to moments of extra carefulness in which the urge to meet visitors’ mental health needs takes the upper hand. One of the staff members explained how in certain crisis situations, the rule to avoid physical proximity simply becomes untenable, because providing that proximity is one of the most powerful ways to create an atmosphere of security and safety:
“For example, when someone finds himself in a crisis, like last summer… When someone’s suddenly really psychotic and panicked… Yes, I held him then. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but at that moment, I had nothing else to offer but to, yeah… say like… I am here with you. And… Yes, that moment, you are almost… I couldn’t think of anything else than to offer safety, and I could only do that by providing it in a physical way.” (staff member)
Through the illustrations described above, it becomes clear how place-making dynamics are engaged in a continuous balancing act with the at times challenging behavior and compelling needs that visitors express in the meeting place. Unsurprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a remarkable increase of crisis situations and an intensification of visitors’ requests for help with an array of social and personal problems. This rise was compounded with the fact that other social organizations (e.g. social council) and administrative instances (e.g. the bank) became much less accessible, turning the meeting place into ‘the final station’ for many visitors. As an initial reaction to this rise of support needs, staff were tempted to excessively focus on trying to fix individual visitors’ complex problems and to pay less attention to the more collective place-making dynamics in which the meeting place’s functions of being a safe, accepting and homely environment are continuously reproduced. However, the above examples show how exactly these dynamics play a pivotal role in dealing with these challenging situations. In that respect, one participant stressed the importance of prioritizing investing energy into these collective place-making rituals instead of endlessly trying to fulfil visitors’ needs:
“I think we shouldn’t get lost in providing care. And that is a possibility, because yeah, that care is never sufficient, so it is up to you to decide how far you go. And you can go too far too, in that you lose the aspect of the encounter. And there are some people, who ask loads from us. Hours of talking, trying to get paperwork done, but it is never enough. Because there is a structural issue. Every time… It sounds like a strange thing to say, but that you feel like, it can’t be solved. (…) The lesson learned is that it is unsolvable, and that at a certain moment, you need to prioritize the encounter in what you do.” (staff member)
Responding to the visitors’ complex needs thus requires a counterbalance that comes into being through the creation of a supportive and homely environment that facilitates human encounters (cf. supra). At the same time, the above citation shows how visitors’ needs can also put pressure on and even jeopardize collective place-making rituals. In that sense, the continuous interplay between visitors’ individual needs and collective place-making dynamics could be described as a relationship of resonance. Depending on different forces at play, they could either have a softening or an amplifying effect on each other.
The art of place-making: creativity fueling place-making dynamics
The above findings show how the enabling dimensions of the meeting place are shaped and reshaped through place-making rituals that are engaged in a continuous balancing act with the complex needs of the visitors. Another driving force behind the production of the meeting place can be found in the many creative and artistic activities taking place. These take many shapes and sizes, such as making music, creating artwork (e.g. painting, sculpting), decorating the meeting place, gardening, cooking and dancing, to just name a few. Some of these activities are channeled through so-called ‘ateliers’, recurring workshops organized by the visitors themselves to inspire fellow visitors. However, many of these creative processes also find their way outside of these ateliers and continuously pop up in the meeting place, creating a kind of communal creative undercurrent that is contagious for other visitors. At the same time, because these creative processes are fueled in a bottom-up way by the unique talents and interests of the visitors, they can be considered deeply personal place-making dynamics through which visitors make the meeting place their own, and discover and (re)produce a language to engage in encounters with others. In that way, each visitor leaves their unique mark on the meeting place’s character.
“You can do your own thing here, they’re open to anything. They even want to provide materials for you. You can do your thing. If you want to tinker, tinker. If you want to draw, just draw. If you don’t want to do anything, do nothing. (…) This morning, there was a bike here, they were going to throw it away. I took all the locks off, fixed it, pumped up the tires and stuff.” (visitor)
One afternoon per month, these personal place-making traces are brought together in a so-called ‘Open Gate’ event. During these events, the meeting place opens its doors to external guests, for who the visitors perform live music and spoken word over homemade cakes and coffee. Time and again, in the run-up to this monthly happening, an energetic vibe is sparked in which visitors are busy rehearsing their performances and the ‘Open Gate’ becomes the talk of the moment. In that sense, the ‘Open Gate’ event can be seen as a kind of collective ritual through which feelings of togetherness are strengthened and spontaneous outbursts of creativity emerge:
“When there is an Open Gate event, then people are rehearsing, they are thinking about what they’ll perform or… Yeah, I find those afternoons, there’s always a really cool vibe of like… Soon our doors will open and people will come in. And part of it is prepared and I like that a lot, but there are also a lot of things happening spontaneously in the moment… Like people who say no, I won’t perform, at first but are then triggered in the moment to do something. (…) In those moments I feel so proud of the villa. I don’t even do anything, I just make coffee and cake or so.” (staff member)
The ‘Open Gate’ events also illustrate how creative dynamics open up pores in the meeting place through which visitors interact with the outside world. It is through these on-going porous interactions that visitors feel empowered, (re)build their identity as artists and people with talents, and (re)claim a place as visible citizens in society. It needs no explanation that since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, organizing these ‘Open Gate’ events and inviting guests into the meeting place temporarily became impossible. However, after a while, the idea arose to turn them into ‘Closed Gate’ events, in which visitors’ performances are livestreamed via social media. Despite the fact that visitors thus had to perform behind closed doors, it became apparent how these ‘Closed Gate’ events did restore some of the familiar buzz that swells in the build-up to that monthly afternoon. Additionally, despite the virtual audience, visitors expressed that they still felt seen by the outside world, perhaps even more so than before, as social media have a wider reach.
Throughout the years, these internal creative place-making dynamics have increasingly also found their way on another level, as the meeting place has been establishing itself in the professional cultural circuit by creating and performing large-scale theatre and music productions, supported by professional directors and producers. The composing of these productions, the long preceding rehearsal period, the thrill of performing in sold-out venues and the long-lasting afterglow of these theatre adventures have an enormous impact on the place-making dynamics within the meeting place. Moreover, through these large-scale productions, the meeting place’s pores to the outside world get spread open wide. In that sense, the fact that these productions are all temporarily suspended is experienced as a big loss, not only for the sake of these productions in themselves but especially for the place-making waves that it produces in the meeting place. One of the staff members expressed his concern in the following way:
“We have lost the core business of the villa. Probably no Indian Summer event, no performances,… All these occasions where we came out, where we showed a different side of our visitors, which is very important… We’ve lost it now, because of corona.” (staff member)
A side effect of these professional productions is that the meeting place increasingly acquired the image of being an alternative artistic collective, rather than a day-care center for persons with complex mental health needs. Whilst some staff members and visitors strongly identify with this image of the meeting place as an artistic hub, it also has an adverse effect for others. For example, according to one of the visitors, the day-to-day place-making rituals risk becoming somewhat paralyzed during times in which the meeting place is engaged in rehearsals for big artistic projects (e.g. ‘Avanti!’, a theatre production), as all energy is channeled towards these projects. In contrast, the fact that large-scale artistic productions are currently impossible due to the COVID-19 pandemic implies that the space to perform these everyday place-making rituals remains intact:
“I used to find the Villa much less accessible during ‘Avanti!’ [theater production] than during the corona crisis actually. Because in those days, there was nothing left in the villa, all that mattered was ‘Avanti!’. (…) There was nothing left of the usual things. Everything revolved around the theatre and nothing else.” (visitor)
Through this example, it becomes clear how the meeting place’s artistic productions create an ambiguous dynamic. On the one hand, these productions spark a bustling vibe amongst the visitors, give purpose to the creative juices flowing and hold the potential to cause long-lasting ripples of positivity in the meeting place’s atmosphere (cf. supra). On the other hand, they run the risk of disturbing or subduing the more everyday rituals, resulting in visitors feeling unsettled and struggling to feel at home in the meeting place. In that respect, precisely because large-scale artistic productions are currently not possible, the COVID-19 pandemic could be seized as an opportunity to bring creative dynamics in the meeting place back to their essence, according to some participants. For example, one participant described how artistic talents and processes should not always take place in function of a stage performance or a professional production, but should first and foremost be valued as dynamics that play a pivotal role in shaping the meeting place and enabling visitors’ recovery processes:
“Alright, you want to meet people via creativity, which makes up a large part of the villa. But it shouldn’t always be in function of a stage. And that’s a thin line we walk, sometimes. (…) [I think the corona crisis] provides people with a bit more peace and you can just play, just purely because of the music. And purely because you want to have fun, and use the music for what it’s intended. And not in function of [a performance].” (staff member)
Obstacles caused by the corona crisis (e.g. not being allowed to share music instruments, not being able to perform for an external audience, social distancing rules) did not wipe out these creative place-making dynamics. Proof of this can be found in the many small creative projects that sprouted in and around the meeting place during the height of the pandemic, in different shapes and sizes. For example, some of the visitors spontaneously organized a small acoustic jam session on the meeting place’s motorized boat, cruising through the city center and enlightening casual passers-by with their songs. Other visitors built a doghouse for the dog of one of their fellow visitors as a welcoming attempt to get her to visit the meeting place more regularly. An infectious trend arose amongst the visitors to decorate the walls and furniture of the meeting place with their own paintings, drawings and writings. The idea arose to install a homemade totem pole as a landmark outside the meeting place. Visitors kept performing music and spoken word, albeit behind closed doors, during the monthly ‘Closed Gate’ events and at many other stolen moments. These are just a handful of examples that show how small-scale acts of creativity are indispensable place-making dynamics that fuel the (re)production of the meeting place’s unique identity. As stated above, it is through the continuous (re-)enactment of such creative processes that visitors find a language to engage in human encounters and the meeting place is turned into a porous entity interacting with the outside world. In that way, the creative and artistic products that the meeting place brings forth, both small (e.g. poems, drawings, music) and big (e.g. theatre productions, books, music performances), could be seen as materializations of place-making rituals and dynamics, leaving tangible traces like unique fingerprints in space and time.
