Ricochet Days
Artist-in-Residence at S.M.A.K.
September 21–November 7, 2026
Choreographer Meg Stuart and her company Damaged Goods inhabit S.M.A.K. for a residency from September 21 until November 7, 2026. Together with a diverse group of artists, filmmakers, choreographers and musicians, Stuart cultivates a space for experimentation, gathering and reflection in close dialogue with the architecture of the museum.
For seven weeks, S.M.A.K. transforms into a collective laboratory, an extension of the company’s collaborative ecosystem. By moving the studio into the public eye, Ricochet Days becomes a living, embodied archive, continually refracting and reactivating Meg Stuart’s ongoing choreographic research. Exhibition spaces open up to movement improvisation, while the museum's archive turns into a film set where bodies are tended with the same care as artworks.
Cyclical figures drive these experiments: gestures of assembling and dismantling, rotation and torque, rebounding and return. Bodies and structures move within a shapeshifting, modular environment. Research unfolds through hybrid practices, ongoing performances and open work sessions. With fictional twists, special effects, and sensorial trajectories, the artists alter the museum's choreography, subtly shifting how visitors navigate the building and relate to the artworks.
The residency’s energy ricochets beyond the institution: video transmissions and workshops in the park blur the threshold between inside and outside. The museum's transport truck becomes a vehicle for impromptu performances across the city of Ghent.
Ricochet Days is an invitation to witness these artistic processes as they evolve, to step beyond spectatorship, to watch, listen, linger, and converse—in short, to be in company with the artists.
Guest artists and weekly programme
Ricochet Days follows a weekly rhythm, alternating between public encounters and non-public work sessions. Each week, Meg Stuart and her team work with a different guest artist.
The guest artists are:
Week 1: Gosie Vervloessem
Week 2: Philipp Gehmacher
Week 3: Sina Seifee & Misha Downey
Week 4: Lucile Desamory
Week 5: Peaches
Week 6: Contagious (Andrea Neumann, Sabine Ercklentz, Mieko Suzuki)
On Wednesdays, the company ventures into the city with the S.M.A.K. truck. Thursdays are dedicated to Open Class workshops in the Citadel Park and presentations by the guest artists. Each week concludes with a public showing on Saturdays, offering visitors a chance to discover the ongoing research.
Visit the S.M.A.K. website for more information and to register.
Beyond these recurring moments, the creative process itself remains a continuous invitation to step in, through impromptu interventions, chance encounters and other activities taking place throughout the museum.
