84 STEPS

Inaugurated in 2021, 84 STEPS features projects conceived at the intersection of art and education. This page includes a general introduction to this long-term and evolving initiative; additional pages linked here provide information on each participating artist and commission; links to related public programs can be found here, too.

84 STEPS occupies an entire floor of Kunstinstituut Melly. It features a constellation of specially commissioned artworks and environments. The installations are regularly activated in different ways by the participating artists, as well as our institution's programming team and guest participants. The work and events within 84 STEPS give special attention to the relation between physical and mental architectures, as much as with interpretations of personal and social health. These relations have been actively explored through programs organized in seasonal thematic clusters.

The name 84 STEPS alludes to the number of steps that connect the building's ground floor to this third-floor gallery. This transformation of a white-cube gallery into a dynamic space for socializing art follows our 2018 makeover of the ground floor gallery, MELLY. This approach to exhibition-making emphasizes an ongoing interest in developing new forms of public engagement with art, and no less of articulating embodied knowledge and shared experiences with art.

To date, 84 STEPS has included works by Afra Eisma, The Feminist Health Care Research Group (Inga Zimprich), Alma Heikkilä, Maike Hemmers, Moosje M Goosen and Daily Practice (Suzanne Weenink), Domenico Mangano & Marieke van Rooy, Raja’a Khalid, Lisa Tan, Tromarama, RA Walden and Anna Witt. In June 2023, the art installation by Lisa Tan is exchanged with a culminating chapter of 84 STEPS: a documentary display surveying the numerous artistic installations, environments, and activity-based programs that have come to constitute this exhibition initiative over the past three years.

The artists in 84 STEPS have been commissioned by Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy and Rosa de Graaf, with Wendy van Slagmaat Bos and Julija Mockutė. The programs within 84 STEPS include Trainings organized by Aqueene Wilson and Veronika Babayan, as well as Forums, Workshops, and myriad events organized by Vivian Ziherl and Jessy Koeiman. These activities have involved a range of participants, from health experts and art historians to movement and wellness practitioners to healers and activists.