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For the third episode of our recessed.speaks podcast, we visited the Flanders city of Mechelen to discover a new visual arts space. recessed.space Editor-in-Chief, Will Jennings, met Tijs Lammar and Mathias Swings, the duo behind the non-profit. They already run Tick Tack, an Antwerp cultural space that occupies a celebrated and protected 1955 brutalist block by architect Léon Stynen. In it, they develop bespoke collaborations with invited contemporary artists while the glass-fronted building also hosts video works that present to the street.




Tick Tack's sister venue, Tack Tick, couldn't be a more different architecture. The pair have returned to their home city of Mechelen, only 15 minutes by train from both Antwerp and Brussels, to turn an 1882 former auction house into a new cultural venue. Sitting in a prominent city centre location, Tack Tick is formed of two main spaces within which objects and properties of deceased residents were organised and auctioned. Each space has a low-level stage on which the auctioneer ran proceedings, a subtle architectural gesture that makes gives the rooms a sense of character and past occupation.

The city of Mechelen is equidistant between Antwerp and Brussels though with more of a history in jazz music and theatre the city is often overlooked by gallery-goers. Tack Tick seeks to change this, working with other local cultural organisations including Kunsthalle Mechelen to build a new network of visual arts. The opening of Tack Tick coincided with Contour Biennale, a festival of moving image art spread across the Flanders city which brought together some of these organisations, and which we recently featured (see 00331).

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