Date: Monday, 16 November 2026
Time: 18:00 - 21:00
Location: Varia (Gouwstraat 3, Rotterdam)
Access: Free entrance
Sign up: by sending an email to info@varia.zone with the subject ‘artists in horeca’

Artists are often told ‘Don’t quit your day job!’ because the promise of an income made solely from art is not easy to achieve.

So in reality, you’re working in the studio in the morning, and serving drinks at night. Or maybe you’re making cakes during the day and working on your artist gig during the night. One day you’re presenting your new work at a gallery, the next you’re batch prepping mayonnaise for a whole week. The dual life of the artist/horeca worker is something many of us experience, but there is little room to openly discuss and support one another. How can splitting yourself in two jobs, two professions, two very different(but also somehow similar?) industries be sustainable? How does one job inform the other? Can our kitchen jobs support our art endeavours? Or can our art practice change labour in the service industry? Are any of them even sustainable on their own?!

After Shift Talk: Artists in Horeca is an invitation to workers who split their work-time between art/cultural sector work and the food service industry. Let’s get together to share our experiences, thoughts, food, drinks, and play bingo(+maybe win some prizes!).

‘After Shift Talk - Artists in Horeca’ falls within Varia’s Access Seed research thread, and is supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL.