The Skills are a performance duo, brought to life and nurtured by Gam and Simone. We met in the south of The Netherlands between a river and a limestone quarry, sharing the drive to create a language with a direct resonance from an audience. We write about our lives: desire, dusty carpets, trash, emotional shelter. By repeating words and sounds we peel off the exterior of behaviors and objects, making them vulnerable to our sculpting. Our performances are an ecosystem of storytelling and radical honesty: twitchy guitar cables and hoarse voices come as they may. The Skills have moved around, expanded, done a pregnancy. Cultivated Mother of Thousands. Received unemployment benefits and lectured at universities. Our friendship remains the core of it all.

We are currently based in Geldrop (NL) and Berlin (DE). We have been doing our thing since 2003 at independent and established spaces in The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Some of these spaces are, in no particular order or hierarchy: The Moth, yourspace | Van Abbemuseum, Kunstverein Tiergarten | Galerie Nord, De Nederlandsche Cacaofabriek, Hedah, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Kunstvereniging Diepenheim, Extrapool, Lokaal01, Het Wilde Weten, P/////AKT, Print Lab Daglicht, Gallery Slewe, Jan van Eyck Academy, Nest, and TENT Rotterdam. We are so happy to have worked with a bunch of beautiful people: artists, curators, musicians, and our families. Since 2010 we work together under our own names. Meanwhile, The Skills remain an archive and a mood.

© 2021