A slower kind of gathering.
ajar started with a simple observation: the best creative conversations don’t happen on stage. They happen over dinner, on a walk, in the hour after the last session when the schedule finally gives up. We built a retreat around that hour.
The first ajar was in a house in Oostende. Eight people. A cook, a kitchen, a long table. Two workshop sessions that both ran over because nobody wanted to stop. Three days that a handful of people still talk about.
It grew from a frustration with conferences — the kind where you fly somewhere, sit in a dark room listening to presentations, shake hands in a carpeted lobby, and fly home with a stack of business cards you’ll never follow up on. There’s nothing wrong with the format, exactly. It’s just not enough.
We believe the best work happens in the margins. The conversation at 11pm about a project you’re actually struggling with. The walk with someone who sees things differently. The breakfast when you’re not trying to network and something real comes out. These moments don’t happen by accident — they happen when the group is right, the place earns its keep, and the programme leaves room.
That’s what ajar is for. Not scale, not influence, not content. A few days with the right people in a place worth being.
Great people, chosen carefully.
Scale is a choice. We keep groups small because good conversation requires trust, and trust requires proximity. Every person in the room was invited for a reason.
The place is half the content.
We don't book conference centres. We rent houses, farmhouses, guesthouses — places with a kitchen, a long table, and a view worth looking at. The setting does work the programme can't.
Open space is not empty space.
We build in unscheduled time on purpose. The most valuable things that happen at ajar don't appear on the agenda. They happen in the margins.
Who it’s for
Built for people doing serious work.
ajar is for working creatives — designers, directors, photographers, writers, architects, founders — who are good at what they do and want to be around others who are too. People who are deep in their work and craving real peer company. ajar's retreats are not a retreat for beginners or a workshop for skill-building. A few days of concentrated time with people who understand the particular pressures of creative work, in a place that earns your attention.
What is ajar?
ajar is a curated small-group retreat for independent creative professionals. Not a conference, not a co-working space, not a wellness getaway — something quieter and more specific than any of those.
Each edition brings together 8 to 10 working creatives — designers, strategists, writers, founders, photographers — in a place worth travelling to, for two to four days of structured time and genuine slowness. The format stays intentionally small so the room stays real.
The name says it: a door left slightly open. Selective, but not closed. The curation is the product — who is in the room matters as much as where the room is.
Everything is included: the location, the meals, the programme, the host. Guests bring their work and their weekend self. The rest is handled.
What is ajar not?
Not a conference
No stage, no keynotes, no badge lanyards. The sessions are small and the speakers are practitioners, not performers. The value is in the room, not on the screen behind it.
Not a networking event
We don't do speed-rounds or structured mixers. The connections happen over dinner, on a morning walk, in the margins. They're real because they're not forced.
Not a wellness retreat
There's a morning movement session if you want it and a forest walk if the mood takes you. But ajar is for people who are deep in their work — it's a reset, not a detox.
Not a co-working trip
There's time and quiet to work if you need it. But the point is to step back from the day-to-day, not to replicate it somewhere nicer.
Not a luxury holiday
The locations are beautiful and the food is real. But comfort is a condition for good thinking, not the destination. We pick places that earn their setting.
Not for everyone
We curate the room deliberately. ajar is for people who are established in their field, genuinely curious, and ready to be in a room where other people are too.
“I came back with two new collaborators and a clearer sense of what I actually want to make. Not what I thought I should be making — what I want to make.”
— Sarah Chen, Creative Director
“Three days away from the noise and I solved a problem I’d been circling for six months. The people, the place, the unhurried pace — it all works together in a way that’s hard to explain until you’ve been.”
— Marcus Webb, Founder