Studio Visit in Eupen and Heerlen

Date

2023 November 8th and 9th

A vibrant landscape of art institutions and residencies in different countries and yet in close proximity to each other: this is what the Borderland Residencies stand for. In November, they crossed borders to visit Eupen and Heerlen.

Eupen is located at the very edge of East Belgium. The small town, which has just 20,000 inhabitants, is the capital of the German-speaking community of Belgium, whose 77,000 citizens can look back on an eventful history. Over the centuries, Eupen has been the scene and venue of various European wars of conquest: sometimes assigned to the Habsburg-Austrian Netherlands, then belonging to the Spanish Netherlands, sometimes French and then alternately German and Belgian - no wonder that the people of Eupen are proud of having held their own over centuries of changing occupation.

On 8 November, the Atelierhaus Eupen invited the Borderland community to visit its workshops. The fledgling studio community is a meeting place for the city's independent art scene and hosted resident artist Monica Hirano for three months. But Eupen has much more to offer culturally: the cultural centre in the old slaughterhouse, the renovated cinema and community centre and the IKOB - Museum of Contemporary Art. Curator Brenda Guesnet welcomed the Borderland scholarship holders and guided them through the exhibition Marcin Dudek: AKUMULATORY.

After their visit to Eupen, the Borderlanders arrived in Heerlen in the evening, where the curatorial team and the artists in residence welcomed them to a home-cooked dinner at Greylight Projects. The next day, Zhixin Angus Liao and Salomé Ingelbrecht gave a tour of their studios, before a city walk along the buildings designed by architect Frits Peutz and literary interventions by Salomé rounded off the day.