Hotel Charleroi Artist Residency at B.P.S. 22
From July 4 to July 24, 2011
Hotel Charleroi is a flexible structure initiated by three European artists who would like to live and work in Charleroi. Located 60 km south from Brussels, Charleroi is a decaying industrial town with all associated symptoms - high unemployment rate, raising criminality, corruption affairs, etc. Its surrealistic urban landscape, reminiscences from an intense industrial past (slag heaps, steel factories) along with numerous irrational public infrastructures planned in the sixties (metro, ring road on viaduct), doesn’t fit at all with its relatively small scale (pop. 400 000).
In fact, Charleroi offers a very condensed overview of how Modernity developed in Europe and which social and economical problems resulted from it. The city nearly didn’t change since 30 years, and this makes it a very interesting investigation field for us, as it leaves everything open for a new generation of artists to position itself on its modern -and postmodern- heritage.
We share our interest in the city by organising sleeping facilities in Charleroi and inviting contemporary artists from all over Europe for short or long term residencies. We propose the residents to use the city as a studio or laboratory for interventions of all kinds. We can organise a place to stay and to work, but are not able to provide any financial support as we finance everything ourselves. However, we count on the enthusiasm of local institutions and establishments to create networks and opportunities in Charleroi. We understand our non-institutional status as an advantage to create a dynamic platform, able to adapt itself to every occasion it encounters.
http://www.hotelcharleroi.com/
- July 2, 2011
