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Esther Tielemans for Welcome Stranger, Scenery 2021, carwrapfoil on façade, photo Thomas Bennen

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Lily van der Stokker, Dakterras met Bubbelbad, 2021, Valeriusstraat, Welcome Stranger 27.08.2021-15.04.2022 photo Gert Jan van Rooij

In the summer of 2021 a longer line was made with the series of artworks that started in 2020. For Welcome Stranger traditionally always the location, a house in the city, and with it the interaction between the private and the public space, as well as publicness and privacy, are the starting points. Since the ongoing pandemic, the focus has temporarily shifted to the outside: the façade of artists' own homes.

Four artists were invited. Read more about the works of art via the below links:

LILY VAN DER STOKKER, VALERIUSSTRAAT
ESTHER TIELEMANS, M.H TROMPSTRAAT
RADNA RUMPING, HOOFDWEG 
KÉVIN BRAY, WOUTERTJE PIETERSESTRAAT

Hand-out (backside) with small interviews with the artists were available on-site for passers-by.

Philosopher Thijs Lijster visited the works and wrote an essay. He understands the artworks of Welcome Stranger like this: they tilt our view on the urban space, they create space for the unexpected, and thus offer the possibility to resist the invisible hand of the planners, the real estate entrepreneurs, the marketers. The artists turn the unsuspecting passer-by into a visitor or participant: places that you would otherwise probably have passed without thought, places that at first glance might have seemed uninteresting or where there was nothing to do (which usually means: nothing to consume), now become charged with meaning. This meaning is not (yet) fixed, because it is sufficiently open and porous enough to enter into a dialogue with the experience and interpretation of that passer-by. In short: it becomes an invitation or incentive to rediscover the city, perhaps even to help redesign it—and reclaim space for play, for commoning, and for the imagination. His essay is to be found in the archive.

Press coverage: see at 'about'. 

Interested to find out more about the context and the start of the series in 2020? Go to the archive. These artworks form a longer line with this series. At the time, two radio broadcasts were also made that you can listen to: 'the house as material' and 'poking through the window'. They go into the motivations behind this initiative and the work of some of the artists participating in the series in 2020.

Kévin Bray, Alexis Bondoux and Lou Buche, Ré-But, mixed media, 2021, photo: Gert-Jan van Rooij