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The LODGERS programme is a collaboration between AIR Antwerpen and M HKA. We welcome imaginative artistic initiatives to come and occupy the 6th floor at M HKA. The programme offers a unique opportunity for public interface, to organisations and initiatives who focus specifically on producing and commissioning, and who do not have their own public space. These LODGERS might be publishers, commissioning agencies, research initiatives, labels, collectives, discussion platforms or other initiatives experimenting with artistic practice who would be interested to live, work and experiment in Antwerp.

LODGERS are welcomed from "Eurocore" – the combined region of Benelux and the Rheinland. 

Free entrance to visit our LODGERS. Come and say hello!

The LODGERS programme is co-curated by Nav Haq, Senior Curator at M HKA, and Alan Quireyns, Artistic Director at AIR Antwerpen.

HOTEL CHARLEROI is an applied research project initiated by visual artists Adrien Tirtiaux , Antoine Turillon and Hannes Zebedin in Charleroi, the largest city in Wallonia, Belgium’s French-speaking region. From 2010 to 2014, HOTEL CHARLEROI has invited more than 100 artists for informal residencies in Charleroi and organised annual exhibitions in public or semi-public space that managed to bring together local and international audiences.

HOTEL CHARLEROI has reinvented its field of research each year, while finding new emblematic locations within the city and using them as artistic labs to address critical statements on the city’s post-industrial development strategies. Among other projects, LE CHANT DES POSSIBLES parasitized numerous non-places around the city’s ring road (2011), VILLE EN ABÎME occupied the 60.000m² of the derelict Congress Hall “Palais des Expositions” (2012) and LA FORCE DU CHANGEMENT proposed a Winter School for a weekend on the construction site of a huge shopping mall in the old city centre (2014).

M HKA’s invitation to take part in the LODGERS programme allows HOTEL CHARLEROI to reflect on its legacy, including five years of intense activity followed by a two-year break. The residency brings up questions, such as: what remains? Can the site-specific, often performative approach of artistic actions that took place in Charleroi be transferred to a museum? Does an institutional context offer the right conditions to reflect on a project that was embedded within the raw circumstances of the public space? Which parts of the artistic analysis of Charleroi’s societal context remain relevant when you remove Charleroi?

The continuous exposure to these questions made the HOTEL CHARLEROI artists propose the re-enactment of a selection of works that occurred in Charleroi from 2010 to 2014. The original actions will not only be presented in a more classical display in the LODGERS space, they will also be performed again and reinterpreted on two occasions: on Sunday 02.04.2017 and during the re-opening weekend of the M HKA, which takes place from 27.04 to 30.04.2017.

Come and meet our LODGERS and contribute to their activities.

A detailed programme of the performances will follow soon at www.hotelcharleroi.com