RE-residence is a concept that was first used during the Luca Biennial (Let yourself) fall (2019). In his text Art in transition following this exhibition, Rudi Laermans refered to it as ‘Location/art’.

It is the structure of all the works I create in non-artistic and non conventional spaces, and that began with the project There is the sun in 2012.

Residency is a familiar term. As an artist, you stay in a place, with the aim of deepening your artistic practice or making a new work. Relations with the outside world play no role in this.

During a RE-residency, you also stay as an artist in a particular place with the goal of making a new work, but  the relationships you develop there with the people and things are essential to create new meaning and new art. Making an artwork, during a RE-residency, is the act of temporarily resettling and adapting yourself in and to the frameworks, structures and values of an existing everyday context.

RE-residency is not participation but a reverse form of it. As an artist, you participate in the existing frameworks, forms, values of a group, individual or community.

The/other(s) is inseparable from the concept of RE-residency. A RE-residency only makes sense if the place you re-establish is different from your own habitat and frameworks. The greater the difference, the more interesting the relationships, artworks and new meanings that emerge. A RE-residency in a museum is a contradiction.