Many of Eindhoven’s initiatives missed out on national cultural subsidies. But Jalila Essaïdi’s Bio Art Village has received an amount of money from the State.
Jalila Essaïdi’s Bio Art Lab will receive – if everything goes as expected – some €400,000 from the National government. That, while the Design Museum in Eindhoven won’t get a cent. Not if it’s up to the Cultural Council. The Council for Culture shot down plans for the museum and praised the Bio Art Lab.
Essaïdi is an organic artist. She gained recognition for her inventions, such as clothing made of cow manure and bulletproof silk skin. She is the founder of Bio Art Village. This is an area with professional research facilities where artists can study nature in a real laboratory.
Essaïdi is convinced of the power of this combination. If you let people with good ideas experiment in a lab in complete freedom, she believes, this will result in exceptional work – often with a tremendous social impact. The Council of Culture agrees. With the money from The State, Essaïdi can invite many new talents to do research in the Bio Lab.
Old WW2 barracks
The Constant Rebecquekazerne (barracks) on Oirschotsedijk houses the Bio Art Village. The Germans built a bunker complex there in the Second World War, disguised as a lovely farm village. A meeting venue and exhibition area now occupy the space. The old soup kitchen currently houses the laboratory.
Although the facilities are the same as in a ‘normal’ laboratory, the working method is entirely different. Essaïdi wants to offer artists complete freedom and impose as few restrictions as possible. Time and money shouldn’t be allowed to play a role.
At the start of the next academic year, the talents can, therefore, stay on the premises for three months. The artists produce a lot of the research material on site. So, there’s no strict limit to that either.
Source: Studio040
Translator: Bob
Editor: Melinda Walraven
