📅 March – July 2025
📍 Ludwig Forum Aachen & Greylight Projects Heerlen


The Reading the Region Research Residencies (RRRR) invites two artists to engage with the theme of gardening as both a metaphor and a practice. Gardening serves as both a metaphor and a practical framework for exploring ecological, social, and philosophical questions. In contemporary art, it reflects the balance between care and control, highlighting themes of sustainability, environmental responsibility, and the natural cycles of growth and decay.


At Greylight Projects, the concept of artistic permaculture is central—just as permaculture fosters self-sustaining ecosystems in nature, Greylight Projects nurtures an artistic environment where practices and collaborations develop organically. This approach emphasizes sustainability, adaptability, and cross-pollination, ensuring a thriving and resilient creative community.


At Ludwig Forum Aachen, the LuFo Garden serves as a space for artistic, ecological, and community-driven projects. Functioning as an open-air extension of the museum, it invites dialogue between nature, art, and public engagement. The garden reflects themes of sustainability and transformation, mirroring the evolving role of museums as sites of experimentation and collaboration.


With this in mind, the Reading the Region Research Residencies (RRRR) offer the artists the space to explore the intersections of art, ecology, and regional identity. The program, a collaboration between Ludwig Forum Aachen and Greylight Projects Heerlen, brings together artists for a three-month residency focused on engaging with the Euregio Meuse-Rhine. The residency encourages artistic research, exchange, and public dialogue, with each artist introducing their work through public lectures and concluding with open studio presentations to share their findings.


For this residency the artists Marcus Kaiser and Kaya Erdinç are invited to spend three months immersing themselves in the local context, developing new works, and engaging with the public through presentations and discussions. Throughout their residency, Kaiser and Erdinç will share their evolving research through public presentations, conversations, and open studios, inviting audiences to engage with their ideas and processes. These events will serve as a platform for broader discussions on art, ecology, and regional identity, fostering exchange across disciplines and borders.


Join us in Aachen and Heerlen to experience how artistic research and collaboration can open new perspectives on our relationship with the environment and the region we inhabit.


The Reading the Region Research Residencies (RRRR) is a collaboration between Ludwig Forum Aachen, Greylight Projects and additional for the residency of Marcus Kaiser the GTB Lab Heerlen

📅 Wednesday 28th of May, 15h30
📍 Greylight Projects, Heerlen


Studio presentations by RRRR residents Kaya Erdinc & Marcus Kaiser


To conclude the residency period, Greylight Projects is hosting studio presentations by Kaya Erdinç and Marcus Kaiser on May 28. Both worked on their practices from different places and in different ways. On this day Kaya will show a video installation related to the story ‘A Silent Sjtil’ which he has been writing for the past few months. Marcus will present an installation in the tower of the GTB lab in Heerlen. Both residencies are organized in the framework of the first Reading the Region Research Residencies program: a collaboration with Ludwig Forum Aachen and part of the Very Contemporary network.


Program:


Presentation Marcus Kaiser
📍 GTB Lab (In de Cramer 173, Heerlen)
15:30 Doors open
16:00 Introduction to GTB Lab, with Elma Durmisevic
16:30 Concert by Germaine Sijstermans, together with Marcus Kaiser
16:45 Talk with Marcus Kaiser
(Snacks and drinks available on location)
17:30 – 18:00 Transition to next location


Presentation Kaya Erdinç
📍 Greylight Projects (Schaesbergerweg 58, Heerlen)
18:00 Doors open
18:30 Presentation by Kaya Erdinç
(Soup and drinks available on location)

📅 Saturday 21st of June, 13h30-17h
📍 Lufo Park, Ludwig Forum Aachen

Reading the Region Research Residency presentations in the LuFo Park

On Saturday, June 21, we warmly invite you to an afternoon marking the conclusion of the residencies of artists Marcus Kaiser and Kaya Erdinç in the LuFo Park, as part of the Reading the Region program. There will be a performance of a composition by Marcus Kaiser, performed together with Germaine Sijstermans. With Kaya Erdinç, we will read his text A Silent Shtil together.


Both artists have been working at Greylight Projects since March this year as part of their residency, made possible in collaboration with the Ludwig Forum in Aachen. During their three-month stay, the artists explored the region and connected their research to the local context. Marcus Kaiser collaborates with the GTB Lab in Heerlen, where he experiments with spatial and ecological processes. Kaya Erdinç investigates how poetry can serve as a compass in our ever-changing experience of privacy. His practice unfolds in a dialogue between language, image, and sound, with a focus on recurrence and return within cultural and social structures in the Euregion.


Program:


13:30 – Doors open / Park opens

14:00 – Welcome and introduction by Wouter Huis, followed by a guided walk through the park

14:30 – Performance / reading by Kaya Erdinç in the park

15:30 – Concert with Marcus Kaiser and Germaine Sijstermans (TBC)

16:30 – Closing