As member of the jury of the project Patchwork for Watou Arts Festival 2023, I am pleased to share this open call for participants.

The project Patchwork runs parallel with the Watou Arts Festival in Poperinge, Belgium. It’s an open call for professional artists and final year bachelor or master students in an art program. Curator Koen Vanmechelen and the city of Poperinge invite you to spend a number of days in Watou during the summer of 2022. The number of participants in this project will be limited to a maximum of twenty per research period. Registration is required. A jury will select the participants, based on the motivation, CV and portfolio.

Patchwork started in 2021 as an open invitation, a research project, a laboratory. After 40 editions of Watou Arts Festival, the times have changed. What should Watou’s role in the future be? And what, specifically, does this mean? In words, images and sounds. Can we transform the concept of Watou? Together with Koen Vanmechelen, artists from different disciplines travelled to the village at the French border’ to reflect on these questions. The result can be seen at Watou 2022, an edition supported by artists and residents, one community for one summer. Patchwork will continue in the summer of 2022 as an invitation to each artist to participate in Watou 2023 from their own perspective on the village.

With Patchwork we are exploring with artist Koen Vanmechelen how Watou as a village and as a community can connect with the artists and vice versa. Interested artists can register through an open call to participate in this project and apply for Watou Arts Festival 2023. Registration is open now and will run until 25 April 2022.

Find more info about regulations, research periods and the link to register here.