Borderland Residencies 2026

From 1 September to 30 November 2025, the museum will host the artist Céline Vahsen as artists-in-residence. The Borderland Residencies programme supports the development of artistic practices through financial funding, provision of studio spaces, and opportunities for cross-border networking within the Borderland Residencies community. We warmly welcome Céline Vahsen and look forward to accompanying her processes throughout the residency!

Céline Vahsen (b. 1987, Malmedy) is living and working in Brussels. Her work has been presented in numerous international group exhibitions, including at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa; Marres, Maastricht; Centrale for Contemporary Art, Brussels; and New York Textile Month in the US. Solo exhibitions include E.A. Shared Space, Tbilisi; Saarländische Galerie, Berlin; and Affiliate, the WIELS project room, Brussels. Until 1 November 2026, IKOB Museum in Eupen presents her solo exhibition Shiftings. In 2025, she was artist-in-residence at The Mothership, Yto Barrada’s dyers’ garden and studio in Tangier; the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris; and Thread—The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Sinthian, Senegal. Her practice explores the perceptual interplay of structure and colour through textile-based abstraction. Rooted in ancestral dyeing techniques, Vahsen translates this hybrid cultural heritage into a contemporary context. For her Ludwig Forum residency, she approaches the Aachen cloth as a material archive of regional knowledge and industrial transformation. Hand-stitching and natural dyeing become forms of deliberate slowing down, reflecting on labour, production and technological acceleration. The residency will result in a new series of geometric textile-based works.

The Borderland Residencies programme offers the artists a unique platform to deepen their practice, engage with the specific cultural and social contexts of the region, and contribute to a vibrant artistic exchange across (national) borders. Supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and from funds of the RKP – Regional Cultural Program NRW.

For further information about the Borderland Residencies Programme please visit https://borderland-residencies.eu.

Credit: Céline Vahsen, photo: Sarah Duby, 2025.