According to Mayor Simone Asselborn-Bintz, ‘our great municipal project extends well beyond a single, ambitious event. It includes more than 18 stories – about the past, the present and the future – disseminated across the entire territory of the municipality, which are waiting to be filled with your experiences, your ideas, your participation’.  

For Anna Loporcaro, the artistic director of the project, it was important ‘to avoid imposing existing artworks on the local context but to imagine on-site interventions that resonate with the space as well as with its inhabitants and their memories instead. This route has been devised in cooperation with local organisations […] participatory workshops, events, concerts and picnics will provide numerous opportunities that attract the public and create moments of exchange and life – everything we have been missing sorely for a year’.  

The European Capital of Culture Esch2022 coincided with the intention to build the educational and recreational facility Pavillon de la source Bel-Val in collaboration with the BeBunch collective. Luxembourgish architect Laura Mannelli will create the project ‘Pavillon de la source Bel-Val’ to evoke the story of the Bel-Val Source. ‘Based on immersive storytelling, a scenographic installation will unfold across the entire site. The spirit of the source is hidden in one of the closed spaces of the pavilion, from which an orchestration of different systems will radiate across the site and converge towards the space.’ 

One of the 17 other projects is ‘Per grazia ricevuta’ by the artist Claudia Passeri, whose intervention will consist of installing 7-metre-high luminous letters in the landscape marked by the steel industry. The letters will spell out ‘PGR’, the acronym of ‘Per Grazia Ricevuta’ (For Grace Received), in reference to the cultural-religious practice of ex-voto paintings, and ‘ARBED’, in homage to the steel company of the same name and its workers.  

The project ‘Histoires de serres’ by d-o-t-s will take a curious and critical look at greenhouses, specifically the greenhouses of Soleuvre that were recently acquired by the municipality of Sanem. Through an exhibition and a varied programme of cultural events, d-o-t-s will transform the greenhouses into a welcoming and dynamic space and encourage local communities to reclaim them. Among other things, residents will be invited to bring their own greenhouses of all shapes and sizes and participate in the development of the project through a series of workshops. 

Trixi Weis and Emile Sevindik will create with ‘Composition for Crusher’, a sound journey on the old path along the Belvaux crusher, which operated from 1870 to 1977. The sound creations will be inspired by a multitude of noises associated with iron ore and the different stages of its extraction.  

As part of the ‘Eating Map’ project, the collective La Bonneterie will draw on the territory, its inhabitants, and its sights and sounds to publish a physical map of places where edible and useful plants grow, explaining how to use these plants and providing insightful information based on history and popular science.  

Other information about Loop here.