A winter walk through the Zaartpark

Walking with strangers
At the invitation of Heidi Vogels and Bo Emmens, I took a walk through the Zaartpark in Breda on a wintery Sunday in January together with complete strangers. Both artists had a residency in a special part of the park for an entire season. That is, Heidi ends the autumn period and Bo starts the winter period.

Anyone may intervene
The 49m2 project is long-term research into the role of art in public space initiated by Witte Rook. The location is the Zaartpark in Breda, where you’ll find a demarcated piece of land with an area of 49m2 on which the municipality of Breda is no longer allowed to carry out maintenance for the next 20 years since 2016. According to the agreement concluded with artist and founder of 49m2, Gerrit-Jan Smit, anyone may intervene within these 7 x 7 meters except the local government.

Observation
Heidi and Bo had distributed a flyer to residents of the park announcing the walk, to which a handful of people responded who were interested in the park, in art or enjoyed walking together. After a hot drink and a talk by Heidi, in which she asked us to mainly observe and share that with her while she recorded sounds and audio, we walked a route that she had chosen.

At the end of each period, Witte Rook publishes an article about the process of the artist in question and his/her/their observations. Read more about 49m2 and watch Heidi Vogels' observation video.