Regrowth Degrowth

HEERLEN, THE NETHERLANDS
AUGUST 2017 - AUGUST 2020

Regrowth Degrowth is a public mural project taking place in the district of Heerlerbaan in Heerlen, the Netherlands.

Over the course of three summers, eight artists will be painting large-scale murals (36 x 12 metres) over the sides of four, 14-storey apartment buildings within a social housing project in the south of the city.

Taking place within the post-industrial context of Heerlen, and taking inspiration from the work of Maurice Hermans and his book De Antistad, the project has sought to find a way of using public muralism not as a tool of gentrification but as a method of knitting the community together more tightly.

Murals have thus far been completed with the artists Morgan Blair, Isaac Tin Wei Lin, Aryz, and Hyuro. The final four murals will be completed in the Summer of 2020.

The project, curated by Schacter, is initiated and run by Stichting Street Art, a non-profit foundation from Heerlen. Formed by a group of cultural workers from the city, all of whom receive no renumeration from the project, the wellbeing of the city, rather than direct economic regeneration, remains core to their mission.

Regrowth Degrowth has been project managed and overseen by local artist and muralist Lars Ickenroth. It has been supported by funding from the local housing corporation Weller, the EU Creative Europe Programme, and the Mondriaan Foundation.

Community Events and Exhibitions 2018/2019

PROJECT CONCEPT

REGROWTH DEGROWTH

What do we think of when we think of growth?

Is it physical growth? The development of our own bodies as humans, the expansive movement from childhood to adulthood (the pencil markings on the door frame perhaps)? Or is it the ever-present growth of industry? The extension of the economic into ever new realms (the technocrats desire for an ever increasing, inevitably inflating GDP)?

Whichever it may be, the term seems to privilege an idea of physical size and material capacity, a link towards the ‘bigger is better’, maximalist attitude of our increasingly hurried world. It has come to signify a growth in value reckoned in fiscal or financial terms, an idea of health which means increasing engorgement, distension beyond the limits of the (previously thought) possible.

But what, then, about more immaterial conceptions of growth? About growth in terms of our mental or spiritual capacities, the advancement or maturation of the self? About growth in terms of our social or societal capacities, the furtherance or thickening of communal bonds? Could growth, in this manner, even mean a reversal in the direction of travel we normally associate with it? Could we grow from growing smaller, more intimate? Could we grow from rescaling (not downscaling)? Could we grow in terms of quality (rather than quantity)? In terms of well-being (rather than the search for gain)?

The district of Heerlerbaan, in which the project De-growth / Re-growth is situated, is a site in which these questions of change and development, transformation and evolution are paramount. Situated within the town of Heerlen in the Dutch district of Limburg, the area has gone through huge change in the past 20 (not to say 50 or 100) years, change that has left many questions about the city itself unanswered. Initiating a conversation around new ideas of development, De-growth / Re-growth thus aims to build a platform from which these differing issues can emerge. Working with 8 artists from around the world, all of whom will be investigating this theme from different aesthetic and conceptual approaches, the project will include a range of educational and participatory events that the murals themselves aim to spark and provoke. Rather than simply presenting a series of static images then, De-growth / Re-growth will use muralism as a tool from which to explore issues of growth that are vital to discuss today: Growth as something which can function through simultaneously individual, social, and ecological dynamics: Growth as something beyond its current limited meaning, a sustainable growth for our ever-burgeoning world.