49m² | These are the artists in 2026

The 49m² programme is entering its tenth year. Artist Gerrit Jan Smit launched the project in Zaartpark in 2016. He offered a section of the park to the municipality of Breda as art in public space. This resulted in the purchase of an experimental, activist and conceptual work for a period of twenty years. Since then, dozens of artists have spent an entire (meteorological) season there observing the place, the surroundings and its users, and just as many writers have written about it. Each artist adds new insights: experiences, stories, opinions, which together form a rough but valuable source of knowledge.

Winter period | 21 December 2025 to 20 March 2026

Jetske Apollonia and Sam Maske | Mr and Mrs Flower

During their working period, they will focus on the non-human stories of the park. Following earlier research (de Kroniekschrijvers) into the human experience of this place, they are now shifting their focus to the materiality of the landscape: the soil, the water, the trees and the stones. By collecting these natural materials and using them to create a sculpture, they allow the park to speak in its own language while exploring new forms of collaboration within their artistry.

Esther Hoogendijk

During her working period at 49m², Esther focuses on our human need to control nature. Driven by a strong urge to sow and plant, she wants to create a strict framework of tulips: a border, a fence, a demarcation. What does this tendency say about how we treat the living environment and each other? In this research, she allows natural processes to collide with the human desire for order and control.

Echo Wang

During the residency, Echo will continue their research into the Princess of the Eight Treasures, a Dutch goddess from Taiwanese folklore. On the 49m² site, they will build an installation from natural materials found in the park and grow sweet potatoes — a crop that reflects the colonial history between Europe and Taiwan. The plant functions as a non-human migrant and forms a parallel with the Princess’s journey. The project ends with a harvest and a ceremony with an earth oven, concluding what the place has revealed.

Lanxi Berkers

During her residency, Zaartpark plays just as important a role as the 49m² plot. Lanxi wants to immerse herself in the park while walking and rediscover herself in the natural and man-made elements that define this place. The 49m² plot serves as an “altar” for the hidden treasures she collects. In an age of haste and progress, this project calls for space for tranquillity: what does it mean to truly get to know a place and consciously return to it, time and time again?