De Vrijstaat – land van 49m²

The exhibition De Vrijstaat – land van 49m² presents the work of eleven artists who explore how freedom relates to space, regulation and ecology. Featuring work by Ahn Sung Hwan, Bo Emmens, Britte Koolen, Edward Clydesdale Thomson, Letizia Artioli, Maud van den Beuken, Maurik Stomps, de Onkruidenier, Penelope Cain, Sabina Timmermans and Urša Prek. The title of the exhibition refers to the project 49m², which laid its foundation, in collaboration with artist, social activist Gerrit-Jan Smit and the founder of 49m².

The project 49m² exists since 2016 and started with a unique agreement between artist Gerrit-Jan Smit and the Municipality of Breda. The contract states that a 7 by 7 metre piece of land in Zaartpark will remain untouched by the municipality for twenty years. As a result, anyone is free to intervene — except the government. This creates an exceptional situation: a piece of land without rules, where there are no rights or obligations, and where artists are free to place their work — a rare opportunity in our heavily regulated public space. This legal framework forms the foundation for an artistic free state, where ownership, freedom and responsibility in public space can be examined.

What began as a project with one artist has since 2020 evolved into a seasonal artist-in-residence programme hosted by Witte Rook. Each season an artist is invited to take charge of and observe the site over a period of three months, in relation to their own practice, the environment and passing visitors. Each artist approaches the residency in their own way, making 49m² a site of ongoing research, inspiration and experimentation.

A park can be seen as ‘A garden in public space’. However, where a garden often serves a single function, a park offers multiple purposes and meanings. The modern park originated in 1830s England and was intended to promote public health. These public places, accessible to everyone, are therefore also meeting places shaped by people, especially landscape architects. Today, pressing urban questions call into focus how these modified landscapes relate to contemporary ecological and social issues. Gerrit-Jan Smit’s success in persuading municipal officials that ‘ecology’ should be the guiding principle of the twenty-year experiment shows that 49m² transcends nature and art; it also raises questions about ownership, political power, regulation and the role of society in relation to these elusive green zones.

These overlapping layers reflect the complexity of our society and so does Zaartpark, where 49m² is situated. As an ecological buffer zone between city and nature, it has the important function of a water overflow area; it is the stream valley of the Aa or Weerijs and meant to give the water’s floodplain area a bit of freedom. The free state of 49m² is limited to a (often soggy) patch of land, which many artists have claimed as their own during their season-long residency. And this is typically how we understand ownership: as the possession of land. But air and water are less clearly defined, more often controlled by measurement and data. Each artist adds their own observation to this 49m², collecting experiences and impressions like raw data. If we consider that the Dutch word park also refers to a “collection” such as a car park, industrial park or amusement park to which we can also add observatiepark (observation park).

By 2025, the project will be nearly halfway: nine years behind us, and the tenth year beginning in September. While the site itself shows little visible change, the world around it has accelerated dramatically: from the pandemic to the impact of war, increasing social polarisation, rising climate concerns and mounting pressure on public space. Though this 49m² holds no natural resources or strategic value, its symbolic worth has grown immensely: a place that belongs to everyone, yet to no one in particular — reminiscent of the historical meent, or common ground. In this way, 49m² becomes a research project, an artwork, a park, an ecological haven, and a free state where only those with a stake whether human, animal or plant have a voice. And at the same time, nothing really happens when you step over the steel border except perhaps that the place begins to spark your imagination.