Artistic Residency at Bridderhaus

Esch-sur-Alzette, LU, 2025; ©Dijana Engelmann

Artistic residency at Bridderhaus, Esch-sur-Alzette, LU

From September 22 to November 21, 2025

During my residency at Bridderhaus, I explored the relationships between
humans, materials and nature. I focused on transformation and decay as a
balance between control and surrender.
My practice is fluid and process-oriented, enabling the space and materials to
shape the work collaboratively. The focus was on time- and site-specific
approaches, as well as the experience of the present moment.
I translated elements from a micro-environment in a forest into the urban
studio, such as clay, branches for glaze, root-like forms and the sounds of clay
thus enabling the concept to evolve through this contextual shift.
Here, clay acts as a living material that carries the memory of the soil,
geological traces and the stories of the place. In this post-industrial context,
my work explores the tension between urbanity, abandonment and nature’s
reclamation.
The sound installation is created by the reaction of clay in water, such as
cracking, dissolving and sliding, which produces sounds reminiscent of the
forest. As if all the sounds of the forest were stored in the earth and released
through clay immersed in water. This research also reflects my personal inner
states and creative needs, emphasising the experiential and process-driven
nature of my practice.