It is run by artists Paul Buchanan and Laura Pardo and is located in a very unusual and touristic town in The Netherlands: Kinderdijk. One of our aims is to offer a residency programme, but we also want to make it a fluid model, open to different needs and dynamics. These are some of the purposes that we have:
• Bring artists to a place where there are no artists. Kinderdijk makes part of the cul
tural heritage of the Netherlands and the world but no contemporary artist has ever before reflected upon the significance of this place.
• Link contemporary artistic practices with the historical and cultural context of Kinderdijk.
• Provide a platform for the exchange of ideas, research, debate and reflection.
• Serve as a space to show and develop Art projects.
• Create a new/alternative history and a new memory for the place, one created by Artists. Kinderdijk:
Kinderdijk is a small village in The Netherlands that has the largest concentration of antique windmills of the country. The windmills, as well as the historical farms in the area where they are situated, are preserved and maintained, so despite the place is very popular among tourists, the village is calm and keeps its unique character. Kinderdijk is about 25 km away of Rotterdam and it’s situated in a polder at the confluence of the Lek and Noors rivers. The 19 windmills built around 1740 were created to drain the polder: the powerful mill sails serve to transmit the force of the wind on to large paddle-wheels which scoop up the water. The windmills were placed in 1997 on the World Heritage Sites list of UNESCO.
