IKOB x Borderland Residency 2025

In 2025, IKOB is pleased to partner for the second time with Borderland Residencies to offer a three-month artist residency in Eupen. Following an open call on the theme of 'MATERIAL WITNESS', artist Jungwoon Kim was selected and will be living and working in Eupen from September to November 2025.

Jungwoon Kim’s artistic practice explores the quiet resilience of materials in transitional states — between vitality and decay, the natural and the artificial, the immediate and the remembered. Her interest in residual forms and fragile vitality also reflects her conflicted relationship with nature itself. The “nature” she has internalized — shaped by urban environments and media — is often curated, controlled, softened, and romanticized. In contrast, real encounters with nature affect her on a visceral level: spring allergies disrupt her body, unpredictable weather alters her mood, and climate anxiety casts a shadow over daily life. This dissonance — between the artificial, mediated nature she has grown up with and the overwhelming, destabilizing forces of the real — creates a generative tension that runs through her work. She sees sculpture as a way to hold and articulate this gap.

During her residency, Jungwoon Kim will investigate the lingering presence of plant-based materials in liminal states — suspended between growth and decay, natural and synthetic, living and fading. The project will begin with the collection of local plant remains and everyday residues. These materials, gathered from the immediate surroundings, will be combined with materials such as silicone and aluminum to create sculptural works that quietly embody tension, transformation, and resilience. She is particularly interested in the subtle abundance of withered or artificial vegetation — ornamental houseplants, remnants of tropical desire, faded symbols of care.

Jungwoon Kim presented the results of her residency in the exhibition LEAVES, which ran from December 14, 2025, to February 22, 2026.

Jungwoon Kim (*1981, Seoul, South Korea) lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. She studied Fine Arts at Hongik University in Seoul and at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Professors Rita McBride and Martin Gostner. Since graduating in 2014, Kim has participated in a variety of projects. She has been awarded numerous scholarships and participated in several artist residencies, which have taken her to cities such as Chongqing, Detroit, and Bucharest. Kim is also a member of the artist collective Mother of Pearl. Her recent exhibitions and projects include Fishing in Green, Living in Yellow at The Pool, Düsseldorf (2025); Und wir fangen gerade erst an at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2025); Worlds of Structure at Atelierhaus Aachen e.V., Aachen (2024); Waiting in Loop at Gallery Cubeplus, Kiel (2023); 20 Jahre dHCS-Stipendium at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen Düsseldorf (2023); Out to Lunch part 1 Bloom in Düsseldorf (2023); Out to Lunch part 2 at 3:e Våningen, Gothenburg, Sweden (2023); Die Grosse at Kunstpalast Düsseldorf (2023); yesterday, today, tomorrow at Zero Foundation, Düsseldorf (2022); and 14. Salon der Künstlerinnen* at Museum Kurhaus Kleve (2022).

Borderland Residencies is a Euregional network of residencies at art institutions. It is a joint initiative of artist residencies in the border area of the Rhine-Meuse. The Borderland programme supports the members’ activities by organising multi-day field trips for artists from all the participating residencies, through meetings with curators and institutions from the region and with a public programme including lectures, presentations and workshops. The programme offers participating artists the opportunity to forge contacts on both sides of the border, with both fellow artists and institutions. The field trips also focus on broader themes in the region, such as energy production, agricultural transition and the aging population.

Funded by the European Union and the Small Project Fund ‘People to People’ Interreg Meuse-Rhine (NL-BE-DE), the European Regional Development Fund (EFRE) as part of the Interreg Meuse-Rhine (NL-BE-DE) programme, and the Regional Culture Programme NRW (RKP).