Cecil Serres artist-in-residence at Kasteel Wijlre estate
The Resonant Garden residency begins

Kasteel Wijlre estate is pleased to announce that artist Cecil Serres has been selected as the winner of the open call for The Resonant Garden. Their proposal was selected by an expert jury comprising artist Elspeth Diederix, director Xander Karskens and artist Lou-Lou van Staaveren, from 95 submissions by international artists. Serres has begun their three-month residency on 1 September.

The Resonant Garden
The Resonant Garden is a three-month residency for international artists interested in the artistic possibilities of the garden. The residency offers time and space to observe and create within the green surroundings of Kasteel Wijlre estate. The garden provides a context for artistic research, material experimentation and reflection, with the outdoor environment, the history of the garden and the surrounding landscape of South Limburg serving both as companions and collaborators. The residency is part of the international Borderlands Residency Network and concludes with an open studio event or public presentation. The pilot edition of the residency took place in 2025, with artist Taqwa Ali as the first resident.

About Cecil Serres
Cecil Serres (1991, France) works across sculpture and performance. Their practice centres on touch, corporeality and encounter. Working with materials such as silicone, Serres explores how synthetic matter can become almost organic and sensitive. Through playful and tactile works, they explore shifting boundaries between gender, the human and the non-human.

The residency project
During the residency, Serres will explore our relationship with animals that inhabit the edges of forests, cultivated landscapes and human settlements, including deer, horses, goats and cattle. The artist is interested in the often unnoticed presence of these animals and the traces they leave in the landscape. Approaching the garden as a place where nature is continuously cultivated, managed and reshaped, Serres will develop a sculptural installation centred on a mythical hybrid animal, somewhere between a deer, horse and goat. The figure is inspired by creatures found in medieval bestiaries.

Serres’ proposed installation combines ceramic sculptures of young animal legs with delicate, membrane-like structures. The sculptures will be situated among vegetation and materials that grow, dry out and decay. In this way, the ceramics and vegetation enter into a relationship in which the works may gradually be camouflaged, enveloped or reclaimed by their surroundings. By bringing together durable and transient materials, the project reflects on vulnerability, care and disappearance, inviting us to look more closely at the fragile and often unnoticed forms of life that share our landscapes.

Biography
Cecil Serres (they/them) lives and works in Paris and Marseille and graduated from the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris (Beaux-Arts de Paris). Their work has been presented at venues including Magasin Généraux, FRAC Île-de-France, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, CAC Brétigny, Fondation Ricard and Glassbox in Paris, Triangle in Marseille and Liget Gallery in Budapest.

Open Call: Residency The Resonant Garden

Kasteel Wijlre estate invites international artists to apply for The Resonant Garden, a three-month residency set within the green surroundings of Kasteel Wijlre estate’s grounds and gardens.

Theme
The Resonant Garden offers artists interested in the artistic possibilities of the garden, an inspiring context to deepen their practice. At Kasteel Wijlre estate, the garden is considered a place of cultivation and care, memory and imagination, rooted histories and possible futures. Artists are invited to engage with our gardens as a site for artistic research, hands-in-the-ground material experimentation and poetic speculation by becoming part of this vibrant ecology in which worlds are built, contested, and reimagined.

Residency
Artists-in-residence are offered time and space to observe and create within a unique estate atmosphere. The residency provides a natural context for (material) experimentation, artistic dialogue, and reflection, in which the site itself – its green exterior space, its patchwork of historical views on ‘the garden’, its embeddedness in the surrounding landscape of the South Limburg hills – becomes both companion and collaborator.

Residents have access to both the gardens and a small (16 m2) in-house studio space. Basic gardening and technical tools are provided. Feedback sessions with garden and art professionals from Kasteel Wijlre estate’s network are organized throughout the residency period, which concludes with an open studio event or presentation.

For whom?
This call is open to artists living in the EU with both research- and studio-based practices who wish to engage with the garden as a metaphor, a method and/or a material environment. Applicants should embrace and value the rural location and the sense of quiet and relative isolation that living and working on a country estate entail.

Residency details

• Duration: 3 months (September – November 2026)
• Location: Kasteel Wijlre estate, Kasteel Wijlreweg 1, 6321 PP Wijlre, the Netherlands
• Accomodation: Private living and studio space including kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, located in the castle courtyard.
• Accessibility: The estate is reachable by public transport (bus), with cities of Heerlen (12 km), Aachen (17 km) and Maastricht (19 km) nearby. A bicycle is provided for short (or longer) rides in the surrounding area.
• Programme: Professional feedback and support, and public presentation. The residency takes place within the Borderlands Residency network, offering networking opportunities and field trips.
• Presence: The resident is expected to spend most of the residency period on site, actively engaging with the local context and open to exchange with local communities.
• Budget: The residency includes a stipend of € 800,- per month for three months, and a production and research compensation of max. € 2,000,-. All other costs (including insurance, food, transport) are to be covered by the resident.
• Expectations: The artist-in-residence is expected to participate in at least two (semi-)public moments, including an introductory presentation for team and volunteers and a conclusive open studio moment or presentation. The resident is also expected to participate in (some of) the field trips and meetings organized within the framework of  the Borderlands Residency network.
• Selection: A panel of two artist-advisors and the director-curator of Kasteel Wijlre estate will review the applications. Selection will be based on artistic vision, the strength of the proposal, and its resonance with the unique context of the estate.

How to apply
Please submit a motivation statement and project proposal (max. 500 words), and your CV (max. 2 pages), as a single PDF (max. 10MB). Please send your application to our residency coordinator Anne Vangronsveld, a.vangronsveld@kasteelwijlre.nl.

Deadline: 28 June 2026
Residency period: September – November 2026 (exact dates to be discussed)

You will receive a decision regarding the selection process mid-July, 2026.

About Kasteel Wijlre estate
Kasteel Wijlre estate is a cultural institution dedicated to contemporary art and nature. It organizes exhibitions, public programs, educational activities and residencies in its Hedge House, Coach House, Castle and gardens. The connection and exchange between art and nature is central to its programme, exploring ecological themes through the lens of contemporary art. The imagination of the visual arts plays a crucial role in this: how can it help us to rethink our relationship with nature, and imagine the world differently?

Kasteel Wijlre estate is located in the hills of South Limburg. It plays an active role in the cultural infrastructure of the Euregio, and initiates and maintains artistic and other collaborations with cultural institutions in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany (and beyond). In its relatively short existence, it has developed into an important destination for those interested in international contemporary art, and nature & garden lovers alike.

Winter weekend access by popular demand!

This winter, Kasteel Wijlre estate will be open every weekend. Due to the success of the exhibitions Maintaining its Spirit: Collection Marlies & Jo Eyck, and Thierry Oussou – Growing Poetics, visitors can now also visit the estate on Saturdays and Sundays during the winter months. Until 4 May, 2025, the exhibition can be visited not only at Bonnefanten, but also on weekends in Wijlre.

The winter opening hours start 1 December, 2024. As of 12 March, 2025, the regular Wednesday through Sunday opening hours will resume.

National funding

In early July 2024, buitenplaats Kasteel Wijlre received the positive news that it will be included in the Mondriaan Fund‘s ’Art Space Basis’ scheme for the 2025-2028 policy period. This structural support means that in the coming years, with our wonderful team and volunteers, we can continue to build on our beloved institution for contemporary art and nature in the South Limburg hill country. With exhibitions, public programs and education and participation activities in which we look at the themes of our time through the lens of the artist, presenting them to a wide audience. We are moving forward!