Dwelling Together / Zusammen Wohnen
Partners: Artist-Led St Helens (Merseyside, England) and GEDOK Stuttgart e.V. (Stuttgart, Germany)
Image © SHIFT Exhibition December 25, photographer Lucy Evans
“Artists from St Helens and Stuttgart, twin towns since 1948, have hosted residencies and exhibitions for each other since 2009. In 2026 we will collaborate to ask “How do artists who dwell in towns/cities effectively create socially engaged work together with the communities who are their neighbours?
Travel, online exchange and delivery of projects in the places we call home will allow artists the time to reflect on how to make effective work, how lived experience affects our processes and how is the relationship with place and people different when you stay working in one place?”
Artist-Led St Helens and GEDOK Stuttgart e.V.
Dwelling Together / Zusammen Wohnen is a Tier Two partnership.
About the partners
Artist Led St Helens
Artist-led St Helens is a network of artists who secure workspace and deliver professional development through peer support for artists and creatives in the post-industrial town of St Helens. With our community we role-model how to sustain an artistic practice whilst growing the supportive infrastructure that artists, who may have caring responsibilities, are neurodivergent or want a safe space, need to develop.
We do this through participatory action research, a circular, sustainable approach which allows members of the community to identify problems and to work with a researcher to solve them. This model strengthens relationships, models change and equips our community with research skills, to continue this embedded community development. Our connection to our community is strong because we are active members of that community through events including conversations, shared meals, workshops, exhibitions and peer-led training. https://www.instagram.com/artistledsthelens/
GEDOK Stuttgart
GEDOK Stuttgart is an undogmatic network of artists; a cross-disciplinary cultural center; a place for exchange and encounter; a platform for the most varied forms of artistic expression.
Supported by the commitment of the members, GEDOK brings out a program of events three times a year with exhibitions, concerts, readings, performances, workshops, lectures, studio visits and parties, in which members and non-members, women and men are involved. Since the gallery is not commercial, it also offers the artists a space to easily share ideas, concepts and experiments with the public. GEDOK is interdisciplinary. It unites artists from the visual arts, applied arts, performing arts, from literature, to dance and music – all under one roof. The guiding principle of GEDOK Stuttgart can also be derived from this open structure: Exchange. https://www.gedok-stuttgart.de/
