The Art Workshop 2007 dealt with notions of “hereness” and “thereness”. Between Luxembourg, Sibiu and the artists’ place of residence, the workshop aimed at triggering an interplay between the known and the unknown, the local and the universal, between inside and outside, absence and presence.

Focusing on the art practices of drawing, cartoon and graphic design, the Art Workshop questioned the relationships between objects, activities and spaces in the context of displacement. For many artists, art today is less a question of appropriating identities than a process of documenting the act of passing from local to global (and vice versa). This entails and requires a dynamic and interactive debate, which is reflected in the artwork itself.

The Art Workshop 2007 addressed twelve young artists and art students (Bachelor at least) from Romania, Luxembourg and the Greater Region, and other European countries. The twelve participants were selected on file and were invited to participate in the workshops in Luxembourg and Sibiu. After a two-week stay in Luxembourg, the participants continued their work in Sibiu for another two weeks. The workshop’s purpose was to thus create a context where pluralism and cultural differences melt, and reflections and experiences of “art in progress” ripen and emerge.

The artists were asked to react on local contexts and to comment on situations by making graphic statements. During their stay in Luxembourg, their task was to realise an artwork. In Sibiu, the participants had to prove their curatorial and editorial skills by producing together an exhibition and a publication, both retracing the “caught” passages.

Scottish artist Chad McCail and Paris-based Korean artist Koo Jeong-A were the guest artists in Luxembourg. In Sibiu, Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi, as well as German artist Jonathan Meese joined the group for a short period as guest artists. The four artists gave a public lecture in either Luxembourg or Sibiu, and spent a couple of days with the participating artists.