Statement future of Sickhouse

Wednesday 5-07-2023

Tuesday 4th of July we’ve been informed by the board of Planetart that they are stopping with their role of facility administrator and leaving the building of Stationsplein, per 1 October. In this statement we are presenting the consequences for Sickhouse’s organisation, programs and community.

The building of Stationsplein, that we are in at the moment, was always meant to be demolished, to give space for the new square the city wants to develop for the station. Aware of this situation, we have been looking for a new location and solutions for a few years already. As we were not part of the WARP Technopolis project anymore since January 2022, we started, independently, in April of the same year to look for a new place for Sickhouse. With the support of the gemeente and our partners we have been studying different options.

For a few months, we have been working on the possibility of moving into the old fire station of Enschede on the brandweer straat, together with 2 other cultural organisations, BlackBrick, a media art platform and GrensFrequentie, a musical breeding ground. We are making great progress and we are optimistic.

The new deadline of 1st of October, is definitely tight for a smooth transition and disturbs the last quarter of Sickhouse’s programs and The Overkill festival plans (15 to 19 November). We will be looking for the best options in the coming weeks and will announce the definitive plans for the end of the year shortly.

We hope Planetart and the WARP technopolis community will find ways to recover from this situation and develop their projects further.

For now Sickhouse is open the whole month of July with an open air Cinema, performances and our first Summer Film Camp. In August we take a summer break and we reopen the 1st of September with a gaming event and on the 2nd of September our short film festival Ko(o)rts is back. We will work on making September a month to celebrate the crazy years we had on Stationsplein!

For the rest of the year, we’ll share some updates as soon as we can. In these challenging times, we will keep doing our best to create a safe space for our community and visitors.

Marie Janin and Aike Lütkemöller, co-directors of Sickhouse and the team.