Statement Sickhouse Space

End of November, we officially heard that the building of the former fire station on Hengelosestraat 77, where we moved at the end of September, is not fit to welcome public events due to concrete rot in the basement. This means Sickhouse can not settle in this building and is again looking for a new location. With this statement we want to inform everyone of the consequences for Sickhouse and its  community.

The Gemeente Enschede together with Jeroen Diepemaat apologised about the situation and we are now conjointly and actively looking for fitting spaces for Sickhouse, Grens Frequentie and Blackbrick. At the same time, Saxion, as an external party, has been asked by the city to evaluate how the whole process went and will conduct interviews with everyone to create a report.

For Sickhouse and our community it means that we will not be able to reopen in February like we wanted to. We are aware that this is difficult for our community that will not be able to gather as regularly as before and might find itself isolated. We also realise that the cultural sector of Enschede is greatly fragilised and the artists, makers, organisations are again under the pressure of uncertainties.

The program of 2024, for which Sickhouse received support from Stimulering Fonds and the city of Enschede, will have to be adjusted and hybridised. It means for Sickhouse and its community that we will have, once again, to adapt, be strong together and invent new ways to exist. In all honesty this is all a great disappointment after we set many steps to professionalise, strengthen our focus, and participate in the development of a better cultural climate for the city.

But Sickhouse is also surrounded by many caring partners and with their help we believe we’ll be able to carry on until we can be our own physical space again. From January on we will be collaborating closely with Concordia, Tankstation, Rijksmuseum Twenthe and Tetem to be able to host, rethink and develop our programs. We are very thankful for the very supportive cultural sector of Enschede.

We are starting the year with the Global Game Jam, hosted in Concordia and we will share more information about our programs in January.

We hope the end of year will bring some peaceful moments to everyone and we believe next year will bring many new and beautiful experiments that we are so fond of! In these challenging times, we will keep doing our best to create a safe space for our community and visitors.

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