STUDIOTOPIA Program
Co-financed by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
What happens when artists, scientists, and architects meet on common ground, clay, fiber, and earth, rather than in theory?
STUDIOTOPIA is a pan-European initiative that seeks to dismantle disciplinary silos and nurture long-term collaborations between cultural institutions, universities, researchers, innovation centers, creatives, and communities. In this context, BC studies and BC materials have joined forces with Bozar Brussels and the artist Delcy Morelos to explore new ways of thinking—and making—through material practice.
At the heart of the Studiotopia philosophy lies a simple reversal: instead of placing artists in institutional research settings, it invites scientists and thinkers into the artist’s studio—into spaces of open inquiry, intuitive experimentation, and radical care. The goal? To reframe global challenges, particularly those of ecological collapse, through the lens of poetic materiality and grounded collaboration.
This year-long Studiotopia journey unfolds through a series of shared practices, conversations, and material investigations that converge in 2026 in a monumental, earthen artwork by Colombian artist Delcy Morelos at Bozar Brussels.
As part of this collaboration, BC Studies and RWTH Aachen’s Chair of the Act of Building have developed an immersive course within the Master’s research program Forschungsfeld Bio-logical Material Tinkering. Through this module, 15 students explore vernacular construction methods and bio-sourced materials to co-create a living archive of hybrid, sustainable matter.
The course is grounded in three intertwined principles:
- BIO : Students begin by reconnecting with their bioregion—learning to identify, source, and process local materials such as clay, straw, and fiber. This phase cultivates ecological literacy and a visceral understanding of place.
- LOGICAL : Here, the students step back. They analyze. They evaluate availability, performance, and ecological footprint. It’s about finding balance—between abundance and scarcity, beauty and durability.
TINKERING : The studio becomes a space for play. Mistakes are welcome. Ideas are materialized, deconstructed, and reshaped. Tinkering allows complexity to emerge—not through control, but through care, attention, and joyful experimentation.
A Living Archive
As this cross-pollination of knowledge unfolds, a material library takes shape, one rooted in the soil yet reaching toward the cosmos. From this collective effort will emerge an artwork by Delcy Morelos: an immersive landscape of matter, memory, and meaning. Made from fibers, textiles, clays, and soils, her work embodies ancestral knowledge systems and spiritual practices that speak to land as a living entity rather than a resource.
