The new Dutch neighbourhood Leidsche Rijn (Utrecht) is an example of an area where high expectations converge. This new district is the setting for […] the biggest new housing estate in the Netherlands. It is one of the most extensive new development projects in Europe, set to accommodate almost 80.000 people in 2015.

[Libia Castro`s and Ólafur Ólafsson`s] “Casa Beyond” consists of three parts. Firstly, the artists rented a house in the new neighbourhood of Leidsche Rijn in Utrecht for three months, for an undocumented asylum-seeking family. No additional information on who they were, where they were from and where they were staying was revealed.

In the exhibition space the artists just placed a simple device: an electric coffeepot on a roll of bubble wrap. A short, simple, straightforward text written on the coffeepot […] informed the public on the first and last part of the project. At the end of the exhibition, two lectures by invited speakers shed light on the position and the image of refugees and undocumented people in general, from a philosophical, activist and historical perspective. These projects are examples of how the artists create a bridging situation between different spaces, in this case the actual concrete space of the art exhibition context and the grassroots space of society; the hidden space of the immigrant worker, the hidden space of the undocumented.

Bik Van der Pol