AiR Hotel Spaander was an initiative by Petra Hart and developed as one of the precursors to Art Zuiderzee. The Artist-in-Residence programme was conceived around the idea of inviting artists to temporarily live and work at distinctive locations around the water.
Hotel Spaander in Volendam provided a natural first location. The hotel has a long history as an international artists’ colony, where artists from different countries stayed and left works of art behind. With AiR Hotel Spaander, Hart aimed to reactivate this tradition and connect it with a new generation of artists.
During the residency, Volendam was a host village for EuroArt. Within this context, Hart organised AiR Hotel Spaander in collaboration with the Municipality of Edam-Volendam.
The residency formed part of the development towards Art Zuiderzee. The concept was to invite artists to stay and work at distinctive locations around the water, developing new work in response to the history, surroundings and identity of each place. These works could subsequently be presented during Art Zuiderzee at locations around the former Zuiderzee.
In this way, AiR Hotel Spaander connected Volendam’s historic artists’ colony with contemporary art, a new generation of artists and the development of an art route around the water.
