14–23 August 2026 | Vaals & Eupen
What does a mountain signify within landscapes increasingly shaped by human intervention? And what does it mean to store, preserve, conceal – to BERG/en? Can a mountain itself be BERG/ed?
From 14–23 August, the border region between Vaals (NL) and Eupen (BE) once again becomes the site of MAPAWAY, an international programme exploring artistic cartography as a mode of research and spatial inquiry. This year’s edition takes BERGEN as its central theme, embracing both the noun (mountains) and the Dutch verb (to store, preserve, salvage or conceal).
Rather than treating mountains as static geological entities, MAPAWAY approaches them as cultural, political and material constructions. Mountains are excavated, displaced, accumulated from waste, mobilised as borders, monuments and resources. At the same time, bergen invokes practices of collecting, protecting, archiving and hiding. The programme investigates these overlapping meanings through artistic research, walking, mapping and collective experimentation.
Over the course of ten days, Berghut Halverwege on the Vaalserberg, in close collaboration with IKOB – Museum für Zeitgenössische Kunst (Eupen) and DAV (Aachen), serves as the main base for a programme that brings together artists, researchers, geographers, cartographers and walkers. Rather than a conventional festival, MAPAWAY operates as a temporary research environment where knowledge is produced through participation, encounter and movement.
Among this year’s contributions is Waste Mountain at Mt. Vaals, an installation examining the mountain as an accumulation of human interventions. Stefan Schäfer presents his long-term artistic research into the slowly disintegrating Alpine peak Hochvogel, while Paulina Semkowicz’s Verfluchtes Flies opens new perspectives on landscapes situated between geology and myth. An exhibition of maps and drawings in both Vaals and Eupen further explores cartography as simultaneously an artistic, scientific and critical practice.
Visitors are invited to actively participate through ongoing DIY sessions focused on map repair and digitisation, experimental exercises such as Extracting from Mountains, collective walks between IKOB and Berghut Halverwege, workshops, shared plant-based meals and an evening film programme.
Over recent years, MAPAWAY has developed into a distinctive platform for artistic research and cartography within the Euregion Meuse-Rhine, bringing together contemporary art, landscape research and mapping practices across disciplinary boundaries.
MAPAWAY 2026
14–23 August 2026
Berghut Halverwege (Vaals)
IKOB – Museum für Zeitgenössische Kunst (Eupen)
Haus Rohren (Monschau)
Daily programme, tickets and further information: www.mapaway.eu
