Stimuleringsfonds

On Friday 2 October, Creative Industries Fund NL staff and advisers visited Maastricht. Regional scout Rutger Muller took the group on a cycling tour of makers and organisations that constantly switch between the local, the national and the international from their base in this border region. There is no shortage of opportunities. Every year the art schools there produce new design talent, the city attracts students from all over the world, and Belgium and Germany are just around the corner. Even so, it remains difficult to attract audiences to the south, and many makers still leaves for the Randstad (the Netherlands’ western conurbation) after graduating.

22 October 2026

The day began at Doorspace, a new creative hub in the city. There, Rutger described Limburg as a province of contrasts. The sparsely populated north stands in stark contrast to the densely populated south, and raw, post-industrial Heerlen is almost the opposite of international Maastricht. Makers and collectives are building something for themselves whilst conversely institutions are increasingly joining forces. On our way from the station, we cycled along the Meuse River with Landbouwbelang on the opposite bank. After 25 years, this cultural free zone has to make way for commercial property development, which demonstrates that even here affordable space is one of the biggest bottlenecks.

Far from the Randstad, close to each other

FASHIONCLASH welcomed us to Doorspace, more specifically to Textiel Innovatie Maastricht’s workshop. FASHIONCLASH is a fashion culture development and presentation platform founded in 2009 by young designers who had studied in Maastricht. It started out as a festival where emerging designers could present their work for free. It has since developed into an organisation with ongoing programme strands for research, talent development, presentation and community building. Artistic director and co-founder Branko Popović was honest about the downsides of being based in the south. ‘It’s incredibly difficult to get audiences and the media to come here. That’s why we focus on one big festival a year.’ Working across the border is also less straightforward than it seems, due to differences in language and infrastructure. ‘On paper, the Euregio is interesting, but in practice you run into a lot of challenges.’

The creative makers who do stay join forces. ‘Here, everyone helps each other,’ says Branko. This became clear in the place where we were welcomed. The Textiel Innovatie Maastricht foundation manages a workshop where educational institutions, companies and cultural organisations (such as FASHIONCLASH) conduct research into recycled and bio-based textile materials and produce small-scale prototypes. FASHIONCLASH collaborates closely with the workshop as this helps designers gain knowledge of new materials, which is hard to find in a region with so little structural support.

On paper, the Euregio is interesting, but in practice you run into a lot of challenges.

Hyperlocal and international

Limestone Books is an art bookshop, publisher and project space on the Grote Gracht that views the city in an entirely different way. The collective surrounding Taiwanese book designer Jhen Chen focuses on non-Western perspectives and underrepresented voices. ‘Maastricht is small, but very international. It is home to many students from around the globe and that makes the city attractive to us,’ says Jhen. For example, Limestone invited a Belgian and a Kosovan collective to each take over the shop for a month as part of its artists’ take-over programme. It is now exploring how independent publishers from Europe, Asia and South America can form an alliance with its Cross-border Publishing Co-op. Limestone therefore targets both a local and an international audience, which makes engaging the Randstad less of a necessity.

Limburg also has a strong scientific presence with universities and Brightlands campuses throughout the province. Rutger hopes these will play a bigger role in arts and culture. At The Plant, Maastricht University’s Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences’ new technology lab, we saw what that could look like. Students, researchers and makers experiment with XR, 3D printing, sound and AI there. It is one of the few open workshops for digital culture in Limburg. ‘The university does not impose a research agenda, so we have a lot of freedom to combine disciplines,’ says Creative Lab Technologist Jay Simons. ‘That’s the advantage of a small faculty at a young university.’

The border as a design challenge

We ended our day at Maurer United Architects. Nicole Maurer-Lemmens and Marc Maurer deliberately moved their practice to Maastricht in 2005. Their first design for the city was a skatepark on De Griend, which we had cycled past that morning. ‘Limburg can be conservative, and that sometimes makes processes difficult,’ says Nicole. ‘But that’s exactly why we wanted to settle here. We want to make a difference in this environment, partly because we’re one of the few.’ The practice takes the specific context of South Limburg as its starting point: the soil, the many listed buildings and the dense railway network dating back to the mining era. In Trans Regio Express, they cooperate with Dutch and German partners to investigate how the station areas along the Drielandentrein (Three Countries Train) line between Liège, Maastricht, Heerlen and Aachen can become a single coherent area. This turns the border, often a practical obstacle, into a design challenge.

We want to make a difference in this environment, partly because we’re one of the few.

Encounter between funds and makers

At the end of the afternoon, the public programme kicked off at Doorspace. Makers from all over Limburg could attend speed dates with the Fund, the Elisabeth Strouven Fonds, Huis voor de Kunsten Limburg and the Municipality of Maastricht. They could also take part in the ‘Fair Practice Budget’ workshop.

About Spot-on

Spot-on Limburg is the third edition of the national Spot-on programme which the Creative Industries Fund NL uses to encourage greater interaction with the sector across the whole of the Netherlands. The working visits, organised in collaboration with our regional scouts, are more than just an introduction: advisers and staff examine their own frames of reference and make room for regional perspectives. In this way, we learn to assess quality not only against national standards, but also within the specific dynamics of a region.