Art Museum Z33

In addition, the house focuses on exhibitions addressing social themes, with both artistic and scientific partners and their middle ground.

It offers a platform for artists and designers who are on the verge of their breakthrough, doing so with FORMAT (formerly known as Toegepast), a talent development project and with solo exhibitions.

From 2008 onwards, the organisation also focuses on art in open space, with the see-through church (Reading Between the Lines) as its best-known realisation.

With Vleugel 19, the new exhibition wing by Italian architect Francesca Torzo [de; nl], Z33 is attracting international attention.

After the two previous projects in open space (Pit in Borgloon and the Hasselt-Genk Union ), by 2024 they foresee the realisation of artworks in five Maasland municipalities (Lanaken, Kinrooi, Maasmechelen, Maaseik and Dilsen-Stokkem) on the border with the Netherlands.

Just like Pit and the Hasselt-Genk Union Art on the Meuse has the ambition to make stories that are embedded in the landscape visible with artworks that connect with their surroundings in terms of both form and content.

In addition, urban anchoring is a focus with, among others, the mural I was here by Pavel Balta in the Ter Hilst district of Hasselt and the social sculpture The Play by Ief Spincemaille in Genk.

In 2020, Z33 was awarded a European subsidy for the project Wanderful.stream, a four-year interdisciplinary innovation trajectory around residual flows from SMEs in the Euregio.

In 2020, the existing building was renovated, followed by the construction of a new exhibition wing along the Bonnefantenstraat, Vleugel 19, designed by architect Francesca Torzo.

The variation in exhibition spaces also plays a part in this: one room has no daylight, another is high and narrow, and another is large and wide, with a view of the garden.

Hasselt, Z33, House of Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture, façade Bonnefantenstraat.
Hasselt, Z33, view on the architecture from the interior of the beguinage. photo taken by Olmo Peeters
Hasselt, Z33, Exhibition space. Photo taken by Olmo Peeters