Image from the performance: The Day I Started to Disappear (2023)
In this 30-minute performance, Leusink wears a large ceramic vase upside down on her shoulders, obscuring her vision and muffling sound. At the same time, a soundscape plays, featuring recordings from workshops — captured while shaping raw materials and found objects — as well as sounds from walks through various landscapes.
The result is an interplay of natural and crafted rhythms and materials. With this, Leusink questions the materiality of living and non-living forms — what we are made of, what we move through, and everything that exists in between. The garden of Marres, with all its human and non-human life forms, becomes a temporary stage where artist, environment, and materials improvise together.
Didianne Leusink (1996, Netherlands) is a visual artist whose work explores the human impact on nature. Her practice often emerges from organic materials and artisanal craftsmanship. She works with raw elements such as crushed stone, plants, and ash, as well as handmade glass djembes, ceramic vases, and painted curtains — objects that have been given a recognizable form.
After a fun and successful edition in April, Marres will host another neighborhood gathering. Come join us in the Marres city garden. Everyone is welcome – neighbours, friends, and passers-by.
At around 1,000 m², the Marres garden is the largest public city garden in Maastricht. It features a vegetable patch, herb beds, and several fruit trees.
Together we’ll pick ripe figs (maybe even some apples!) and enjoy the fruit, drinks, and summery vibes. You’re welcome to take your harvest home with you.
Date:
Friday, 29 August 2025
Time:
Picking: 4:30—5:30PM Drinks until 7:30PM
Location:
Marres City Garden Capucijnenstraat 98, Maastricht
The garden of Marres is, at around 1,000 square meters, the largest public city garden in Maastricht. In August, Marres invites you to take part in workshops exploring all the beauty this hidden piece of nature has to offer.
Drawing workshop De Verborgen Taal van de Tuin(The Hidden Language of the Garden)
by Gladys Zeevaarders Marres x Kasteel Wijlre Estate
How can you capture the essence of a place in a drawing? And how much space do we actually include when we draw a scene? In this special drawing workshop, we’ll dive into the garden of Marres and uncover its hidden language—a language of shapes, memories, and wonder.
You’ll receive a handmade field guide as your starting point, inviting you to set off on an adventurous pencil journey through the garden. This field guide will serve as the foundation for a personal archive we’ll build together, filled with sketches, mementos, and stories.
We’ll use this collection to question and explore the space and to create a visual narrative without words—told entirely through shapes and images. Inspired by old botanical illustrations, you’ll combine your own sketches with fragments of photos and stories from the past and present of the Marres garden.
With a variety of drawing materials and visual examples, Gladys will show how wordless visual stories can come to life. Explore books on forgotten plants to help shape a unique, personal interpretation of this walled garden.
This workshop is an invitation to slow down, to feel, and to connect deeply with the nature around us through drawing.
Date:
Saturday 23 August 2025
Times:
You can sign up for one of the two workshops: 12—2PM (Fully booked) 3—5PM (Last tickets!)
The garden of Marres was the source of inspiration for the linocut that Elisa Verkoelen created a few years ago. “In the Marres garden, I saw how light and shadow alternated, and how the garden was made up of layers.”
On Sunday, August 24, 2025, she will lead a linocut workshop. Discover the Marres garden in a new way: work with negative space and let shadows and shapes tell new stories, which you will then translate into blind drawings and black-and-white linocuts.
No prior experience with linocutting is necessary to participate in the workshop. It is recommended to wear clothing that can get dirty.
Date:
Sunday 24 August 2025
Time:
You can sign up for one of the two workshops: 12—2PM (Fully booked) 3—5PM (Fully booked)
Would you also like to visit Vultures & Fireflies? You can with a valid admission ticket.
Museum Card holders, ICOM members, children under 18, students of the Maastricht Institute of Arts / Jan van Eyck Academy / Maastricht Academy of Performing Arts / Maastricht Conservatory, and Friends of Marres always receive free admission.
Partners / thanks
Marres receives structural support from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Province of Limburg and the Municipality of Maastricht.
In addition, Marres thanks Hans Engelbrecht, our volunteer Thuur, as well as everything that grows and flourishes in the garden.
On Sunday, June 29, the Gluren bij de Buren (translated as Peek Next Door)initiative will spark an explosion of local talent. Musicians, theater makers, poets, and dancers will showcase their artistry with lawns as their stage and ivy as their backdrop, with around 4,000 performances taking place throughout the country.
Jeroen Tessers
Cabaret / Poetry / Performance Art
Friend and Foe In a time when enmity lurks around every corner, Jeroen tries to hold on to what is truly valuable in the bonds between people. So bring your best enemy and worst friend to this cabaret performance and enjoy a guaranteed musical and playful afternoon!
Date: 29 June Times: 1PM, 3:15PM, 5:30PM Location: Marres City Garden, Maastricht Free entrance
To give our dear volunteers some extra recognition, this month’s 25th celebration was all about them!
Volunteer & gardener Thuur and floor manager Tineke planted a symbolic walnut tree in the Marres city garden. Snacks were be prepared with fruit from the garden and glasses were raised in the historic ice house.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Marres, marked on the 25th of each month, an extra garden workshop will be organized for November 25.
Workshop: The Secluded Garden
With Hans Engelbrecht
In the urban garden at Marres, the shift from fall to winter is unfolding. We often see this as a process of fading: leaves change color and fall, plants wither, birds migrate, and other animals begin their hibernation. But much more is happening. Gardener Hans Engelbrecht will highlight the processes occurring during this period and discuss the unique plants and animals found in the garden and on its historic walls.
Bundle up and explore Marres’ winter garden with a nice hot chocolate afterwards. We look forward to welcoming you!
Time:
The workshop will be held at two different times: 11:00AM – 1:00PM 2:00PM – 4:00PM
Location:
Marres Urban Garden, please check in at the reception
Tickets:
€5,00 Tickets are no longer available
Be quick! Each workshop has a maximum of 15 participants.* The workshops will take place in all weather conditions, so please dress accordingly and wear appropriate footwear! Questions? Mail to receptie@marres.org
Attention! The workshops are conducted in Dutch
Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij
Hans Engelbrecht
Hans Engelbrecht is an ecological gardener and owner of the company De Groene Stap. His aesthetic approach to landscaping intricately weaves cultural history, ecology, and the local environment. This forges a relationship between gardens and their surrounding environments, giving prominence to nature and natural processes. In Maastricht, he has developed projects such as the city garden of Marres, Sphinxpark, and “De tuin der barmhartigheid” (Garden of Mercy).
In this episode, you can listen to a (Dutch) interview by Petra Quadvlieg with Hans Engelbrecht, who is responsible for the development of the Marres city garden.
Hans Engelbrecht is an ecological gardener and developer of the Marres garden. Petra Quadvlieg is a journalist and writer. She recently published the book “Je hond eet je niet op” (“Your dog won’t eat you”).
