Die Gesellschaft der Stadtwanderer

It takes a keen eye to spot the miniature paintings created by the Wanderlust Social Club, a group made up of Liège artist Mary Limonade and her colleague Jiem from Nantes. The works produced in the city of Völklingen for the Urban Art Biennale 2024 are typical of the self-taught duo: an exploration of urban space that takes subjects and situations specific to the location and transforms them into distinctive mini murals. One of these, painted on an electrical cabinet near the bus stop on Völklinger Platz, captures the fleeting moments that occur here every day when, for example, people pass one another on their way to work and back again. Since the early days of the Völklingen Ironworks, this route to and from the railway station has witnessed many such encounters. In the heyday of the ironworks, thousands of people would be on the move at shift changes. The figures depicted in the mini mural are based on artists who formed the Gesellschaft der Stadtwanderer (Company of Urban Wanderers) as part of the Biennale and also on local graffiti sprayers – a Gruppenporträt (Group Portrait), so to speak. 

Daniel Bauer