Carsten Höller will lead the next Fundación Botín Workshop in Santander

Renowned Belgian-born German artist Carsten Höller will lead the Villa Iris Visual Arts Workshop due to take place in Santander between September 4 and 15. The event, which has been organised by Fundación Botín for the past 24 years, will be set against the backdrop of the newly inaugurated Botín Centre, where Höller's solo exhibition Y will be on display until September 10.

15 artists from across the world will be selected by the artist to take part in the 12-day workshop which will revolve around an important recurring idea in Höller’s work: games.

Since 1994, the Villa Iris Visual Arts Workshop has been bringing young artists to Santander to work closely with outstanding creators such as Juan Uslé, Gabriel Orozco, Julião Sarmento, Miroslaw Balka, Antoni Muntadas, Jannis Kounellis, Mona Hatoum, Paul Graham, Tacita Dean, Carlos Garaicoa, Julie Mehretu and Joan Jonas.

The workshop will be given in English and the participants will be selected by Höller, who will choose between all the applications sent to Fundación Botín online by July 28 (consult the terms and conditions here). The chosen candidates will be announced after August 4.

Artists wishing to take part should reflect upon how they incorporate “games” into their own work, as well as the role of games and experiments in today's society. The artists chosen to take part in the workshop will create a new series of games and experiments alongside Carsten Höller which may be played without the help of materials, documenting them afterwards and creating user instructions. The success of the workshop will depend on the participants’ creative thinking, in addition to other creative practical skills they may have.

The workshop, which will be co-lead by curator Stefanie Hessler, will also give the participants the chance to visit the artist’s exhibition at the Botín Centre and to witness it being dismantled after closing its doors on September 10, five days before the workshop ends.