Welcome Little Stranger: Walter Van Beirendonck's Space-Themed Playscape at C-mine

To the point

Welcome Little Stranger is a semi-permanent space-themed playscape by Walter Van Beirendonck for C-mine in Genk, Belgium, on the Winterslag coal mine site, created for the PLAY program to blend art with play and invites children into a screen-free, analogue world after Emma Ribbens’s participatory workshops, with curator Laurens Mariën calling it both artwork and playground that invites exploration without screens; it features a reading island, an orange drawing island with tablets, a three-mirror dressing-up area, a life-size LED UFO, a domed alien capsule, a disco under the spacecraft with Hantrax, and a 140,000-ball pit around the UFO, all custom-made by Fisheye with AR previews, and its inclusive title nods to newborn embroidery traditions and welcoming strangers, aiming to last several years depending on how well it withstands active play.