Elli Ott — Atelier in de Stad 2026

For Atelier in de Stad 2026, Greylight Projects welcomes Elli Ott, a German visual artist based in Aachen whose sculptural and research-based practice explores the interconnections between human bodies and other-than-human bodies, particularly in relation to water, landscape and shared materialities.

Ott’s starting point is often her own body at the edge of bodies of water. She is interested in these borderlands as spaces where ecological, material and psychological processes intersect. Through sculpture, installation and extensive research across fields including ecology, physics, psychology and philosophy, she explores how bodies are connected, how they leave traces in one another, and how seemingly separate forms of life share matter and histories.

For her residency in Heerlen, Ott will focus on limestone and the traces of the ancient sea contained within the landscape of South Limburg. The limestone beneath the region was formed around 80 million years ago, when the area was covered by a sea. Its mass consists largely of the accumulated skeletons of microscopic marine organisms, alongside the fossilised remains of ammonites, sea urchins, corals and other forms of marine life.

Under the working title beneath the pavement, the sea, Ott will investigate this limestone as both geological archive and shared material. She will explore the relationship between the microscopic bodies that formed the stone, the landscapes and buildings constructed from it, and the human body, whose own skeleton is composed of related mineral matter. What might the human body remember of the bodies that once inhabited the sea? And how can material traces connect bodies across millions of years?

During her time in Heerlen, Ott will explore the regional landscape on foot and search for fossils and other, less visible traces of its marine past. At the same time, she will experiment with limestone and lime as artistic materials, working with locally sourced stone and materials connected to the regional limestone industry. Using processes of pressing, casting and imprinting, she plans to develop panels and sculptural works that function as a material archive of the absent sea.

The research will move between geological time, bodily experience and the future. Ott is interested in fossilisation, pressure and traces of former presence, but also in the idea that matter is continuously transformed rather than lost. The limestone beneath the pavement becomes a way of thinking about interconnected bodies and the unstable boundaries between human and non-human, past and future, landscape and organism.

The resulting works will combine sculpture, spatial installation and text. Depending on the development of the research, Ott also hopes to open the process to others through a workshop or collective material experiments. By approaching Heerlen through one of its most fundamental materials, she proposes to look beneath the familiar surface of the city and landscape — towards the sea that is no longer there, the bodies that became stone, and the shared matter that continues to connect them to us.

Elli Ott (born 1989, Rostock, Germany) is a visual artist based in Aachen, Germany. Through sculpture and installation, she explores the interconnections between human bodies and other-than-human bodies, with a particular interest in shared materialities, vulnerability and body memory.

Her practice often begins at the boundaries between land and water, where ecological, material and psychological processes intersect. Drawing on research in ecology, physics, psychology and philosophy, Ott develops works that connect seemingly distant bodies, materials and histories while allowing their differences to remain visible.

Her work has been exhibited in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. She has participated in residencies at Künstlerhaus Lukas in Ahrenshoop, Salmastra in Catania and Kunstverein zu Rostock, and received scholarships including a one-year DAAD scholarship.

This residency is part of the Borderland Residencies programme, a collaborative initiative that brings together eighteen art institutions across the Dutch-German-Belgian border region of the Euregio Meuse-Rhine. Among them are Ludwig Forum Aachen, IKOB Eupen, Greylight Projects Heerlen, Weltkunstzimmer Düsseldorf, Museum Goch, Internationales Atelierstipendium Mönchengladbach, Buitenplaats Wijlre and Odapark.

Together, the participating institutions create a context for artistic development, research and reflection that extends beyond individual residencies. Over a period of three months, artists take part in shared field trips, meetings with curators and art institutions, and studio visits on both sides of the border, creating opportunities for exchange and deeper engagement with the region. The programme concludes with a joint publication or exhibition, bringing together the different perspectives and research developed throughout the residencies.