Municipality 101

01/06/2026

20/03/2026

🔵 Municipality 101: Co-Creating the Manifesto
Exhibition & Workshop

The question of refugee integration and housing in Luxembourg remains a pressing social and political challenge. Municipality 101 invites visitors to the 43e Festival des migrations, des cultures et de la Citoyenneté to imagine a new municipality in Luxembourg, built around citizen participation, diversity, and coexistence beyond existing institutional frameworks.

Through an exhibition, discussions, and a collaborative drawing created on-site by Dutch artist Jan Rothuizen, visitors will help shape the vision of this “101 municipality.”

Together, we will co-create the Municipality 101 Manifesto, envisioning a community where everyone has a voice and a role in shaping a more inclusive society.

🔵 While you are at the festival, roaming around 400 initiatives, you can pause for a moment and join our intimate space. Sit on the carpet, enjoy a cup of tea and some desserts, and take a break. You will be able to meet Jan Rothuizen, draw together, and imagine a new reality for Municipality 101.

The exhibition and workshop curated by Jan Rothuizen and Mohammed Zanboa.
With valuable contributions from Talie Chappey.

🔵 Jan Rothuizen (Amsterdam 1968) is a visual artist known for his Soft Atlas drawings – handwritten maps that combine observation, conversation, and storytelling. His work has been translated into English, Spanish, and Chinese, and is shown internationally at museums and film festivals.

Rothuizen works beyond the studio, drawing cities by walking through them and meeting the people who live there. His Soft Atlas project, started in 2009 and inspired by Jonathan Raban’s Soft City, explores the space where solid architecture meets subjective experience.

His practice spans drawing, film, and interactive media, including the award-winning documentary Refugee Republic, the VR animated film Drawing Room, and the recent project Tracing Colombia, premiered at IDFA.

Big thanks to Clae Asbl, Mathieu Viau-Corville,
Anita Helpiquet, Olivier Schillen, Guy Liber, Talie Chappy.

19/03/2026

Municipality 101 invites visitors to the Festival des migrations, des cultures et de la Citoyenneté to imagine a new municipality in Luxembourg, built around citizen participation and diversity, on Saturday, March 21.

Through an exhibition, discussions, and a collaborative drawing created on-site by Dutch artist Jan Rothuizen, visitors will help shape the vision of this “101 municipality.”

Your ideas will be part of the project.

18/06/2025

🟡 Don't miss Prof. Dr. Pelin Tan. Lecture "Threshold Infrastructure: Survival Through and With" today, June 18th, 2025 18:30 at 24 Rue du Brill, Esch-sur-Alzette, exploring migration and foodscapes in Southern Luxembourg.

Pelin Tan’s collaboration with The Esch Clinics coincides with the of the exhibition "Municipality 101 - Reimagining Institutions for Inclusive Communities", curated by Mohammed Zanboa. Both Tan’s investigation into “threshold infrastructures” in foodscapes—through open assemblies, collective mapping, and solidarity-driven practices—and the Municipality 101 project’s emphasis on involving underrepresented voices in decision-making, highlight a shared focus on non-hierarchical, community-grounded spatial practices.

Programme
17:30 — Municipality 101. Guided tour.
18:15 — The Missing Kitchens: Finding ‘Heimat’ Through Cooking with Mohammed Zanboa.
18:30 — Threshold Infrastructure: Survival Through and With. Lecture by Pelin Tan.
19:30 — Snack and Drinks, with lentil soup made by Pelin!

Pelin Tan is the 6th recipient of Keith Haring of Art&Activism (2019). Turkish art historian and sociologist, currently a professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Batman; based in Mardin/Turkiye. Senior research fellow of the Center for Arts, Design and Social Research.

For more than two decades, she has focused on urban and territorial conflict, commons, labor conditions, alternative pedagogies, and methodologies in art&architecture.

She contributed to several publications such as Climates: Architecture and The Planetary Imaginary, Refugee Heritage, Radical Pedagogies, Designing Modernity The Arab Architecture, Agonistic Assemblies, Urgencies in Architectural Theories.

10/06/2025

The Municipality 101 is inviting you tomorrow evening for a guided tour and screening of the award-winning film "13 Square Meters" with the presence of the director Kamil Bembnista at the Cultures of Assembly, 24 Rue du Brill, Esch-sur-Alzette.

PROGRAMME:
18:30 — Guided tour (EN) Exhibition "Municipality 101: Reimagining Institutions for Inclusive Communities" by Mohammed Zanboa
19:00 — Introduction by Kamil Bembnista
19:10 — Screening “13 Square Meters” (15 min)
19:30 — Screening “After Arrival” (12 min)
19:45 — Discussion / Q&A
20:00 — Drinks and snacks
Organised with ASA Architecture Students Association

"13 Square Meters", Berlin
The film explores the refugee accommodation in Berlin, developed as part of the "Architectures of Asylum" research project. Directed by Kamil Bembnista and Ayham Dalal.

"After Arrival", Luxembourg
The film is a visual journey through the architecture that surrounds refugees in Luxembourg as they navigate the path toward becoming citizens, and it is part of the Municipality 101 exhibition.

Kamil Bembnista is a documentary film director and border researcher. He graduated in communication studies and sociology and works as a border researcher in the field of urban and regional planning, design and architecture at the Department of Regional Planning at the Brandenburg University of Technology in Cottbus, Germany.

Currently, he is doing a postdoc at the Luxembourg Institute for Socio-Economic Research in a project focusing on border semiotics. Kamil has also completed postgraduate studies in documentary film directing within the DOK PRO program at the Wajda School in Warsaw, Poland. His films have been shown in numerous film festivals around the world and have received several awards.

Exhibition with the support of: Oeuvre Nationale, LFR Collectif Réfugiés Luxembourg, and Cultures of Assembly

Association de Soutien aux Travailleurs Immigrés asbl Mir wëllen iech ons Heemecht weisen Passerell

03/05/2025

📍 Municipality 101 in the spotlight!
Super excited to share this article from Tageblatt highlighting the MUNICIPALITY 101 project and exhibition.
Big thanks to journalist Isabel Spigarelli for the great article and for telling the story of the project so thoughtfully and beautifully.

Mohammed Zanboa begründet in seiner Ausstellung die „Municipality 101“: die Gemeinde der Flüchtlinge. Am Abend des 1. Aprils findet die Vernissage mit Rundtischgespräch in Esch statt. Was es mit dem Kunst- und Rechercheprojekt auf sich hat.

28/04/2025

01.04.2025 | VERNISSAGE & ROUNDTABLE
"Municipality 101 – Reimagining Institutions for Inclusive Communities"

On April 1st, Municipality 101 invited the public to explore the lived realities of refugees in Luxembourg and reimagine the role of reception centres as spaces of civic possibility. Framed as a speculative 101st municipality, Mohammed Zanboa's exhibition highlights the barriers refugees face, particularly in housing, drawing from their lived experiences and the institutional dynamics shaped by the National Reception Office (ONA).

Municipality 101 opens up critical conversations on land politics, urban belonging, and the importance of empowering marginalised communities as active participants in shaping the well-being and development of society.

Sincere thanks to our roundtable speakers:
Abdulrahman Assad (Former Resident of the ONA Structures),
Sérgio Ferreira (Political Director and Spokesperson, Association de Soutien aux Travailleurs Immigrés asbl),
Markus Miessen (Cultures of Assembly, University of Luxembourg),
Antoine Paccoud (Housing Observatory, LISER - Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research),
and Mohammed Zanboa (Researcher and Curator, Municipality 101).

Special thanks to Cesar Reyes Najera (Cultures of Assembly, University of Luxembourg) for moderating the discussion.

We also extend our gratitude to everyone who attended and contributed to the evening’s exchange.
Thank you to and their neighbours on for their kind hospitality.

A big thanks to Gustav Kjær Vad Nielsen, رمزي شديد, Olivier Schillen, Paola Rivera Arellano, and Tala Alshami for your support in bringing this exhibition to life, even down to the final touches.

EXHIBITION
01.04 – 03.05.2025

OPENING HOURS
Wednesday, Friday: 12:00 – 16:00
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday: 14:00 – 18:00
Free Entry | More info www.municipality101.lu

Exhibition by: Mohammed Zanboa
With the support of: Oeuvre Nationale, LFR Collectif Réfugiés Luxembourg, and Cultures of Assembly.

Thanks to Markus Miessen, Cesar Reyes Najera, Gustav Kjær Vad Nielsen, Anouk Wies, Josée Hansen, Maida Halilović, Sérgio Ferreira, Marianne Donven, Philippe Nathan, Lena Hartz, Marija Marić and Philippe Eschenauer for their valuable support of this project.

📷 © 2025 Municipality 101 | Pancake! Photographie

ACAT Luxembourg Amnesty International Luxembourg Association de Soutien aux Travailleurs Immigrés asbl Caritas Luxembourg Clae Asbl Fondation Maison de la Porte Ouverte Jesuit Refugee Service - JRS Mir wëllen iech ons Heemecht weisen Passerell RYSE Luxembourg SINGA Luxembourg

25/03/2025

🟡 Municipality 101 is a call to reimagine institutions for inclusive communities.

This initiative introduces the symbolic concept of a "new municipality" in Luxembourg that serves as a model for how refugees can be empowered to actively participate in decisions that affect their lives while urging the other 100 municipalities to follow suit by embracing more inclusive policies.

You're Invited to the Kick-Off Event! Join us on 01.04.25 at 19:00 at Cultures of Assembly, 24 Rue du Brill, Esch-sur-Alzette

👉 www.municipality101.lu

Oeuvre Nationale