Aim

Het Vijfde Seizoen (The Fifth Season) is a studio house in psychiatry in the Netherlands. Professional artist can work here for a season and create new work about mental health. The art projects of Het Vijfde Seizoen agenda issues regarding the position of people with mental illness and tell the story of the patients. 

Numerous artists have been working in Het Vijfde Seizoen since 1998. It is an inspiring place and a unique organisation. It is remarkable to see how each artist chooses his own perspective and approaches the psychiatry from a completely personal point of view. Each artist emphasize another aspect of psychiatry and provides critical reflection on the perception of those suffering from mental illness.

Every season a different artist works in the residency. Het Vijfde Seizoen offers artists the opportunity to deepen themselves intensively in psychiatry. With Het Vijfde Seizoen a contribution is made  to bring society closer to psychiatry and vice versa. The art works that arise in Het Vijfde Seizoen are shown regularly in galleries and museums internationally.

History Het Vijfde Seizoen

Het Vijfde Seizoen was founded in 1998 by the former Praktijkburo Beeldende Kunstopdrachten (bureau of Visual Art Assignments) of the Mondriaan Foundation.

Designer Christoph Seyferth was asked in the summer of 1998 to remodel and decorate the building into an artist's residence. As the first guest in Het Vijfde Seizoen he was given the assignment to design an atelier for the future guests. Seyferth stripped the building and used furniture on wheels to create maximum flexibility and space in the living room and atelier. He baptised his work as "Spartan Luxury".

The name 'Het Vijfde Seizoen' was derived from the story 'The Fifth Season' by the German writer Kurt Tucholsky (1809-1935).