{"id":28051,"date":"2026-09-18T12:23:56","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T10:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kingkong-mag.com\/?p=28051"},"modified":"2026-09-18T12:44:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T10:44:39","slug":"grande-region-creative-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kingkong-mag.com\/en\/grande-region-creative-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Greater Creative Region: five territories, one shared circulation of ideas and creativity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nBetween Wallonia, Luxembourg, Grand Est in France, Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany, an informal movement has been linking digital creative ecosystems since 2025. Neither a cluster, nor an NGO, nor a European program: the Greater Creative Region is being built from the ground up, starting with fieldwork and encounters. An investigation among the network leaders driving it, and the rising talents who could well become its best ambassadors.\r\n<\/p>\n\n\n

Five territories, three languages, several political systems, and yet a shared history that predates the European treaties. It is here, across this space straddling Wallonia, Grand Est, Lorraine, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate, that the invention of the printing press transformed the circulation of ideas during the Renaissance. It is here that the Mundaneum<\/a> in Mons laid the foundations of the information society ahead of its time. It is here too that the first steps of European construction were negotiated, from the European Coal and Steel Community agreements to Schengen. Ideas, creativity, and running through it all, their free circulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’re at a crossroads of passage,” summarizes S\u00e9bastien Nahon, manager of the Media Innovation & Intelligibility Lab (MIIL)<\/a> at UCLouvain and one of the founding members of the Greater Creative Region. He sees a rare specificity in it: four cultures that have always exchanged with one another without the need to work together ever really being articulated. “There’s a kind of unconscious feeling that we have something to do together,” he explains, unlike an axis such as Brussels-Paris where the relationship flows naturally and declares itself on its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scattered gems, in search of a thread<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Because the groundwork already existed, scattered about. Over a few years, each territory saw its own venues and gatherings for digital and immersive creativity emerge: 1535\u00b0 in Differdange and Spektrum in Rumelange (Luxembourg), Dock11 in Saarbr\u00fccken, Bliiida and the Constellations festival in Metz, the Luxembourg immersive pavilion, the KIKK Pavilion, the Forge Videomapping Festival at V\u00f6lklinger H\u00fctte in Saarland, Mons en Lumi\u00e8re, the Mainz Licht Festival, KIKK itself, La Grand Poste in Li\u00e8ge, the Interreg “Grace” and “CinEuro Film Lab” programs, research centers like K8 in Saarland on digital aesthetics, UCLouvain’s MIIL or UMons’s Click on human-machine interaction, dance-and-technology companies like Ultre\u00efa in Grand Est or Okus Lab in Wallonia, all the way to the “Serious Play Europe” convention in Mainz in Rhineland-Palatinate, also home to the German public broadcaster ZDF. So many gems, each energizing its own ecosystem, without necessarily knowing one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A dynamic born from an encounter, not a specification sheet<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The story begins in 2024. Delphine Jenart was then running wake! by Digital Wallonia<\/a> the mission entrusted to KIKK<\/a> by Wallonia to federate digital creative businesses. On the ground, one observation stood out: the sector’s structures, often freelancers or very small businesses, often lack the means or critical mass to aim straight for distant export markets. “Think first about how to get to Japan, the United States, or Korea. Whereas Germany and Luxembourg \u2014 that’s already international,” she sums up. Cross-border cooperation emerges as a first step toward internationalization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00a9 J. Van Belle – WBI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 J. Van Belle – WBI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 J. Van Belle – WBI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 J. Van Belle – WBI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 J. Van Belle – WBI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 J. Van Belle – WBI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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It would take until October 2025 and Wallonia’s presidency of the Greater Region Summit for a delegation<\/a> of about fifteen representatives from the five regions to land at the KIKK festival, in collaboration with the Walloon Export Agency. A panel was held there where the idea of a digital creative hub across the Greater Region immediately found consensus. A few months later, wake! would be mandated by the Walloon Minister-President to lay the foundations of the Greater Creative Region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movement has neither legal status nor dedicated budget: “It’s not a nonprofit, it’s not a cluster, it’s not institutionalized, it’s a movement,” insists Delphine Jenart, speaking of a construction built “by capillarity.” Around wake!\/KIKK gathered Hitt XR Wallonia<\/a> on the Walloon side, the 1535\u00b0 Creative Hub<\/a> in Differdange on the Luxembourg side, the R\u00e9gion Grand Est Region<\/a> on the French side, as well as K8 Institut f\u00fcr strategische \u00c4sthetik gGmbH<\/a> in Saarland and the Film und Medienforum<\/a> in Rhineland-Palatinate on the German side, quickly joined by Dock 11 Saarland and the Ministry of the German-speaking Community of Belgium’s culture department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What’s new about the Greater Creative Region is establishing genuinely multilateral cooperation across the territory’s five sides for our creative industries and sectors,” continues Delphine Jenart. “Where collaborations often remain bilateral and sector-specific, the goal is to bring together technological, creative, cultural, academic and economic players around a shared ambition \u2014 to give rise to a creative market, but also a new zone of cooperation capable of producing shared projects, skills and narratives.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8 structures, 4 countries, and just as many ways of turning creativity into an economy<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

What strikes anyone speaking with the steering group is the diversity of its members’ statuses: a territorial authority alongside grassroots operators, the private sector alongside government-mandated agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Luxembourg<\/strong>, the 1535\u00b0 Creative Hub in Differdange was born of a political bet: transforming former ArcelorMittal industrial buildings, spanning 16,000 m\u00b2, into an affordable venue for a still-fledgling creative industry. “The bet that was made 10, 15 years ago has really paid off,” notes Kristian Horsburgh, who now runs the site. 80 entities are housed there, around 480 jobs retained, compared with the 750 that ArcelorMittal still holds just next door. He defines the creative industry as “an industry with economic impact that produces intellectual property”, a deliberately broad definition that includes designers and coders as much as visual artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00a9 <\/em> 1535\u00b0 Creative Hub<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 <\/em> 1535\u00b0 Creative Hub<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 <\/em> 1535\u00b0 Creative Hub<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 <\/em> 1535\u00b0 Creative Hub<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 <\/em> 1535\u00b0 Creative Hub<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 <\/em> 1535\u00b0 Creative Hub<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 <\/em> 1535\u00b0 Creative Hub<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In Saarland<\/strong>, Dock11<\/a> plays a role comparable to wake!’s: mandated by the regional ministry of economy, it chose from the outset to focus on content production (online media, podcasts, video) rather than classic one-on-one consulting. “Telling the same story three times a day isn’t really effective,” sums up its director Lars Potyka, a former independent music industry lobbyist in Berlin. On the Greater Region, he offers a blunt diagnosis: for the past eight or ten years, attempts at cross-border rapprochement have never really taken hold. He wants to believe that this time, the conditions are finally right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Une publication partag\u00e9e par einmal im JAHRMARKT\u2b50\ufe0f (@einmal.im.jahrmarkt)<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n