Middle Ground: A Cargo Bike Artist Residency
Last year, James, the founder of Cycling Art Research, reached out to me about one of their project: an artist residency on a cargo bike. After the successful 2025 edition, we’re looking at the results of this first experiment, in which four talented artists: Lucy Declercq, Jeremy Wanner, Blise Orr, and Mikkel Thulstrup, took a Bullitt cargo bike across multiple countries, embarking on a journey of self-expression and discovery.
But first here is a word from James, who organized this artist residency on wheels:
“Middle Ground’s intention is to connect and reclaim in a society where binary politics and geographies are cut through by anger, fear, and motorways. Today it is taboo to look for ways to compromise with “the other side” rather than finding solidarity with all people. Sometimes, though, all it can take is to ride a bike somewhere and talk to a stranger to realize that we’re not so different, and often, we want the same things.
Putting the format of an artist residency on a cargo bike is both a practical and a political choice. If the intention is to bridge division, uniting working people, then we need to get rid of the walls that both protect and blind us. Art spaces are often exclusionary, and art ideals are often disconnected from the reality of living. Middle Ground uses the cargo bike to melt these boundaries.
Throughout the summer as the artists were on their journeys, I received roughly weekly updates from them, chronicling their geographical, thought, and project progress. I heard doubts from Lucy about their ambitions of distance and southerly direction when faced with the exhaustion of long days and quiet pride in facing fears and sleeping in the gardens of people met in bars. I received texts from Jeremy while he battled headwind and found joy in spontaneous routing. Blise arrived back from her journey with a phone full of notifications from keyboard warriors arguing about her “research” of plant photos. Mikkel wrote at length in a sporadically updating shared document. Beautiful prose entries emerged as he made his way north through patches of darkness and strange remnants of stories and communities partially hidden in Wadden Sea murk.
I wondered about the people they were meeting. How deep could these interactions go with such a fleeting encounter? I knew that I had experienced deep connection on bike tours in the past, sheltering from rain on the side of a road and being invited into a multi-generational family home to sit by the fire and share in humanity. Perhaps the same could happen for these four cargo biking artists.
It was with this kernel of hope that I had initiated the Middle Ground project, and the ripples that set out are still emerging. Several books are being written, further pilot trips have been booked, and funding has been secured for turning research gathered into a concept to share. At the core of most of these initiatives remain the connections made with people and places along the way. Maybe the old man sitting outside the Wadden museum won’t remember Mikkel, but the stories Mikkel might tell will envelop the histories he shared and might nudge others into talking to another old man when they’re next out for a walk or a cycle.
All it can take to bridge a gap is eye contact, and that’s much easier to do when you’re outside, open to the wind, and welcoming the glance of another, whoever they are. “
- James
As you saw with some of the previous pictures, you can learn more about the work and adventure of Lucy, Jerremy, Blise and Mikkel at @coppikoffie for the next couple of months, but most importantly, if you’d like to be part of the next edition of Middle Ground as an artist or a sponsor, you can visit the Middle Ground web page to know more and subscribe to their newsletter!
One final note from me (Paul):
If you’re an artist, remember that this is an open call. Whether you’re a writer, photographer, filmmaker, illustrator, designer, or doing anything that even remotely connects to the act of creating something personal and unique, you should consider applying. At the very least, take that first step toward what could become a truly life-changing experience.
If you’re a brand or a potential sponsor, I understand it can be easy to overlook initiatives like this, projects that don’t immediately translate into the kind of return you’re used to measuring. But it’s worth remembering that artists are the ones breaking patterns and disrupting monotony in today’s world, as they carve new paths for others to follow.
And maybe there’s something meaningful in choosing to support the creatives, the curious, the restless, and the ones driven by exploration, freedom, and the simple desire to make something their own.
📷: @cargoarts
✍️: Paul
📅: 19/03/26
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