14 → 23 August 2026
Institute of Cartopology/
Berghut Halverwege
Gemmenicherweg 36
NL-6291 BT Vaals
Opening hours:
Thursday–Sunday in the 3rd and 4th week of each month.
Hut keeper: Remy Kroese
Theme
Bergen / (to) Refuge / Abriter
Landscape is never just a backdrop. It shapes how we live, organise, and relate to one another. Mountain environments, in particular, demand shelter, repair, self-reliance, and cooperation.
MAPAWAY 2026 explores mountains not only as physical formations, but as social and cartographic forces. How do landscapes produce ways of living? What does it mean to salvage, to hide, to host, or to move what seems immovable?
Across workshops, expeditions, and exhibitions, participants explore mapping as a practice of connection: between bodies and terrain, between people and place. From the slopes of the Vaalserberg, the Institute of Cartopology – Berghut Halverwege becomes a basecamp for investigating how landscapes shape collective life and how mapping helps us read, question, and transform that relationship.
Tickets
Program
DATE
ACTIVITY
LOCATION
Coming soon
Practical info
MAPAWAY is a map-based festival where exploration, making, and thinking come together. Like previous editions, visitors don’t just look at maps: they use them, question them, repair them, and create new ones.
You partly join expeditions, follow workshops, and discover how mapping reveals hidden relationships between people and landscapes. MAPAWAY welcomes curious beginners, families, and experts alike; anyone who wants to see the world differently through maps.
The overarching theme is “Bergen / (to) Refuge / Abriter”.
This edition explores how landscapes, especially mountainous ones, shape behaviour, community, and ways of living. Mountains demand self-reliance, shelter, repair, and cooperation. MAPAWAY 2026 investigates how mapping helps us understand these processes, from salvaging damaged maps to hosting others, moving mountains, and learning to live “mountainously” anywhere.
Across ten days (14–23 August 2026), you can join:
• Workshops: e.g. repairing analogue maps, vegan mountain cooking, or working with OpenStreetMap
• DIY expeditions: such as searching for map inconsistencies, hiking in connected sightlines, or experimenting with mountain work
• Lectures & exhibitions: on waste mountains, hidden map stories, mountain dwellers, and more
• Collaborative projects: including activities developed with partners like IKOB – Museum für Zeitgenössische Kunst and DAV Sektion Aachen
As always at MAPAWAY, you can participate actively or simply observe and listen.
MAPAWAY is designed for multiple ways of participating:
• Families and curious visitors looking for hands-on workshops
• Researchers and professionals interested in experimental cartography • Passers-by who prefer lectures or exhibitions
• Makers and explorers eager to join DIY expeditions
Whether you want to reflect, create, or wander, there is always a way to engage.
MAPAWAY 2026 is centred around the Institute of Cartopology – Berghut Halverwege, located on the slopes of the Vaalserberg, with activities extending into the surrounding landscape and partner locations.
The festival is organised by the team of the Institute of Cartopology, commissioned by the NAP+246 Foundation and developed in collaboration with cultural and research partners across the region.
FAQs
Find answers here. Still in doubt? Contact us!