“Yo es otro” is a project by artist Julieta García Vázquez, commissioned by the Van Abbemuseum and developed between 2011 and 2016 in the Woensel West neighborhood of Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

The exhibition brings together photographs and video to narrate a story centered on a community of residents in a housing complex built by Philips in 1920 for its workers. At its core is a house slated for demolition, from which emerge not only artworks, actions, and interventions, but also collective processes of making and thinking. The project unfolds as a sustained and immersive experiment—defined by its duration, depth, and scale—exploring the capacity of contemporary art to generate forms of social action that forge lasting connections with the practices and issues they engage.

While rooted in a specific neighborhood concern—gentrification—the project gradually expands beyond its local context. Over five years, it comes to address the broader social crisis that affected the Netherlands between 2011 and 2012, particularly in relation to cultural institutions. It is further shaped by a sensibility in which foreignness, distance, and proximity intersect, as negotiated among the artist, the institutions involved, and the residents themselves. Although the house was destined for demolition, it was instead salvaged: its elements were transformed into sculptural and functional objects that became integrated into neighboring homes. A yoga teacher built a stretching arch; a neighbor devoted to animals constructed a birdhouse; another removed a protrusion, establishing a metaphorical connection with the adjacent house.

The exhibition’s title draws on a letter by the poet Arthur Rimbaud—“Je est un autre”—a reflection on the displacement of identity. Living in Woensel West, the artist became a co-resident, while residents, in turn, became collaborators. Together, they mapped a collective memory of the neighborhood, composed through individual stories.