Atelier Van Lieshout has been the studio of sculptor and visionary Joep van Lieshout since 1995. After graduating from the Art Academy in Rotterdam, Van Lieshout quickly gained recognition for sculptures and installations, buildings and furniture, utopias and dystopias. Van Lieshout dissects systems – whether society as a whole or the human body. He experiments and views exhibitions as testing grounds for recycling. In 2001, he even declared AVL-Ville, an independent state in the port of Rotterdam—with minimal rules, maximum freedoms, and greatest possible self-sufficiency. Van Lieshout combines imaginative aesthetics and ethics with entrepreneurial spirit. His work has influenced movements in architecture and ecology and has been internationally celebrated, exhibited, and published. His sculpture “Domestikator” (2015), which sparked controversy even before its planned installation in the Jardin des Tuileries at the Louvre, was acquired by the Centre Pompidou and shown during FiAC 2017. Most recently, his installation "The Voyage – A March to Utopia" attracted international attention at Art Basel Unlimited 2025.