This is a selection of exhibitions that I (co-)curated
Water is everywhere, as our daily need it’s a friend and enemy at the same time. The oceans have always been and will always be a source of inspiration for mankind. The sea is impressive and appeals to our endless imagination all over the world. But do we really hear what the water is telling us? And how does one, listen to water? By listening intently, you experience the familiar in a new way. The beautiful fact is that anyone can do it.
Exhibition with various audio based art installations in the city of Nijmegen. Spent an afternoon to have your ears opened by 14 artists at 14 locations.
Duration: 31 August to 17 November 2024
During De Week van Drift we listened to the role of electronic music. We put developments of that field in perspective and discover how they can determine life. Thus exploring the significance of club culture in society.
A mysterious bench in Valkhof Museum invited the audience to sit down and listen. This ‘Circular Contemplation Bench’ by Jesus Canuto Iglesias played three new compositions that could only be listened to with all of the body. His bench is the interface between the language of machines and human communication systems.
Doornroosje allowed for the exploration of two installation works: Martina Raponis A/V iteration of ‘NNNV XR’ flows into different media over time. The work draws from the artist’s biography and her dream practice. It is a mediation in VR on noise deaf-hood and voices set in an underwater dreamscape. Mint Parks’ ‘Morphology of the Aerial’ was activated during the night with a live performance. She presented an ‘air-sculpting apparatus’ including pneumatic valves and extensive collection of field recordings which Park recorded over many years to capture the sound of the weather.
In the context of electronic music festival Open Oscillator a number of (performance-)installations are presented throughout the public garden/park of Tolhuistuin in the north of Amsterdam.
Throughout the day Gökay Atabek directed his orchestra of vacuum cleaners called ‘16000W’. Simultaneously at any moment during the weekend one could listen to a cassette by Collectief ‘t IJ. A special tape that contained a poetic exploration of the objects that this collective retrieved from het IJ using a magnettic fishing technique.
Museum Arnhem commissioned 15 photographic works by Tony Dočekal on the Velperplein in Arnhem. Alleen Samen is an outdoor exhibition about resilience in the city: on the larger-than-life images you can see how people in Arnhem help each other out and make community in their neighborhoods.
This 4th edition of Museum Arnhem’s photo commission was free to visit.
The Dutch/Czech photographer Tony Docekal (Amsterdam, 1992) likes to search for the boundary between observation and interpretation: ‘In Alleen Samen I give underexposed subjects such as loneliness, hidden poverty and homelessness a stage. This photo exhibition focuses on initiatives that address current social issues in Arnhem, which transcend the boundaries of the city. Photographing in Arnhem has made me look at my own city with new eyes. Arnhemmers are enormously involved with each other and with their own city, very nice to see.”
From August 15 to October 18, Museum Arnhem presented fourteen new photographic works by Japanese photographer Miyuki Okuyama in Sonsbeek Park. The subject of Nightfall is the empty city of Arnhem during quarantine time. Okuyama went out with her camera almost daily that spring, after sunset to capture the new dynamics in the city: free of human traffic. A city covered in special stillness that affords previously shadowed perspectives.
Alongside this exhibition we made a podcast in which Okuyama shares insights on her process. This audio description was created by Dennis Gaens.
The Nijmegen artist collective Knust, with roots in the squatters’ and punk movements of the 1980s, amassed international fame in 35 years with its graphically brightly colored stencil prints. But Knust is much more than a history; new printed matter still rolls out of their stencil machines every day, which stand at Extrapool; the Nijmegen stage for performance and sound art that grew out of Knust. In the exhibition, Valkhof Museum brings out both past and present: the work of Knust and Knust at work. Knust is setting up a temporary riso printing studio in the museum, where various projects will be worked on throughout the exhibition.
A museum wall appears in a fruit garden in Lent. On the other side of the farm house 5 plumbing tubes are activated as sound resonators in a sound piece by Nowah Kater. In the open field two neatly build stairways (work by Lucas Sloot) lead up to the sky.
This northern area of now Nijmegen, used to be a small village on the ‘other’ side of the river Waal. In 2019 this location was on the verge of being transformed. Four years later the area is filled with 8000 new apartments. The grass turned into roads and streets. This changing landscape was primal in the exhibition. Centerpiece was the museum wall for which five amazing artists created either new work (Anan Striker, Barbara Walbrun) or challenged the conditions outside with excisting paintings (Meg Forsyth, Nikki Selser). The Wall came to life through the surrealist performances by Caz Egelie.
Festival de Oversteek
Expeditie Noord
2019
