Category: Studio’s & Residencies

In May 2017 Phillipe Hercher invited me to stay on his boat Le Manguier for a ‘sejour artistique’ in Disko Bay on the west Coast of Greenland together with Louis Adam (FR), Romain Farge(FR) and Matthieu Litt (BE). The trip started in June 2019 and began by going from Aasiat to the little Island of Kitsisarsuit (Kronprinsen Ejland) halfway in between Aasiat and Disko Island. From there we sailed to Qeqertarsuaq (God Haven) on the Southside of Disko Island. Then we went to Oqatsut (Rode Bay) and after that to Ilulisat from where we took a walk to Jacobshavn Glacier. After that we take a night trip to Ilumanaq, a trip that took us through the ice in front of the mouth of Ilulissat Icefjord in the midnight sun, an otherworldly experience. From Ilumanaq we sail further to a bay close to Qasiganguit, to the little village of Akunnaaq and then back to Aasiat.

With many thanks to: Philippe Hercher and Louis Adam
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Between July 17 and August 15 2018 I did a residency in Galleri Svalbard in Spitsbergen related to a long-running project I’m working on. Starting point for the project is an installation that I made in 2013, The Hyperborean Garden. The idea was to go deeper into themes that were raised in that particular work. Partly due to the many newsletters I got from Arctic Centre from the University of Groningen, from Artica Svalbard and the Svalbard Science Forum my focus gradually shifted from the original idea, the role of Arctic and Antarctic (boreal) myths in the world of the far right towards the effects of human behavior on the ecosystem, in this case that of the North.

I particularly liked Michel Serres reflections on the relation between nature and culture and the way he analyzes the origins of the world’s contemporary environmental problems. He does so through the proposition that our cleanliness is our dirt by which he means that our desire to possess the world by ‘cleaning’ or claiming it for ourselves and then throwing the consequent dirt and detritus beyond the bounds of what we deem ‘propre’ has brought about the ruination of ourselves and our world*.

* Sacred Dirt by Susan Stewart, a review of Michael Serres book Malfeasance in Los Angeles Review of Books

Many thanks to: Jan Martin Berg, Stephan Linden en Daria Khelsengreen (Galleri Svalbard), Maarten Loonen (Universitair hoofddocent Arctische Ecologie en manager Nederlands Arctisch Station in Spitsbergen), Rudolf Denkmann (Alfred Wegener Institute, Ny-Ålesund) and CBK Rotterdam for their financial support (O & O bijdrage)
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In the second week of my stay in Svalbard I went on visits to the Russian settlements of Barentsburg and Pyramiden.

Barentsburg is the second-largest settlement on Svalbard situated on the Grønfjord (part of Isfjorden) with about 450 inhabitants, almost entirely Russians and Ukrainians. Barentsburg is the only remaining Russian permanent settlement on Svalbard. Svalbard is under full Norwegian sovereignty, but according to a 1920 treaty all signatory countries (40 in total) are granted non-discriminatory rights to fishing, hunting and exploring mineral resources. For Russia that means coal mining. Barentsburg started as a Dutch mining town in the 1920s. In 1932 the Rotterdam based Dutch Spitsbergen Company (Nespico) sold their concession to the Soviet Union due to financial troubles. Since then coal mining is conducted by the Soviet company Arktikugol . Pyramiden was a Russian settlement and coal-mining community situated on the Billefjorden which is also part of Isfjorden. Founded by Sweden in 1910 and sold to the Soviet Union in 1927, Pyramiden was closed in 1998 and has since remained largely abandoned with most of its infrastructure and buildings still in place.
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Ny-Ålesund is a research town in Oscar II Land on the island of Spitsbergen in Svalbard. It is situated on the Brøgger peninsula (Brøggerhalvøya) and on the shore of the bay of Kongsfjorden. The company town is owned and operated by Kings Bay AS, who provide facilities for permanent research institutes from ten countries. Ny-Ålesund has an all-year permanent population of 30 to 35, with the summer population reaching 120. Its facilities include Ny-Ålesund Airport, a Mine Museum, as well as fifteen permanent research stations by countries such as, Norway, Germany, France, England, Italy, Japan, South-Korea China and Holland. It is the northernmost functional civilian settlement in the world.

The Dutch Arctic Center of the University of Groningen uses a couple of small buildings in Ny-Alesund as polar station. There they are studying barnacle geese and their ecology. The study in Kongsfjorden started in 1990 and is continuing till today. Dr. Maarten Loonen is keeping a personal log of this study.

I was invited by Maarten Loonen for a stay of 8 days in Ny-Ålesund as part of his team, a great experience for which I’m very thankful.
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