New Temporary Sculpture in Leiden

Room of Memories 2012

Our proposal for the OpenLuchtHotel for 21 June 2012

We will change this photo or add another underneath as we work on this project.

We will post the days we will be working on location here as well as any information or progress.

Our plan is to work on this between 3 June > 21 June and we will organize a few events for volunteers and friends, including a sleep over and possibly other events in consultation with the surrounding neighbours (the LVC (contemporary/pop music theatre), gehoorzaal (Leiden concert hall), OpenMakers (artist studios), residents).

We are still waiting to hear word from one of the neighbours, the Concert Hall (gehoorzaal) before we actually start building anything.

1 June: 4.30 - 6.30 p.m.: 15 Aalmarkt, Leiden, All Welcome (directions)
4 artists + a cultural advisor will give presentations in Dutch (Nederlands >>).
I will give a presentation in Dutch of our plans, a showing of a few past projects we have made and possibly a short film clip from footage Sonja took at the OpenLuchtHotel 2011 opening of performances and bed sculpture.

1/6 OPEN MAKERS ONTMOETING
1 JUNI 2012
16.30-18.30 uur in Aalmarkt 15

iedereen welkom
* Michaël Roumen, de nieuwe cultuurmakelaar over plannen voor Leiden
* vertelt zwitsers kunstenaarsduo Van der Plas en Albrecht alles over de “braun Cube” in Aalmarkt 14,
* Bram Schrijnen laat zien en horen hoe ver ze zijn met het kinderboek.
* Diane Lepelaar vertelt waarom zij vandaag al die lege glazen potten in OPEN heeft neergezet
* Sonja van Kerkhoff over de nieuw skulptuur dat komt in de binnenplaats te liggen voor de open-lucht slaapplaats.

Daarna is er genoeg gelegenheid om elkaar informeel te ontmoeten met een drankje. Meer info op de OpenMakers website

Crying out for culture (een schreeuw voor cultuur) and Creative Leiden

I thought I'd make this a post about some of the creative initiatives happening in my city, Leiden, in response to the Dutch government announcement to cut all culture and arts funding by 20% (c. 200 million Euros). They also announced that they will also remove the reduced sales tax for art and culture (from 6% to 19%).

In response to this a national day of protest called, "Holland screams (calls out) for culture" (Nederland schreeuwt om cultuur) was held throughout the Netherlands, on November 20th. In most cities people gathered to 'cry out' or 'scream' -very fitting given that the government just announced just a major cut to all arts funding in the Netherlands.

The website for collecting petitions of protest, enabled you to scream into the microphone, while this page has films and photographs of the day of protest.

Here is a news item with links and photos from the culture oriented broadcasting corporation, the VPRO, Photos from the protest in Amsterdam, and photos from Utrecht, and in this blog has a link on youtube of the protest in Leiden - in summary the first speaker informs us that with a 6 week warning of the increase in sales tax from 6% to 19%, theatres aimed for youth in particular cannot survive.

The Leiden city councilor for culture, Jan-Jaap de Haan the second speaker (here at 3'10" in the video in link above) spoke very well: he wanted to sing, but the orchestra is gone, so he has to scream and asks why is culture perceived as a left-wing hobby. Culture informs and shows who we are. The government is focussed on what we are not (very apt reference to the government focus on the fear of migrants and anti-Islamic sentiments).

It made me realise, that yes, without culture, expression becomes noise -yelling and screaming.

It's ironic that the news today is that yet more criminal records have been revealed of members of the Dutch parliament in Wilders' right-wing extreme nationalist party (PVV 'party for freedom' - oh so Orwellian!).
So the current cabinet remains in power, if Wilders' doesn't remove these individuals who lied about their past 'convictions' (!) from his party. Two weeks ago one member of parliament left this same party because he didn't want yet more limelight put on his past. Ironic that a government needs these people in order to remain in power.

And so to Leiden:

Creatieve Stad Leiden

is a blog run by Jeroen Maters which often has ideas or thoughts or reports on cultural related issues in Leiden.

The 24 Nov blog concerns creative ideas for some ugly architecture along a main street, and his idea there is for a vertical garden. I came across this via the Linkedin Leiden Network group in response to a call for suggestions for this empty block.

The old post office next to this block is now used by a collective of artists as a gallery, de Pieter, which focusses on group exhibitions by Leiden artists.

As a result in the down turn in the economy in the past year or so there are more empty spaces in the centre of the city, and so the artists here are able to pay a low rent to the city council for this space. Below is another arts initiative ultilizing empty shops.

Open Makers

Early in 2010 I first heard of OpenMakers which provides temporary studio spaces in the centre of Leiden utilizing empty shops.

In September + October Sen and I built our installation in one of these spaces. What is so great about their project is that it is interdisciplinary and invites artists from all levels to have the opportunity to work on a project. So far there's been theatre, tango, fashion design, poetry as well other visual artists.

Scheltema

- centre for theatre, visual arts, dance, lectures, events, etc
Scheltema is an old wool factory, converted since 2005 into an arts centre.

Oct 11th: Coming out day on the Aalmarkt, Leiden

Then Sen took the flag home and it nows flies from our Leiden-north balcony.

Oct 10th: final impressions of our video installation in the Aalmarkt studio

The five videos are:

The Tears of Rangi | Ngā roimata o Rangi,
16 min. 30 sec.

The Moving Heart | Te Ngākau Nekeneke
3min 33 sec, song: Whānau Mārama by Toroa Pohatu, Aotearoa | New Zealand

The Two Lands
16 min 9 sec., voice: Sonja van Kerkhoff

The Dark Valley,
14 min 10 sec

Heart of the Land | Te Ngākau o te whenua
3 min, 33sec

October update on our installation in an old shop on the Aalmarkt, Leiden

On October 1st Sen started building the front wall and doorway and I started work on the ceiling lights and the illumination for the suspended harakeke and piupiu.

We hope to have all the videos, sounds and lighting in place by Sunday October 10th when we will have an open day for visitors. OPEN: Aalmarkt 17, 2 - 6 p.m.

We are also on the look out for bits of carpet as Sonja will use what carpet she gets from people and the street as a layer underfoot. A layer of the land from this part of the world. Each contributor of carpet will receive a photo later showing how their carpet was incorporated into the sculptural landscape inside this structure.

"The tears of Rangi", the final video (now 16 minute long) is almost finished and I am also working on an 18 min version of the video "Heart of the Land". For the installation the most videos will be much as longer so the sounds, music and voices work more fluidly in the space. View some earlier versions of the videos on my vimeo page.

For earlier photos of this work see September 2010.
 

Update on the new installation at Aalmarkt 17

Walls are almost done. Next more work on the lighting, putting the video screens into place + work on the ceiling drawings.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
To how it looked on September 18-19 >>

More work on the "kāinga a roto" (boat-home)

This photo shows that we have now straightened the frames so that they are vertical and started adding permanent braces which curve around the outside.

On Friday (17 September) we put in two tv dvd monitors and had these running to decide on the size of the windows we will build for these on the inside. We've gone for making the two first windows 19 inches. We also had the marante plywood cut which will be 90 planks, each 13 x 240 cm long, placed over and along the outer structure.

At the Gamma it took a man and a machine about half an hour to do all this. This was much faster than the 6 we cut using our bench saw, where all 4 of us held the large sheets.

On September 16th about 6000 Leiden citizens registered at the Waag (medival weighing house, a few metres west of our building) for the annual, free herring and white bread (google "The relief of Leiden of 1574" to find out more about this. This article in Dutch is about this). Many of these spent a good 5-10 minutes standing in the queue outside our window. Typical comments were about how stupid we were building this, because it wouldn't fit through the door. One of the advantages in speaking English to each other while working is that, we don't need to respond as most assumed we couldn't understand them. The other common comment concerned expressions of surprise that a woman as small as I was was handling tools and seemed to know what I was doing :)

The people in the queue were of all ages, but going by their comments and the fact that they didn't seem to notice the numerous images and texts on the windows explaining in Dutch that this was an art project, obviously were people who don't visit art galleries. However we had a number of interesting and friendly conversations with some who did notice that the Leiden shoe-makers shop was now a studio + gallery for the "There is beauty in the city".



More about the there Beauty is in the city exhibition is here

Wanted: Beauty in the city

>> Lees het in het nederlands

"There is beauty in the city" is an exhibition of images by artists around the world in "OPEN | Makers aan de Markt" (www.openmakers.nl) at Aalmarkt 17, Leiden, 3 September - 13 October. Participants are invited to provide images of Leiden that will become part of this exhibition.

<< Photo: There is beauty in Sydney, Australia, photo by Siobhan Tarr. More images on the blog


"There is beauty in the city" is a global art project initiated by British artist, Anna Francis in 2008 and now managed by Glen Stoker. The Leiden part of this project is coordinated by Sonja van Kerkhoff.

This show will combine global views with Leiden views. Participants receive a magnetic sticker with the text "There is BEAUTY in the city" which they place in their city and photograph. For the Leiden exhibition, we invite you to come to Aalmarkt 17 to collect a magnet for 4 euros from September 3rd onwards, 3 - 5 pm while stocks last, or make an appointment via: sonjavank AT gmail.com

Choose your favourite corner of the city and leave the magnet there for others to see. Be creative.

The first 25 individuals to send or deliver their image will have this shown in a second row in the shop window, as well as having their images become part of the blog and future exhibitions around the world. At the end of the exhibition, participants can come and collect their images to keep.

Gezocht: Schoonheid in de stad

"Er is schoonheid in de stad" is een tentoonstelling van beelden van kunstenaars van over de hele wereld in "OPEN | Makers aan de Markt" (www.openmakers.nl) op Aalmarkt 17, Leiden, 3september t/m 13 oktober Deelnemers worden uitgenodigd om foto's van Leiden in te sturen, die vervolgens deel uitmaken van de tentoonstelling.

"Er is schoonheid in de stad" is een wereldwijd kunstproject, begonnen in 2008 op initiatief van de Britse kunstenaar Anna Francis, en wordt nu beheerd door Glen Stoker. Het Leidse deel van dit project wordt gecoördineerd door Sonja van Kerkhoff.

Deze tentoonstelling zal wereldwijde perspectieven combineren met Leidse perspectieven. De deelnemers krijgen een magnetische sticker met de tekst "There is beauty in the city", die zij in hun stad plaatsen en fotograferen. Voor deze expositie in Leiden nodigen wij u uit om bij Aalmarkt 17 een magneet op te halen voor 4 euro vanaf vrijdag 3 September. Open van 15 tot 17 uur, of maak een afspraak per mail: sonjavank AT gmail.com

Kies uw favoriete hoek van de stad en stel daar de magneet tentoon voor anderen. Wees creatief.

De eerste 25 afbeeldingen die worden in- gestuurd of geleverd worden weergegeven in de tweede rij in de etalage, evenals in de blog en in toekomstige tentoonstellingen over de hele wereld. Aan het einde van de tentoonstelling kunnen de deelnemers hun afbeelding ophalen.

OPEN | Makers aan de markt zet kunstproductie in de etalage. Makers krijgen voor 2 maanden een ruimte, Leiden krijgt zicht op de Leidse kunstproductie.
OPEN | Makers is geïnitieerd door Cultuurfonds Leiden.