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

A herd of elephants in a Leiden park

Photo: Sonja herds elephants into
the Yuchengco Museum,
Manila, The Philippines,
Nov. 2011.
About the "Nothing to Declare" art event

Performances: 10, 11 May 2012,
starts at 8:30 p.m.
Bos van Bosman, Leiden, along the path opposite the Roodborst street entrance.

This "caravan" of origami elephants, first aired in Istanbul as part of ISEA Istanbul are made out of print material collected in the countries the artist, Sonja van Kerkhoff, travelled through to get to Istanbul. Then she took the herd to the Philippines, New Zealand and then Australia. New elephants were added en route while others were retired from the herd. They will be aired for a walk for the first time in her home city of Leiden as part of Fields of Wonder's Vergezichten I open air theatre project.

Vergezichten I
Openingsvoorstelling
Bos van Bosman (entree tegenover de Roodborststraat), Leiden
10 t/m 13 mei 2012
aanvang 20.30 uur
gratis entree

More information and more photos

New video: Transit in a green landscape

"On this plane, the traveler meeteth with many a trial and reverse. Now is he lifted up to heaven, now is he cast into the depths. As it hath been said: "Now Thou drawest me to the summit of glory, again Thou castest me into the lowest abyss."

Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys



Music: "This Is Not All There Is" by Mark Laurent
http://marklaurent.co.nz

Caravan From Istanbul gets a Christchurch airing

On Saturday December 24th starting at 12 midday New Zealand-Dutch artist, Sonja van Kerkhoff will give a herd of origami elephants an airing along the Cashel Street Mall.


Photo: Sen McGlinn.
Dec 7th, 2011, Sonja with her herd in the Octagen, Dunedin, Aotearoa / New Zealand. Click on the photo to see a larger view in a new window.

Otago Daily Times article, Dec 8th

The performance, “Caravan to Istanbul,” was performed in Istanbul while she was there as one of 8 artists in the New Zealand exhibition, “Te Kore Rongo Hungaora” (Uncontainable second nature), at the international new media festival, ISEA Istanbul.


To see photos of the Istanbul performance to go "Caravan to Istanbul"


As she was driving to Istanbul, via a number of other art-related projects, she was thinking of a way to represent a kind of globalism not dominated by money or economic policies. Caravans, in days of old, were dominated by the practicalities of getting from place to place, by politics and by cultural conditions. Van Kerkhoff believes this is still the case, only that so often what we read as ‘international news’ in our newspapers emphasizes the doings of the global elite. Each elephant in her international herd originates from a particular location in one of over 20 countries she has travelled through with this herd.


Photo: Sen McGlinn.
Sonja with the herd from Istanbul in the Nelson Saturday Market, Montgomery Square, Dec 17th, 2011.


Art and culture have been the main influencing factors here. For example one elephant in this herd is made from an Italian village church newsletter, from a church Van Kerkhoff visited. Others use printed material from the Venice Biennale, and from galleries in the Philippines. Come see how the herd is faring at its third airing in the country. Previous locations were Dunedin, Murchison and, last Saturday, in between downpours, Nelson.


Photo: Sen McGlinn.
Three of the herd in the Nelson Saturday Market, Montgomery Square, Dec 17th, 2011.

More photos in various locations: www.sonjavank.com/caravan.htm

dia voorstelling over aspecten van spiritualiteit in de Nieuw-Zeelandse Maori cultuur

Aspecten van spiritualiteit in de Nieuw-Zeelandse Maori cultuur

22 June - 19:30 - 22:30

Maak kennis met de Maori cultuur door een dia voorstelling van Sonja van Kerkhoff (Taranaki, Nieuw Zeeland). Voorbeelden van Maori kunst; van traditioneel tot hedendaags worden ook getoond.

ActiVite office building,

Simon Smitweg 8


(directly behind and across from the Rijnlands hospital)
Leiderdorp

Ook is er een expositie van Sen + Sonja op hetzelfde locatie t/m 26 juni 2011
meer info >> www.sonjavank.com/2011activite.htm





Sonja will give a presentation on spiritual/cultural aspects of the Maori culture. If English only speakers are present she will do this is English + Dutch.

Free entry.

Send an email to a.vd.houten [AT] activite.nl before 5 p.m. on June 22nd to reserve a place or click "yes" or "maybe" on the Facebook event by midday on the same day.

Open air Hotel in Utrecht, Leiden + Delft - OpenluchtHotel

Utrecht 18/19 June 2011
Leiden 21 June 2011
Delft 10 September 2011

Visitors can register to book to sleep in one of these artist-beds in the open air in one of these cities. More info in Dutch only is here: www.openluchthotel.nu our bed is an ode to Shakepeare and all of the senses including taste.

"Under perfumed flowers I lie, there I couch when owls do cry"

by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn

[with apolgies to Shakepeare's The Tempest]
Peaseblossom is the name of one of the fairies in Shakepeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream who serves the Queen of the Fairies.
This open hotel location is an interpretation of the type of bed she could have made where you can see, smell and taste "pea blossoms" growing through willow branch forms.

Peaseblossom is de naam van een van de feeen uit Shakespeare's A midsummer Night's Dream die de Koningin der Feeen dient.
Dit is een interpretatie van het soort bed dat zij had kunnen maken, waarin je de door de wilgentakkenbeelden groeiende (pronk)erwt bloesems kunt zien, ruiken en proeven.

In Leiden our bed will be set amidst trees in the Kaasmarktschool, artist studio courtyard, Koppenhinksteeg 13

Darling Buds exhibition in London

For those in or around London, we have two installations in this show curated by
Davinia-ann Robinson, Rebecca Hallett, Nelly Curtis, Jessica Mautner, and Boudicca Collins

at:

Parlour Project Space
181-185 Queens Crescent, NW5 4DS
London, United Kingdom

Open: 6 - 10 May 2011
Fri-Tues: 11:00am - 6:00pm

installations by

Grace Adam, Daniel Bourke, Matt Gee, Sian Griffiths, Melissa Henderson, Sadie Hennessy, Fiona Long and Sonja Van Kerkhoff & Sen McGlinn.

There's a blog about this exhibition and a facebook page.