Art & Ecologies
ON WATER

We are made up of water. All the water in me comes from somewhere.

In ourselves and around us we discover different bodies of water. What are the hydrological cycles that we’re part of? How does water affect our state of being?

How can we connect our own bodies of water with the bodies of water in the landscape? Which human-landscape relations can we find, dissect, make and weave by looking into the topic of water in Zuid Limburg? Can water be the stakeholder, main character, the protagonist or the emotional heart of an artistic narrative, revealing historical, cultural or social aspects of water?

During On Water #2 we’ll explore, collect and share the coexistence and friction in and around water, humans and ecology. Together we share procedures to collect stories and speculate to create future narratives investigating relationships with water. We allow sensory experiences in our artistic research to influence the process of making in touch with other voices – human and non human. Which web of watery relations do you tap into?

2024

Dissecting and co-existing

I enjoy dissecting the elements of a project, breaking down each component to create a clear overview of what I call my “new room of existence.” Like a perfume’s fragrance, structured with an olfactory pyramid where top notes evaporate quickly and base notes linger, each part of a project has its own level of impact and longevity.

As I immerse myself in new environments,
I start to question my relationship with these spaces. Who am I within this space, and what does this space mean to me? Documenting this exploration in the most “direct” way became my goal as I attempted to understand the movement and essence of water. Initially, I tried to capture this through a digital creation in TouchDesigner, crafting a virtual “water life.”
But I realized this wasn’t the actual water itself; it was still a step removed from the true essence of what I wanted to document. This realization led me to start a scanning process with real water—an approach that, within my time frame, felt like the closest I could come to capturing its essence.

For me, the "top notes" of this project were my first impressions of the topics, the initial spark of curiosity and exploration. The "heart note" became the process of the agreement of co-existing. And, finally, in perfume terms, the "base note" is the dissection itself—the foundational process that allows me to fully understand and engage with the subject matter. This layered approach is essential to my process, helping me to make sense of what I am working with, one element at a time.