Friday 18 December 2009

Schiermonnikoog! (1)

The pilot project will take place in Schiermonnikoog, a small island to the North of the Netherlands. This week we (me, Rineke, Horst, Elvira) visited this beautiful place to scout for places that could play a role in the project in May. I had never been to the island but I had heard a great deal about it. However, being from the west of the country and no stranger to beaches myself, I did have a mental image of what I supposed it would be: sea culture, seagulls, fisherman culture, sand.

It turned out to be different but that was no fault of the island itself; it was due to the weather. We had snow!

This week was the first really wintery week of the year in the Netherlands. And the winter hit strongest in the North of the country: in the area of Groningen, Friesland, and therefore also Schiermonnikoog. It started to snow just before we got on board of the ferry to take us across the Waddenzee. It was still snowing when we got off on the other side. The landscape was covered in white powdery snow, bringing with it that magical quality that only snow can bring.

The day started with an appointment to see the old fire station. This building is no longer in use for this purpose. It is now envisaged as part of a beautiful cultural centre that is planned to open in 2011, linking several existing buildings as well as new structures. As it is now, the fire station is only in use occasionally by islanders preparing for, for example, the midwinter festival.

The fire station was wonderful! It is exactly what we would need for the project: it has a large central space that opens up (by means of those typical garage doors) to the village. It has separate rooms for students and groups to work in. It has sanitary facilities and it has even a kitchen! It is absolutely perfect. Hopefully we will be able to use it in May.

(In the floor of the main space there is a pit, for greasing the engines and boat maintenance. Horst couldn’t control himself: he had to get in. So here he is.)

With Rineke as our guide we walked past the lighthouse and to the dunes to find a natural sandy amphitheatre. With the snow on the dunes and the grey skies around us it was beautiful. The sea can be heard all the time, a soft roar at the edge of hearing that reminds me city dweller of a motorway. Yet the sound of the sea is different; it has a depth and continuity to it that car tires just cannot manage.

The nice thing about being in an inspiring place, especially with artists like Horst and Elvira, is that upon seeing something like that sandy dune amphitheatre one immediately sees a multitude of possibilities for using that space for artistic work. We could see Horst thinking about the acoustic possibilities of the high edges, while Elvira took photos of the textures and materials around. On the way back to the village, the ideas and philosophies were already flying back and forth. And this was only before lunch…
(More about our visit to Schiermonnikoog soon!)

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