When does a vacuum free and when does it con­strain? How do we fill a vacuum? Do we fill it alone or to­gether? And with what sto­ries, em­braces, words, ob­jects and values? “In the vacuum, we felt air” is a group ex­hi­bi­tion and public pro­gramme ex­ploring vac­uums, echo cham­bers, and co­coons, as well as shelter, sanc­tu­aries and safe spaces. It hones in on collectively formed thoughts and spaces, away from what might be the social norm – and on the (…)

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As we try to fix our history into narratives and statues, time already renders them outdated. And so, the truths of yesterday become the lies of tomorrow, societies grapple with their past, and once-revered heroes face cancellation while vilified persons are redeemed. Strange and twisted figures of Martin Luther, Jesus and Mary, Queen Wilhelmina, Picasso, and other historical figures loom large in the former munitions storage of the historical fort. They are the styrofoam and polyurethane statues by artist Folkert (…)

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What do we hold on to when dealing with change? Where do we cling when we feel uncertain, uncomfortable, or afraid in anticipation of what is to come? Some find solace in visiting memories, while others search for new knowledge, hoping the ensuing facts will bring them peace. Some seek distraction, others, on the contrary, think of concrete solutions. Still, others ease their own fears by relieving those of others. A few look doubt straight in the eye or embrace (…)

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Gerrit Rietveld stu­dents DesignLAB FOR[T]SIGHT 08.12–​17.12.2023 ‘FOR[T]SIGHT’ is a 10-day presentation by Gerrit Rietveld Academy students that places speculation and the future central in their artistic research. Their works, which the students refer to as ‘future-ready interventions’, encourage the visitor to delve into hypothetical scenarios and projections of our future. We warmly invite you to join FOR[T]SIGHT’ festive start from 16:00 – 19:00 on Friday, 8 December. Every year, the Kunstfort provides tem­po­rary use of spaces on and around the (…)

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‘Ordo Rerum’ is a presentation by second-year Product Design students at the Utrecht School of the Arts. Every year, the Kunstfort gives temporary use of spaces on and around the fort island to art academy students. It is their task to develop ideas and work and share them with an audience, using the place as a starting point. The Kunstfort provides historical and ecological input, and it is up to the students themselves to shape their presentation. For the course (…)

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In 2023 Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen and TXT, the textile department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, started a educational collaboration. As part of this the three years of TXT students will take over the Kunstfort, and take charge. They present their ideas during a public programme on Saturday May 13th, starting at 13:00h. On that same afternoon at the Kunstfort, Alaa Abu Asad, artist researcher and Fellow at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie’s lectorate, will give a lecture entitled: “In (…)

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A fortress: a hard concrete structure set up for military defense and control, usually surrounded by a much softer looking piece of nature. Taking this fact as a starting point, Leonardiansyah Allenda and Serena Lee created a series of site­-specific spatial installations for the Kunstfort, playing with notions of force, resistance, tension and balance. In­te­grating sculp­tural, video and audio el­e­ments, Licking Thread, Hearing Everything puts the phys­ical pres­ence of the fort into di­a­logue with qualities of yinyang. These are essential to taijiquan, a (…)

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How can we as art institutions expand our vocabularies in order to embrace the intersectional nature of identities? How to reimagine our social and financial responsibilities, power hierarchies and ways of responding to sociopolitical urgencies? Rah Naqvi’s installation Testimonies of othering and their impossibly possible futures is an ongoing compilation of exchanges that have occurred within ‘white institutions’. The petition-like piece is based on interviews and conversations with artists of colour. With it, Naqvi invites for experiences and critiques to (…)

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Homing in on liquids and humidity in the fortress’ architectural ecosystem and building upon its latent energies, Pablo Lerma fabulates a story about humidity shared between military men who might have inhabited the Kunstfort. For this intervention Pablo Lerma dove into the Gerrit Jan Vos collection of IHLIA LGBTI Heritage. Gerrit Jan Vos collected about 4000 photos of mostly men in uniform. Many of the photos are dated around World War II. Some of the companionships shown in the photos (…)

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In the 17th century, all over Europe enclosures started appearing. Fences put an end to the medieval open field system, privatising the common land, pieces of land accessible to all. From then onwards, fences served to ‘clarify’ the ownership and usage rights of a piece of land. During an arts residency in Gdynia (Poland) in 2021, Alban Karsten finds four local blacksmiths who practice their almost extinct profession by making fences. What does it mean to them to produce objects (…)

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So long we marched together belted beaten brawled You were the greatest pillow In the 1950’s, a group of artists was hired to help the military to develop a new woodland camouflage pattern, which later became known as DPM: Disruptive Pattern Material. The pattern houses a multitude of shapes, which might be associated with Gestalten, or characters. Arguably, they are the saviours of many, but also they are accomplices, as their bodies veiled perpetrators in countless conflicts. Joakim Derlow (1990, (…)

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‘A salute to a place for belated coming of age. Where reunited friends and impossible loves gather once more. The wish to let our ghosts live forever. Surrounding waters haunted by ideas that never happened. Through weaponized plants and kranky bees that fertilize the soil. Workers became family. Artists became queens. Defence became resistance. Heritage became resilience. Military became domestic. Work became home.’ A goodbye in elsewhere With Maria Barnas, Kent Chan, Giorgi Gago Gagoshidze, Astrit Ismaili, Rabi Koria, Sophie Lee, Thomas (…)

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In this edition of Voices we are pleased to present an artist contribution by Sarah Naqvi. In their Gastronomical Essays, Sarah criticizes the routine consumption of fabricated news in Indian households via an apparently harmless stop-motion cooking video. In the video, a charming voiceover explains in a cheerful tone instances of social and political reality in India, while metaphorical ingredients move through the image. Sarah’s work engages in narratives themed around religious and societal polarisation, centring art as their tool for (…)

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In this edition of the Voices we share a chapter from Omer Wasim’s publication ‘As the Light Turns’, which was part of a bigger project shown this summer at sonsbeek20-24, curated by our very own Zippora. In the poetical short story, Omer describes a walk in a mountain forest in the dense of the night, where three individuals have a queer encounter. The text is about the relationship between sexuality and nature. Omer’s practice queers space, subverting the frames of (…)

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On 15 and 16 October If I Can’t Dance and Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen invited all to a new performance by US artist MPA. A meditation on human violence and the possibility of transformation, ‘Fire for Water’ is conceived specifically for the spaces and peninsula of the Kunstfort, a former military fort on the Defence Line of Amsterdam. Water vessels, armors, fires, and telepathic means are characters in a story that unfolds across different states of consciousness and modes of being. (…)

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The work Egomania #1 is part of the twelve-part photo series A Gentle Decompression. These images are the result of a two-year visual research into mental health. In these series, Thissen relates to themes such as memory, care, vulnerability, friendship, nostalgia and trauma. ‘Mental health is a central theme in my life and as I discovered, also in my work. Within this series I have tried to investigate what makes this theme complex, avoided, emancipatory and vital.’ Julius Thissen is (…)

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One of the greatest ever to play the game, Zinedine Zidane retired from football after a red card during the 2006 World Cup final against Italy. An event here highlighted and commented on by Claudia Rankine and John Lucas. The circumstances that led to Zidane’s ouster have always been in dispute, but what few would deny is that, through Zidane, the celebrated son of Algerian immigrants, the nation of France came to see itself differently. Eight years prior to that (…)

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In this edition of Voices, Paulien Oltheten tells how, in a year of isolation, she found something to hold on to in Lourdes TV. The webcam footage she collected and categorised are the foundation of a new film project she is currently working on. On summer holiday I passed Lourdes and spent a number of days wandering the streets with my camera. Now that the crowd stayed away I was able to watch the structure, the mechanism and the social behavior of (…)

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On Sunday, 19 September, a new solo exhibition by Miloš Trakilović opens at Het Kunstfort. “All But War is Simulation” is an impressive video installation comprising performance, text, animation, and found images. The work examines the role of visual culture and media in the representation of violence. Theory, popular culture, poetry, and personal experiences are combined with overarching themes of migration, militarization, and digital technology. Miloš Trakilović is Bosnian-Dutch artist who lives in Berlin, and was recently exhibited at Badischer (…)

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After a summer full of sporting events, in­cluding the Olympic Games and the Eu­ro­pean Foot­ball Cham­pi­onship, the Kunstfort looks at the pol­i­tics around sport, its per­cep­tion, me­di­a­tized image, and col­lec­tive memory. In the ex­hi­bi­tion Pol­i­tics at Play, Play at Pol­i­tics, var­ious prej­u­dices are ad­dressed which play a role in the per­cep­tion and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of ath­letes and sports. Among these are gen­derism, sexism, na­tion­alism, and racism, as well as the struggle for colo­nial in­de­pen­dence and Cold War pol­i­tics: from Ruud Gullit (…)

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The installation Cuerda Peluda is the result of a period of reflection and research into the history of ropes and their use in aquatic spaces. The work is made of natural esparto fibers, bought in Madrid, and further processed into rope in the Textiellab in Tilburg. Although esparto has a typical scent and material presence reminiscent of the countryside, before the introduction of hemp, sisal and jute from colonized territories in Europe, esparto ropes were used primarily to move cargo (…)

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Isabel Marcos started a research project about the significance of the water surrounding the Kunstfort, as part of the residency program Kunstfort Kasus 2020-21. Her research resulted in various site-specific installations around the Kunstfort, in which she engages with the relationship between the human body, object and water. She recently completed her film “Wet Architecture”, which she presents for the first time in the fifth edition of Kunstfort Voices. Inspired by the hydrofeminist discourse that understands that all our bodies (…)

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Kemang Wa Lehulere, who works internationally and lives in Cape Town, refers in his practice to the legacy of black musicians, authors and artists from South Africa, to remember their work and lives. For his contribution to Kunstfort Voices, Kemang shows his own painting “You think you know me”, an ode to jazz saxophonist Ezra Ngcukana (1954-2010), accompanied by a beautiful, personal anecdote. It is August 2006, 10 years to the month my mother passed on. I am at the (…)

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The Kunstfort is pleased to present a new solo exhibition of Katja Novitskova in the metal Genieloods. Here Katja’s critical view of past, present, and future—inside and outside the art world—takes as its starting point a publicly available “protein data bank” that consists of more than 10,000 images of proteins and viruses found in the human body. In her latest exhibition, Katja complicates the relationship between organism, design, and capital. She processes her reflections on biodiversity, organic design, bio-databases, and (…)

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This spring, the Kunstfort presents a sculpture exhibition in the historic fort building. The intriguing work of Carel Visser, Agata Ingarden and Ad de Jong comes together in the concrete architecture. The reuse of everyday objects and the tension between symbolic and direct charge of industrial and natural materials is a common thread in the exhibition. This exhibition shows work by three sculpture makers from three different generations. Carel Visser (Netherlands, 1928-2015) was a visionary post-war sculptor who worked with (…)

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Is­abel Marcos (Spain 1986, working in Rot­terdam and Madrid) has been se­lected for Kunstfort Kasus 2020, an an­nual res­i­dency pro­gram that gives an artist or de­signer the op­por­tu­nity to ex­pand their studio work to (the sur­rounding area of) the Kunstfort for one year. During Kunstfort Kasus 2020, she will re­search the ar­chi­tec­ture of the fort and con­sider ob­jects that me­diate our re­la­tion with large bodies of water, such as an­chors, chains and buoys. With Liquid An­chors, Is­abel will de­velop a (…)

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For Growth (2019), Torenbosch appropriated a meditation video that he found circulating on an internet forum for stock traders. The video shows a montage with a variety of flower fields, composed in such a way as to glorify the beauty of nature and effectuate relaxation through digital devices. The piece explores how the representation of nature is capitalized on by the meditation industry, in order to promote better performance in the workplace. The video elicits a desire for perfectly harmonized (…)

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Though the mountains divide, And the oceans are wide is a short video essay on the interrelation between childhood encounters and current realities through a personal story of the artist – Belle Phromchanya – who has moved from Thailand to the Netherlands in her adulthood. The video compiles home video footage of family trips during the 1990s taken by her father, along with video materials of a senior Thai artist living in Amsterdam taken by Phromchanya herself. The senior artist, (…)

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This image is part of the series “Void”. For this series Danielle uses images of animals that have become extinct due to human actions – for example due to climate change, large-scale hunting or deforestation. Today 38% of all plant and animal species are threatened with extinction. Danielle combines the photos with quotes from celebrities from glossy magazines. Danielle: “Celebrities are massively followed on social media and TV. People do this for entertainment or to escape from the daily grind. (…)

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Does Gijsje C. Heemskerk actually exist? If so, where can we find her? It’s difficult to say. She is always in a different place, at a different time. She also changes shape (all the time) and color. Her hair used to be reddish brown, now it is brownish gray. She used to be much smaller at first. At one point she weighed 25kg. Now that has more than doubled. She also loses pieces of skin all the time. They keep (…)

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Looking out into the distance can often be a moment of deep reflection, the awareness of something out there just beyond the horizon, endless space, the mortality of oneself. The image was taken along the coastline in Bar Beach, Lagos, an eponymous beach that unfortunately has almost completely disappeared. In its place the coming into being of Eko Atlantic City, a Dubai-like extreme high-end real estate venture, a smart city built on reclaimed land with a specially designed protective wall (…)

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Selma Selman is a visual artist from Bosnia and Herzegovina and is of Romani origin. In her art works, the ultimate aim is to protect and empower female bodies and, in her own words “to enact a cross-scalar approach to collective self-emancipation of oppressed women.” Selma’s search for functional, contemporary political resistance stems from her personal experience with oppression from various directions and scales. Selman is also the founder of the organization “Get The Heck To School”, which aims to empower Roma (…)

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During the lockdown, each in their respective cities, Amsterdam and Cologne, Becket MWN and Alison Yip decided to spontaneously research a topic together to keep their minds fresh. German healthcare law being too dry, they settled upon bee communication. Watch their videowork “PDF, ICE” here. As long as the lockdown continues and the Kunstfort remains closed, we invite a different artist each month to share a textual work, poem or story with us. This can either be their own work or that of someone (…)

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S.T. (untitled yet) is a pseudo-educational video that takes the viewer in +/- 22 minutes through the landscape of Huisduinen in the North of the Netherlands, continuously accompanied by a metronome. The video was created as part of a series of “exercises” in the context of a residence at the Pompgemaal in Den Helder. It is a diligent cataloguing of the Pump Pumping Station and its surroundings, chased by a metronome in search of possible “material of value”. —Kim David (…)

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The Devil Museum is Jacob Dwyer’s latest audio drama in which we listen to the diary of a man tasked with photographing all three-thousand of a museum’s devil sculptures. It combines field recordings with original musical compositions by Kareem Lotfy and Jacob Oostra. In September, this year, Arif Kornweitz remixed excerpts from the piece with a selection of tracks (including his own) to create a mix for RUBBER which they called DMT (The Devil Museum). Jacob Dwyer stayed at the Kunstfort (…)

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From slow rush to kids creating a cheerful mayhem, what behavior and language can become our post Covid-19 reality? —Lonneke van der Palen, Kunstenaar / Artist (Kunstfort in 2018) Lonneke van der Palen (1985, NL) is a photographer who lives and works in Amsterdam. Over the years she has worked for numerous fashion- and design brands (such as Maison Margiela and Hermès), magazines and creative agencies. In 2019 she got nominated for the Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prijs and exhibited her work in (…)

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The tem­po­rary mon­ument Srebrenica is Nederlandse geschiedenis, a project by Bosnian Girl is dis­played at the is­land of Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen. The mon­u­ment con­sists of 25 large por­trait photos of Bosnian-Dutch 25 year olds. With the photos Bosnian Girl draws at­ten­tion to the Sre­brenica geno­cide in 1995, in which the Nether­lands played a de­ci­sive role and for which no of­fi­cial mon­u­ment had yet been founded. The col­lec­tive – an ini­tia­tive of ar­chi­tect Arna Mačkić, theater director Daria Bukvić, policy officer (…)

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On Wednesday 21 October 7 pm (CEST), the Kunstfort will launch – within Amsterdam Dance Event’s official online program – a filmic registration of Eoghan Ryan’s performance Truly Rural. This performance took place on the fort island of the Kunstfort on September 20th. The performance plays out the contradictions in regard to how we as viewers consume the idea of the rural and its crossover with how we as viewers, enact cultural spectatorship. The soundtrack was devised in conversation with (…)

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Ziwzih-Ziwzih-OO-OO-OO is a multichannel video installation that considers connections between the voice, technology and embodiment in order to retrace feminist lineages and posit the idea of a cultural haunting. Sophie Lee brings into constellation an ensemble cast of characters from disparate historical moments: the inventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell, his deaf wife Mabel, the Furies of Greek mythology, functioning here as a part time chorus, a spiritual medium and a disembodied voice. This voice operates at times with (…)

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In the Genieloods arsenal boundaries between species become fluid and new hybrids are born. The voices of extinct bird species are brought into the future, dark clouds of pollen inhabit a blossoming underworld, and a contact zone for interspecies communication is opened. Can a fertile world be re-established? Kunstfort is proud to present the new solo exhibition by Ann Lislegaard (b.1962 – lives and works in Copenhagen). Lislegaard is internationally known for her visionary videos, animations, and sound-light installations that (…)

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Is­abel Marcos (Spain 1986, working in Rot­terdam and Madrid) has been se­lected for Kunstfort Kasus 2020, an an­nual res­i­dency pro­gram that gives an artist or de­signer the op­por­tu­nity to ex­pand their studio work to (the sur­rounding area of) the Kunstfort for one year. During Kunstfort Kasus 2020, she will re­search the ar­chi­tec­ture of the fort and con­sider ob­jects that me­diate our re­la­tion with large bodies of water, such as an­chors, chains and buoys. With Liquid An­chors, Is­abel will de­velop a se­ries (…)

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“During the Covid-19 lockdown I made a new series of work, entitled Sloppy Therapy. The idea of ​​simulation plays a role in the creation process of this work, further themes are the surface, contamination and the boundary between man and thing. Screens reformulated our experience of art. Zooming in has become the standard. Yet a few years ago the screen-based art experience was all about the question of space and physicality. Indeed during my exhibition at the Kunstfort my work related to (…)

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HD Video 4 min. Courtesy the artist. 2019. catherinebiocca.com In her work, Catherine Biocca merges different levels of dimensions, combining diverse media to create an unfamiliar reality. The result is a mix of bi- and tri-dimensional elements, displaced and layered with cartoon imagery and details from science fiction, and responding to human brutality throughout our cultural history. The characters in Biocca’s works evoke cartoons or animated figures that are involved in uncomplicated events and simple settings, charged with the comic (…)

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Bruno Zhu, Hello, 2016 on Vimeo. “In one of these afternoons sat by the desk, painfully watching the hours pass between lunch and dinner time, I opened my camera roll to check what I had shot before this lockdown era. I saw many photos of places I had been, the foods I ate, urban details I found funny, many selfies taken to figure out new pimples, but no pictures of my friends! I felt crushed for a minute. Like many (…)

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Link naar video HD Video 4:28 min. Installation, 2 x 3 x 2,5 m. Hand dyed fabric, flatscreen TV. Courtesy the artist & Kazachenko’s apartment. roderickhietbrink.com A red sand-colored fabric is draped along the walls, ceiling and floor, creating a rectangular tent-like space. A flat-screen TV is angled vertically on the floor. The artist can be seen on the screen lying down on the floor of the same space, his face painted gold, wearing a mantle made of the same fabric. (…)

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To celebrate the program line “enchantment, healing and fertility”, Kunstfort shows the group exhibition Plural Fertilities until September 6. In loose, intuitive gestures, artists bring together their dreams and thoughts about extended forms of parenting, collective rituals of healing, and recognizing ourselves as nature. With: Mehraneh Atashi, Lisa Gliederpuppe, Susanne Kriemann, Mire Lee, Dorine van Meel, Kevin Osepa, Eric Peter, Lotte Lara Schröder, Müge Yilmaz. Where do we come from, what is our legacy and how do we want to (…)

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Link vimeo: 7 minute audio gesture. Courtesy the artist. 2020. termsofcircumstance.org “The volcanic landscape is a fertile ground to investigate underlying trauma in an abstract and nature-related way. Nature is pure and drained of emotions, the emotions that occur are projections. The sound of the soundtracks that I make arise from different processes where I mainly work with electric guitar, voice and effects, combined into loops that I record again and bring together into one whole.” —Lotte Lara Schröder, artist (Kunstfort (…)

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Link: soundcloud podcast Gif: courtesy Puck Verkade “To have been distanced from the sense of touching or being touched by loved ones for the unforeseeable future is perhaps similar to a process of grief and loss. In this podcast episode of Home Alone with DJ Quarantinah I explore many meanings of touch, and lack of it. If you keep listening to the very end, you can partake in a performance by Bruce Naumann called ‘Body Pressure’; it might actually have soothing effects whilst in (…)

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Link to video work “When the Corona situation hit and I had to stay home, the first thing I had to think of was the nuclear disaster of Fukushima. At the time, in 2011, there was a planned power outrage by the government. The rain was allegedly contaminated with radiation. I was in a pitch-black room, burdened with a mixture of anxiety, impatience, boredom, and a slight sense of excitement. And I just passed time, with nothing to do. And (…)

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“Stillness and observation, whether of a subject matter or of an own feeling, seem to have become a privilege of frantically fast moving lifestyles. The quality of contemplations is limited to the time spent with self.” – Olya Oleinic – Oleinic is a visual artist from Republic of Moldova, living and working in Amsterdam. With practice mainly based in photography her work is characterised by the global ground it attempts to cover, a search for definitions of cultural normalities and (…)

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In 2020 staat Nederland stil bij het feit dat we al 75 in vrijheid leven. Deze vrijheid krijgt dit jaar vorm in herdenkingen en vieringen door het hele land. In de gemeente Haarlemmermeer zijn er tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog tientallen Joden afgevoerd en vermoord in concentratiekampen. Ter nagedachtenis aan hen wordt op onze locatie het monument Levenslicht van Daan Roosegaarde geplaatst, een initiatief van het 4 en 5 mei comité. Het monument is te bezichtigen van vrijdag 24 januari tot zondag 2 (…)

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Esteban Cabeza de Baca – Life is one drop in limitless oceans…. 19.10 – 15.12.2019 The title for Esteban Cabeza de Baca’s solo exhibition takes its inspiration from David Mitchell’s novel Cloud Atlas. A theme in the 2004 sci fi narrative is kindness over greed, selflessness over violence and humanity over betrayal. Mitchell considers how humans normalize brutality, while he also persists against “an ocean” of pessimism. Taking this text as index into his work, Cabeza de Baca’s art creates temporal (…)

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Bogomir Doringer – Dancing Defence: Space, Ritual, Gesture 19.10 – 15.12.2019 Kunstfort is excited to exhibit an investigative presentation by Bogomir Doringer. Can clubbing (as subculture) be observed as a micro-environment – to find out what certain patterns of behaviour on a dance floor are revealing about wider contemporary cultural and socio-political systems? Doringer started in 2014 with filming clubs from a bird’s-eye view to document variations of collective and individual choreographies worldwide. The collected footage initiated an ongoing interdisciplinary (…)

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2018/2019, Neverneverland, Amsterdam, Holland Sculpture, 76 cm × 30 cm ×  26 cm Unfired clay, concrete, chains, gold, wood and human teeth Miriam Kongstad’s work is fuelled by a recurring interest in the human body and the social and political regimes surrounding it. From a socio-anthropological angle, Kongstad researches embodiment and affect, with specific attention to habitual and naturalized movements and their identifications in popular culture. As a synthesis of modalities and media her artistic output takes form as sculpture and (…)

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Video 3 min. in english Deze video van Sophie Lee dient als opmaat naar een narratief over vrouwen in elektronische muziek. In haar tableaux vivant presenteert Lee toneelspelers in scenografieën die verschillende tijdsintervallen samenbrengen, waarbij ze refereert naar middeleeuwse iconografie, decoratieve stromingen van de 20e eeuw, postmoderne interieurs en hedendaagse ‘high street’ mode. Literaire of historische figuren keren steeds terug in het werk. Door deze in persoonlijke of hedendaagse constellaties te tonen, wil Lee het idee van geschiedenis als een (…)

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Third and final chapter, 2019 Vincent Knopper is the first participant in Kunstfort Kasus (“Kunstfort Case”) a residency program which gives an artist or designer the opportunity to expand their studio practice to (the surrounding area of) the Kunstfort during one year. Knopper studied Fine Arts at the Rietveld Academy and followed the Master program Material Utopias at the Sandberg Instituut. In 2019 he continues his research into the history and archi-tecture of the fortress, as well as the programmatic (…)

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Human space activities can be considered as the pinnacle of modern civilisation. Through the last century, humanity established its presence in outer space, left the solar system, stepped on the Moon’s surface and settled in Earth’s low orbit. What to think of this continuous expansion of our presence, that no other organism has accomplished? Waag & Kunstfort present: Supre:organism. While contemporary space exploration has its inclination to life sciences, engineering and industrialisation, Supre:organism highlights an urgency to identify also alternative, (…)

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Kunstfort at Parksessies presents: Puck Verkade 17.07.2019 Opening 17 juli, 17:00 Haarlemmerhout Het Kunstfort nodigt kunstenaar Puck Verkade uit voor een samenwerking tijdens Parksessies. In een door Verkade beschilderd paviljoen wordt een selectie van recente video’s getoond. Puck Verkade onderzoekt in het (video)werk ideeën rond gender en seksualiteit in relatie tot sociaal-culturele druk. Met humor en absurdisme vertellen de collageachtige video’s over gefictionaliseerde feiten. Daarbij worden verleden, heden en toekomst onderling verwoven. Zo wordt de kijker geconfronteerd met meerdere gezichtspunten. (…)

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Border Agency – Liquid Landscapes: what if the ground under your feet can’t be trusted? 07.07-01.09.2019 Opening 7 juli, 15.00 uur Fort bij Vijfhuizen was part of a 19th century military strategy which transformed landscape into a weapon by using water as a defense line. Considering this Stelling van Amsterdam remained unused and thus, in turn, became part of the landscape, collective Border Agency confronts in their exhibition visitors with an “active” landscape. For Liquid Landscapes they combine their ongoing Landmines Project with new (…)

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Jan Robert Leegte – Clear Obscure 07.07-01.09.2019 Opening July 7, 3 PM As early as 1969 the term “transparency” was introduced as a computer programming technique. It would form the foundation of computer interaction that everyone could intuitively understand – at the cost of hiding all inner workings of the machine. Jan Robert Leegte’s exhibition Clear Obscure fills the Genieloods with drawings and performances. The drawings refer to the practice of chiaroscuro from the Renaissance period. The computer performances range (…)

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Heleen Blanken (Nederland / The Netherlands) When Water Falls, 2019 Installation at Contrair Festival 7 x 40 meter Plastic Metallic Foil The When Water Falls project is a relection on plastic waste. It deals with the complexity of our man-made presence in todays natural environment. The foil is re-used and made into a new work. When Water Falls #3, shown on the island of Kunstfort bij Vijhuizen, is the third work in de sequence of the reused materials. The previous work was commissioned by DGTL festival. Heleen Blanken is (…)

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Almagul Menlibayeva (1969, Almaty, Kazakh SSR. Based in Almaty and Berlin) Exodus, 2009 HD video, Composer G Popov, 11 min, Single channel, 11 min Courtesy American-Eurasian Art Advisors LLC. In de film Exodus keert de kunstenaar Almagul Menlibyaeva terug naar de steppen van haar geboorteland Kazachstan, waar ze mythologische verhalen bedenkt, etaleert en filmt, en toeschouwers aanmoedigt om deel te nemen aan haar visuele reis. Exodus leidt de kijker naar het hedendaagse Kazachstan, waar zich een even vreemd als krachtig (…)

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Becket MWN (Verenigde Staten / United States) The Weather (Chill Manifesto), 2017 17 min. audio loop The Weather (Speculation), 2019 Duratrans print, 83,5 x 126,5 cm ‘…obviously, image technology has improved a lot since the 60s, and so there has been a “heating up” of media images since then. However, the “resolution” now is actually that of the viewers rather than images, as audiences have become known in much greater detail and more precisely defined. You could say we have (…)

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Vincent Knopper is the first participant in Kunstfort Kase (Kunstfort Case), a residency program that gives an artist or designer the opportunity to expand their studio work to (the surrounding area of) the Kunstfort during one year. Knopper studied Fine Arts at the Rietveld Academy and followed the Master program Material Utopias at the Sandberg Institution. In 2019 he continues his research into the history and architecture of the fortress, as well as the programmatic and physical transformation of the historical site into a presentation space. In collaboration with the team and the relations of the (…)

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Coralie Vogelaar (NL, 1981) Optimal Bin Packing, 2019 Cnc-gefreesd reliëf, aluminium frame / cnc-milled modeling board, aluminimum frame ‘Arranging, Moving, Rotating, Packing’, 2019 Video A bin-packing algorithm – normally used for the transport or 3d printing industry – is used on a dataset of classical sculptures. This algorithm can calculate the optimal – occupying as less space as possible – packaging of irregular objects in a container. From this, a selection is flattened into a relief and CNC- milled. For (…)

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Technologies are employed to reveal the hidden, each time, introducing new ways of “seeing”. Drones scan architectural situations without being detected. But can a view from above truly perceive reality’s complexity? In this exhibition vertical viewpoints are discouraged by half-blind lasers, uncertain engines, skinny sculptures and a biased camera. Devices deliver their doubtful duties close to the airport; at Kunstfort’s historical “Genieloods” military storage shed. Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen is pleased to present Nicola Arthen – Eagle & Hesitant Vehicles. Nicola (…)

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Timur Akhmetov – KIDS OF CHAOS: Scene of Evacuation 07.04 – 23.06.2019 “16 sunrises and 16 sunsets here past through with the soft sensation of worry.. Do you see those kids trapped in millennial glow? that feel so uneasy in a broad day light they summon at very well lit public space asking another question about life! oh, they are so unlike us..” Timur Akhmetov (Russia, 1985) has graduated from Gerrit Rietveld Academy and received his master at MFA at (…)

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HARD-CORE (NL, 2011-…) HARD-CORE is an Amsterdam, London and Paris based art startup, comprised of Hrafnhildur Helgadóttir, Eloise Bonneviot, Saemundur Thor Helgason and Anne de Boer under the guidance of their CEO Skyler Lindenberg. The collective is focused on the development of automated curatorial applications. The aim is to fully automate the subjective task of curating art exhibitions in order to reach a more democratic system for selecting and displaying art. In 2011 HARD-CORE launched the first ever curatorial robot named ASAHI. This robot curated (…)

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Ann Lislegaard (NO, 1962) Oracles, Owls… Some Animals Never Sleep, 2012-2014 3D animatie en geluid / 3D animation, sound In the iconic work Oracles, Owls…Some Animals Never Sleep animated owls deliver a prophetic monologue of aphorisms and latent fragments from I-Ching. The monologues are interrupted by compressed noise, dramatized and distorted samples from Blade Runner—Ridley Scott’s 1982 film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. These unruly voices are at times menacing yet they are also humorous, doubled (…)

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Perspectives: exhibitions, conversations, performances Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen organizes on Saturday, March 9 (2-10pm) the unique public program ‘Perspectives’ with one-day exhibition, performances and lectures. Local and international artists present work in and around the entire Kunstfort area: inside the concrete fort itself, at the industrial Genieloods warehouse, at the residency spaces, and on the blossoming green fortress island. Participating artists and institutions include i.a.: Benedikte Bjerre, Malissa Cañez Sabus, Challenging Jewelery / Master program of BLESS, Quynh Dong, Michael Guidetti, (…)

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This Fall Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen presents the exhibition He at Sea by Charlott Weise (1991, DE). In the monumental Genieloods Weise is showing a new series of sail-paintings. On raw canvas she reveals a look on manhood through fluid marks and dreamlike figuration: men among themselves, men with a common destination, dreaming, reclining, all hands on deck, raising the sails. The imagined scenes and exhilarating situations overlap and cross each other, and in-between a glimpse of the artist herself may (…)

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In the fort Serge Onnen (FR/NL, 1965) constructs an alternative economy. Hard numbers become fluid and loose the definite meaning as we know it. A roulette, a wheel of fortune, “rotorliefs”, a phenakistiscope and an LP spin at high speed. A party of Chinese shadow puppets plays a sudoku-like game and looks with half an eye at Onnen’s animation movie CLOACINAE (2017)*, which is here shown for the first time. Onnen works with drawings and of pre-cinema techniques. He was (…)

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Concrete, ceramics, paint, epoxy, 2018 Lennart de Neef and Micha Prinsen originally made this work for a public park in Rotterdam. It was placed as a standing rectangle in a seemingly melting foot. Inspiration for the sculpture was the mysterious monolith from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Stanley Kubrick, an artefact that millions of years ago might have been left behind on planet Earth by extraterrestrial archaeologists. When the sculpture got replaced at the fort island of (…)

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HD video, 8′ 20″ continuous loop, 4K flatscreen monitor, stereo sound Courtesy of the artist, 2018 We see an out of the way place with water and reeds, a large iron plate and a wooden boardwalk. Where this is located, or what is going on, does not seem clear. The camera moves somewhat mechanically up and down and follows a soundtrack with a strong rhythm and repeating components, that alternately swells and decreases in volume. The camera movements are both (…)

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Duratrans in lichtbak / in luminous box, 2017 Courtesy of the artist © The images of Lonneke van der Palen originate from an exquisite studio practice. Yet her “studio” can be anywhere: on a trip, on the streets, or in front of a screen. She does not aim to simply document, but rather creates new artificial realities; her images are reduced to their essence, without noise or unnecessary decoration. Although “clean” and flat in character: what remains is a dreamy (…)

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HD video 14:46 mins Courtesy the artist, 2017 On the 3rd of July 2017, a meteorite hit a farm in the south east of Norway, about an hour drive from its capital Oslo. Although damage was caused to a number of things at the farm, no one was physically harmed during this miraculous incident. The confusion surrounding the trajectory of the meteorite, entering and leaving the farm house through a window and boring a hole through a woollen sweater amongst other things, led many (…)

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Charlott Weise & Marius Schwarz He at Sea – A Catalogue, eeebooks To download the eeebook, go to http://www.eeebooks.net/eeee/

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Kunstfort presents: Takeshi Ikeda Weekend, 2018 Various media In the semi-dark attic of the historical “Doelen” building we find drawings, video documentation of a musical performance, and a mysterious collection of rubbish, trash and keyboards. These are the remains of the work of a composer and artist that we will never meet: a woman in her thirties, already passed away, with a fascination for “that what remains”. Her diary reveals that she hoped that like-minded people would continue and re-perform (…)

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The exhibition follows a two-month Summer residency at both institutions. Visual artist Mika Rosenberg stayed at Fort bij Vijfhuizen and worked in a studio in historic Haarlem. Starting point was the genre of science fiction, fitting the Kunstfort program and as a metaphorical connection between future and past, heritage and artificiality. Rosenberg brings together her ongoing research in an alienating scenography: an aquarium of algae and bacteria, an arrangement of plant species found in Haarlemmermeer, a cage with disguising caterpillars, (…)

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Kunstfort presents at Parksessions Haarlem: Persijn Broersen, Margit Lukács Establishing Eden 2016 Digitale video / digital video, 10 min. In Establishing Eden, Broersen & Lukács focus on the establishing shot: the moment a landscape is identified and becomes one of the main protagonists in a film. In blockbusters like the film series Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001-2014), these shots were used to capture and lay claim to the nature of New Zealand, propagating it as a new Eden, (…)

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In the monumental metal “Genieloods” shack the enigmatic exhibition Uncertain Phases by artist Timo Nasseri (Germany, 1972) is shown. Nasseri lands a wondrous constellation of meticulously crafted objects. The sculptures and sketches – spheres, towers and patterns made out of wood, steel, strings, copper and pigmented paper – sprout from Nasseri’s own mathemathical language. Both abstract and imaginative, the works remind us of astronomical and musical instruments, military devices and scientific tools. Combining Islamic and western cultural heritages, Timo Nasseri’s (…)

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The Kunstfort is excited to introduce the first Dutch exhibition of Hungary based Botond Keresztesi (Romania, 1987). Botond Keresztesi – H.B.O. (Hubbard’s Best Of), which will be on show in the concrete fortress, is equally futuristic as surrealistic. The emerging artist, a prolific painter, combines his newest works with site-specific objects created during his residency at the Kunstfort. Employing visual languages from internet culture, online gaming and interior design, Keresztesi merges his academic background – both in painterly gesture and (…)

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OPEN CALL DEADLINE: 24 JUNE 2018 Future past / nature city pdf Summer residency for artists – with exhibition Institutions: Kunstfort at Vijfhuizen and 37PK, Platform for the Arts Location: Haarlem and Vijfhuizen (North Holland) Period: mid-July – mid-September 2018 Target group: (inter-)national artists Haarlem and Vijfhuizen are strongly connected geographically, with only a few kilometers of distance between them. Their characters, however, are leagues apart. The provincial capital of Haarlem is marked by a rich history throughout the city—in (…)

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The Mindful Intervention With Yin-Ju Chen, Tamás Kaszás and Sam Keogh At the Kunstfort each season artists are invited to do interventions in and around the fortress. This Summer the Kunstfort is pleased to collaborate on the kick-off of travelling art project The Mindful, initiated by independent researcher/curator Kerstin Winking (Germany). The coming years The Mindful will be held at international locations with various partners. The project is inspired by Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (1974). In this science fiction (…)

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Lola Pertsowsky (FR, 1988) lives and works in Brussels and was raised on a small island in France. With her photographs she collects situations that together could tell the story of an imaginary microcosm – another world. She prefers her frames vertical: it is not the landscape, the ‘overview’, but the fragment that she finds interesting. This snail, which is quietly moving over the other side of a bedroom window, has been captured by Pertsowsky in a very short timespan (…)

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In what ways do the stars affect human life on Earth? Yin-Ju Chen searches for answers to this question in cosmology, conspiracy theories and philosophy, all of which inspire her artistic practice. American art of the 1960s and archaic patterns based on star constellations and found in global cultural productions, reverberate in Reverberation of the Pleiades, her new land art work created as part of The Mindful Intervention at Kunstfort Vijfhuizen.   Reverberation of the Pleiades is culturally anchored in (…)

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This slide show tells the story of an activist who escapes an urban environment for an autonomous life in nature. His new environment is not an untouched paradise, but the peripheral areas of European urban centers. Trying to establish a new relationship with nature, the activist creates a kind of folk wisdom that is rooted in a dialogue with plants and animals. This newly created folk wisdom is what the Escapist Story (Forest School) teaches. The work plays with the (…)

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In Kapton Cadaverine Log Entry a handheld camera skims over the interior of a starship: various textures and surfaces glisten in the light of the camera as the ship’s lone inhabitant struggles to locate himself in time and space. The film’s narration shifts in and out of diegesis with the images, mirroring the layered registers and temporal confusion of the dialogue. The film is made from a combination of video footage taken inside an empty installation overlaid with audio documentation (…)

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This Spring the concrete fortress morphs between a company’s office and a disintegrating marriage, an archeological treasure and a spooky tomb, a future factory and a fallen multinational. With animation, image, sculpture, graphics, jewelry and play, Berlin-based Catherine Biocca (Italy, 1984) transforms the Kunstfort into a colorful dystopia: Ancient Workers. The main plea of this exhibition is to work harder. In the entrance room we encounter a restless CEO trying to motivate everyone around him, simultaneously in different locations, sections (…)

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This Spring the Kunstfort welcomes the heaviest tree in the world: the Sequoiadendron giganteum. This Californian mammoth tree was brought to Europe in the 19th century, the same century in which Fort bij Vijfhuizen was built as part of an iconic defense plan, and also the century in which photography was invented. Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky (Switzerland, 1980) takes this as her starting point for the exhibition Sequoia Grove. The monumental “genieloods” shack, originally intended for cannonry storage, is inhabited by nature. (…)

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Terra Nullius – no land – is a Latin expression, derived from Roman law, describing territory that has either never been claimed by any state or which a state has relinquished. Each of Morten Barker’s (DK, 1972) pictures in the series is a digital montage made from parts of frame grabs from well-known war films. There is no drama, no advancing armies, no combat. The land is seen not as a contested site but as an empty stage. It is stripped (…)

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Beny Wagner, Outside, 2017, Courtesy the artist 14 min, Full HD video Outside traverses two cyclical metabolic paths in the attempt to forge a reciprocal relationship between the two. Moving from the metabolism of the human body to the metabolism of waste infrastructures, the film creates an inverted exchange wherein the concealment of waste inside the human body turns to the concealment of the human body inside waste. The boundary that divides waste from production would seem to contain an (…)

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Beny Wagner, Eye Farm, 2016, Courtesy the artist 20 min, Full HD video Eye Farm is an experimental essayistic film exploring the mediation of human and nonhuman sight through agriculture. The film looks at the contemporary representation of agriculture through drone-mounted cameras and hyper-realistic computer animated landscapes to raise questions about the political implications of sight, land boundaries, and ideological narrative. Starting from the contingency of the human eye on plant matter activated in the process of digestion, the narrative (…)

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For the Interspecies Communication series, the artist works with analogue full-frame photos from her photo archive: a collection of indigenous and exotic plants. In the dark room she has projected these ‘delayed’ images onto rolled and rolled sheets of photo paper. By playing with a three-dimensional image carrier, the plant images are distorted, twisted and alienated. Inspiration for the series are new scientific findings on communication methods and reproductive mechanisms of plants. Kovacovsky is fascinated by the tropical climber Marcgravia (…)

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The Kunstfort is a concrete fortress in the typically Dutch village of Vijfhuizen. During Art Rotterdam its “sci fi” reality – the artificial surroundings, the uncanny defense system and the time-less appearance in the capital’s margins – is transferred to INTERSECTIONS, where the Kunstfort invites British artist Dan Walwin (UK, 1986) to collaborate on Dawn at demoralize, a presentation with moving image and installation. Dan Walwin completed studies in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, London in 2007, and was resident (…)

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The Kunstfort is a concrete fortress in the typically Dutch village of Vijfhuizen. During Art Rotterdam its “sci fi” reality – the artificial surroundings, the uncanny defense system and the time-less appearance in the capital’s margins – is transferred to INTERSECTIONS, where the Kunstfort invites British artist Dan Walwin (UK, 1986) to collaborate on Dawn at demoralize, a presentation with moving image and installation.

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Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen proudly presents Rachel de Joode – Flat Nature / Surface Bodies. In the “Genieloods” and on the island, Rachel de Joode (NL, 1979 – lives in Berlin) shows a comprehensive exhibition of new work, including five outdoor sculptures. De Joode was one of the first to combine sculptural objects and photographic prints with reference to internet aesthetics. The artist is known for her “sculptural photography”, for which she prints and cuts pictures of natural materials in organic (…)

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Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen proudly presents Kim David Bots – The Rant. In this site-specific installation Kim David Bots (NL, 1988) takes “the scenery” as his starting point. The four spaces of the fort are filled with remnants of a game, so it seems. Just the scene is left; the only witness to a narrative that already has finished. Paintings, drawings, collages, objects, prints and found footage shape a reference frame without directly referring to something. Inspiration for this is the (…)

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Artist Jan Hoek (Amsterdam, 1984) and Kenyan Ugandan fashion designer Bobbin Case since long have been fascinated by the colorful motoraxis that cross around the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, better known as ‘boda boda’. There are so many of them, that boda boda owners dress up their motortaxis in a wide variety of themes to attract their customers’ attention. But Hoek and Case noticed that these men had forgotten one important aspect while personalizing their cars: their own outfits. That’s (…)

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This fall the Kunstfort welcomes: Toon Fibbe & Laura Wiedijk with Cloning the Ghost, Sara Kamalvand with The Tehran Garden Festival i.c.w. Mahmoud Bakhshi, Jan Hoek and Annika Kappner. In the project of Toon Fibbe (NL, 1987) and Laura Wiedijk (NL, 1985) the alienating orchid is presented in all its misleading glory: the beautiful outsider who penetrates herself like an alien. Cloning the Ghost investigates the seductive appearance and reproduction strategies of the flower. This visual misguidance is mirrored by (…)

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The Tehran Garden Festival is a project by Canadian-Iranian architect Sara Kamalvand (Iran, 1975 – lives in Paris and Tehran) about the so-called ‘qanats’ of Tehran, the capital of Iran. Kamalvand is committed to the redevelopment of these ancient underground water canals. By reviving the historical system, the project seeks an alternative for sustainable conservation of unused urban infrastructures. In her presentation issues about climate change, resource depletion and pollution footprint are related to heritage, conservation and memory. The project (…)

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Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen presents the exhibition Joeri Woudstra – Millennial Gravestone Quotes. In his first solo Joeri Woudstra (NL, 1993) explores the influence of technological developments and contemporary advertising culture on feelings of nostalgia. The exhibition reflects on our changing perception of time. Joeri Woudstra might be the characteristic “millennial”: an energetic allrounder, both creatively and technically skilled, never found in one place at a time, and proficient with both music and image. In the metal “Genieloods” shed of Kunstfort bij (…)

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Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen presents the exhibition Raymond Barion – Parallel Perspectives. This first overview of the Belgian-Dutch artist Raymond Barion (Valkenburg, 1946) shows paintings, drawings, studies and sculptural objects. Barion’s desolate landscapes, with distinctive elements of neon and architecture, date back to the 1980s. With their abandoned machineries, mythical sceneries and alternative visions of the future they can be seen as a prediction of today’s unrest. Barion’ work is magical, precise and sensitive – an endless dreaming in isometric perspectives. This makes (…)

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Wyne Veen (Netherlands, 1984) is a Dutch artist working mostly within the photographic medium. Veen’s work consists of sculptural arrangements that she photographs and edits. She is inspired by the look, interpretation and essence of objects becoming commodities, and their representation as such. Love is a project about imagery and its meaning. This image consist of fabric roses, a paper background print of a stock image, a metallic surface, silicone drops and tab water. The viewer witnesses the exact moment (…)

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Alexander Höglund (Sweden, 1984) is a Swedish artist who works in a variety of media from virtual experience and sculptures to curating and public interventions. Höglund has studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, Stockholm Filmschool in Stockholm and Lund University. His video Terminal Green is a journey through a 9 space-virtual-fantasy-world. A guided tour to a mental landscape. In the terminal we encounter creatures discovered in introspection, like the holy figure of the NGs, Blue boy and “the (…)

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This video explores today's narcissism. "Yllis: Parade" was created by artist duo The Rodina (Tereza and Vit Ruller, born in the Czech Republic). The work raises questions about our online exhibitionism - copying the self or attaining an image of the ideal self as a means of achieving value, distinction or immortality. How do we create identity in a semi-digital reality? Outside, on the fortress island, The Rodina shows the site-specific object Weaponized Knowledge, 2017.

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Annika Kappner’s Hypertrophic Abyss is onderdeel van de kunstinterventies van Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen. Hypertropic Abyss onderzoek de archaïsche visuele taal van diepzee mariene biologie, geplaatst tegenover artificiële hedendaagse materialen.

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Eitan Ben-Moshe The Ozone Flutes, 2013 Video, 35’ Camera: Chloe Iza Manasseh, Eitan Ben-Moshe Music: Tomer Tzur Eitan Ben-Moshe (Israel, 1971) lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel. He teaches at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem and Deseglives. This video documents his project The Ozone Flute, in which he planted his so-called ‘Ozone Flutes’ at the points of urban energy blockages. The Ozone Flute-project is a travelling urban installation created by The Tailor: an invented persona adopted by Israeli artist Eitan (…)

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Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen is pleased to present Tamar Harpaz – March Madness. For this site-specific exhibition the artist tracks the concrete structures of the fort. Employing sound and everyday objects, Harpaz transforms each room into an instrument. Together the spaces become an eerie orchestra of tones, lights, wires and glasses. The noise of pulsing percussions and blowing wind resonates through the historical corridors, recalling ghosts of the fort’s intended military purpose. Tamar Harpaz (Israel, 1979) finished her residency at the (…)

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Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen presents Erik Andriesse – Dode Dierentuin. In this exhibition Erik Andriesse (1957 – 1993) immortalizes untamable nature: a mysterious gathering of sunflowers, amarylisses, skeletons and skulls haunts the “Genieloods” shed of the fort. In the 70s and 80s, Andriesse is part of a generation of artists that again focuses on the art of painting – full of energy, with brush and paint in their hands. In politically and climatic troubled times, back then as well as today, he (…)

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Inspired by technological progress and the way new inventions are being more and more seamlessly integrated in our lives, photographer Olya Oleinic (Moldova, 1991) creates a narrative that illustates how technology has become such an ‘organic’ part of our daily mundane. Organic here refers to what is derived from living matter, but also the smooth and seamless aesthetics of today’s gadgets and digital tools. Technology is merging with our natural existence and without nowing it, we all become cyborgs; think (…)

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The print cow fur shows the inside of a space missile, which represents technology, science, and the future. Animals, here a cow’s skin, represents nature itself: the materiality of an animal skin embodies the wild, the ancestral, and the past. With its hanging circle form, the work looks like some sort of ritualistic portal. Indeed Shamans Coat is a loose reference to the shamanistic practice of traveling to other worlds. Much like in science fiction the boundaries between technology and (…)

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Fort bij Vijfhuizen was once part of a defence line that formed a 135 kilometre ring around the city of Amsterdam. Construction of the defence line began in 1880, but with the rise of the aeroplane it was rendered obsolete before it was even finished. Now in the once boggy lowlands that lay the wrong side of the line sits Schipol airport. It's Western runway is one kilometre from Vijhuizen. In Moot Steam, Jacob Dwyer (London, 1988) stages a dialogue between (…)

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Fischer & de Beijer laten een nieuwe serie kunstmatige lichtobjecten zien. Dit werk is tot stand gekomen tijdens de samenwerking die zij eind 2015 zijn aan gegaan. In het werk van Fischer & de Beijer heeft vorm en functie een twijfelachtige status. Zo heeft het werk in sommige gevallen een duidelijke functie te vervullen, maar tegelijkertijd kan die functie worden overstemd door het buitengewone voorkomen van de objecten. Het werk van Fischer & de Beijer wordt altijd door hen zelf vervaardigd, (…)

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Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen presents the exhibition Luuk Wilmering – Nagekomen Oorlogsberichten by artist Luuk Wilmering (Haarlem, 1957). Using research and documentation, Wilmering reconstructs the military past of his father, who was active in both the opposition in Haarlem and the Dutch-Indies. Download the press release (in Dutch) here.

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"He said he wasn't that good a dancer, but the instructions were clear. He just had to follow the spiral line on GPS. It might work, but only if every farmer along the road would join in." "Tractordans" is a project of Neeltje ten Westenend carried out by the farmers of the Rijnlanderweg, Haarlemmermeer. On Saturday afternoon, September 20, 2014, you could see tractors dancing on a lot on the Geniedijk in Hoofddorp. The event brought the farmers together in (…)

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‘He said he wasn’t that good a dancer, but the instructions were clear. He just had to follow the spiral line on GPS. It might work, but only if every farmer along the road would join in.’ Tractordans (Tractor dance) is a project by Neeltje ten Westenend carried out by the farmers of the Rijnlanderweg, Haarlemmermeer. On Saturday afternoon, September 20, 2014, you could see tractors dancing on a lot on the Geniedijk in Hoofddorp. The event brought the farmers (…)

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BEDAZZLE is een internationale groepstentoonstelling die de artistieke erfenis van razzle dazzle traceert op een passende locatie: het militair erfgoed van Fort Vijfhuizen. Dazzle camouflage is een geometrisch-abstractie decoratie-techniek, die tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog voornamelijk werd gebruikt om oorlogsschepen te camouflere De camouflage bestaat uit een complexe compositie van geometrische vlakken en hoeken in sterk contrasterende kleuren, waardoor het inschatten van afstand en richting van de schepen werd gefrustreerd en de vijand kon worden misleid. “From all appearances, deception has always been critical (…)

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In de lentetentoonstelling The Prophecy of Bees wordt de bijensterfte aangewend als metafoor voor de kwetsbaarheid van de natuur en de manier waarop kunstenaars de relatie tussen mens en dier herdefiniëren. Met werk van: Semâ Bekirovic, Joseph Beuys, Sara Bjarland, Melanie Bonajo, Laura Gozlan, Maartje Korstanje, Katja Novitskova en Janis Rafa. Curator: Julia Geerlings ‘Als de bijen uitsterven, zal de mensheid vier jaar later volgen,’ is een bekend dystopisch citaat toegeschreven aan Albert Einstein. Ook Antroposoof Rudolf Steiner zei – in 1923 (…)

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‘Silent Step’, 2012-2019 Site specific installation Acoustical foam bricks Sarah van Sonsbeeck

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Transparadiso focused on the consequences of the urban planning, especially the promise of a view on the Ijmer as one of the most significant assets of this new urban development and its geographical location. But for many residents this view was a temporary privilege, because the view continuously disappeared with the completion of IJburg. For this reason transparadiso have developed a periscope of urban format which returns the view to the IJburgers. In 2010 the periscope was moved to the (…)

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