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Midseason: Murky Waters & Clear Sights

program: 08 nov - 15 dec

show: 16 - 18 dec 2022

michiel teeuw, marijke klamer, sjors smit, siem de boer, wooryun song, Sojung Lee

The exhibition Murky Waters & Clear Sights tries to sharpen the view on hidden perspectives, narratives and objects within Maritime histories, and specifically the collection of the Museum aan de A. From this collection, the artists each chose a historical artifact, which then served as the basis and starting point for a deep dive in archival and artistic research. This resulted in various videos, installations, performances and other artworks, which offer a gloomy perspective on traveling, hiding or sleeping in the murky waters.

Dutch nautical histories are filled with struggles, wealths and tidy waves. Looking into life on deck, we ask what it means to fare far or close to home, and look at the shimmering surface or into the dark depths underneath. These seaborne narratives form the experimental grounds of the artists during the midseason 2022 residency.

PROGRAM

SAT 17 DEC 19:00-20:30

Conversation: Let’s Talk Sea Monsters!

Marijke Klamer and Michiel Teeuw talked about their research into mermaids and other sea monsters, shown some fragments of sea monster movies and art and discussed how it formed their works during the residency.

SUN 18 DEC 14:00-15:30

Talk: Sodomie by Andere Volkeren.

During his residency, Michiel Teeuw has transcribed a chapter from the “Helsche Boosheit”, a homophobic pamphlet by preacher HC van Byler from 1731. The chapter discusses sodomy amongst other peoples in a cross-cultural study. After a short introduction, fragments were read.

ABOUT THE LOCATION

De Pelikaan was built in 1914 as a sailing cargo clipper and was used as a cargo clipper until 1989. Since 2001 she has been restored to her original state and equipped as a sailing passenger ship. You can go on multi-day trips on the Wadden Sea up to 32 people with skipper Peter.

During the 17th century, Groningen’s landscape was studded with shipyards, cargo ships and big canals – back then still connected to the open sea. Shipping developed in the 17th century to transport peat and expanded in the 19th and 20th centuries into other goods shipping. With time, skippers became more courageous and sailed their ship and cargo to places like England, the Baltic and the Mediterranean Seas. Therefore, to satisfy this thirst for adventure, ships needed to be bigger and sturdier. These vessels promoted the growth of a maritime economy in the province. The creation and building of the ships became such a crucial and common business that in the 19th century ships were made “by eye”, so without preliminary drawing. Nowadays, Groningen ships still sail around the world, but some have become monuments or living spaces, some of them still leave the docks, others tied forever.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

As historical ships start to appear in the city centre of Groningen for WinterWelVaart, six artists start the midseason program at het resort. The selected artists: Marijke Klamer, Michiel Teeuw, Siem de Boer, Sjors Smit, Sojung Lee, Wooryun Song.

This year’s program explores failures as achievements, writing workshops, field trips and exhibition’s concept and planning. This year the artists will dive into nautical history and set sail to 53°13'06.3"N 6°33'30.4"E to research and study nautical life and vocabulary.

As in the previous edition, the group includes 3 non-Groninger and 3 Groninger artists, so as to exchange experiences regarding different disciplines, academic lives and art scenes. So to learn how to navigate their ship in a sea full of artistic opportunities, steering policies and unexpected swirls.

The artists are asked to collectively create an exhibition and individually make site-specific works. This year’s exhibition’s venue is a ship that is part of the WinterWelVaart festival.

PROGRAM unfold to read

#1: Introduction: city cruise & cocktails
Marijke Klamer: "In the morning we met at the resort headquarters with Gisanne en Ellen. We got some beautiful red rain hats as a gift with our names embroidered on them. Then we did a round of introducing ourselves to each other. We spoke about the things we like to do but also about recent failures we had, which was a nice thing to talk about because we realized that it’s often just a part of the process or can lead to new ideas. In the afternoon we went on a boat tour through the canals of Groningen, it was fun to look at the city from a tourist perspective. Afterwards we went to the forum to end the day with some cocktails. "
#2: field-trip to ship gouwzee & photoshoot
Michiel Teeuw: "After a short bike ride, we arrive at a rectangular building, of ribbed silver metal with a blue lining at the top. To the right, tons of cars pass by. To the left is water with tons of boats like BREG and CAS. We walk over tons of autumn leaves, underneath a small plate roofing and end up in the shipyard. Planks, plates, rods and other gibberish rest against the walls. To get to the ship, we have to jump on and off other ones, walk on small paths, and thus we arrive. The boat is very slanty, and as Siem remarks, you can see the layers of history. The renovation of the ship Gouwzee that Benne and Servaas (Stichting Historische Haven Hoogkerk) started is also related to this history: they are planning to organise art exhibitions on this ship. It will be placed in Hoogkerk, where a historical harbor will host eight ships giving different stories of nautical history. Someone used to live on this boat - he disappeared.

Marijke asks why boats have round windows. Servaas answers that
[ i ] Ships have round windows because square windows break more easily when the force of water pushes against them.

The group wonders about the etymology of "patrijspoort". Apparently, I found out later when googling, it is a comparison to the "arse" or fallopian tube opening of a <partridge>, where the eggs would come through - poort used to be a synonym for asshole. Good to know.

There is an engine in the boat. It could be working within three days, Servaas mentions, but the ship will not be moving. That would require a lot of extra money and burocracy. In the living room of the previous inhabitant, I find a copy of Kafka's Process. We wander around the ship, exploring all the corners and such - after which we go upstairs to do our photoshoot. The air of autumn has arrived and slightly cuts through our clothing."
#3: presenting & reflecting on work | w/ syb circles
Siem de Boer: “On this day we came together with the midseason residents and two special guests: Alina Lupu and Anika Mariam Ahmed at Syb in Beetsterzwaag. Sadly Arnisa Zeqo couldn’t join us for the day. Together with their experienced eye we tried dissecting our works in different rounds of presenting and questioning, to get to know each other better.

We all spent a part of the day talking about our recent works that we felt represented us artistically. We got to know each other a little better and how we feel moving forward in the art field. The talks were interesting and explorative, where critical questioning resulted in exciting new views about our practice but also about our way of questioning. As a group we found some deeper connection from the various invitations in each other's practices.”
#4: Visiting Museum aan de A and ship Pelikaan
Sjors Smit: On a rainy, very windy Thursday we visited ‘Museum aan de A’ the former maritime museum of the city of Groningen, now in transit towards being an institute showcasing a broader view of the city’s history. We were welcomed by Wicher, the museum's curator, and followed him through a room filled with the penetrating smell of oil. The museum harbors itself within two 14th century warehouses featuring its characteristic steps & little rooms. After our brief introductions, we headed to the collection in search of inspiration for our upcoming projects. The broad variety of tools, materials and other objects, curated in a chronological order, gave a strong impression of how distinctive the city’s nautical history truly is.
The overwhelming amount of information the museum had to offer was followed by our first visit to the turquoise ship where our exhibition will take place, the ‘Pelikaan’. Peter, our skipper, was iconically swabbing the deck when we walked up. He shook our hands and invited us below deck as it was still pouring. The interior was showing that the ship is being used as a youth hostel, polished and filled with large communal tables. We nosed around, all looking attentively for potential spots to mount our artworks-to-be on/in/under. I think we all realized today that the game is on, four weeks to go, let's make it happen.
#5: how to group show with Esther de Graaf
Sojung Lee: In the morning, we gathered to have a workshop with artist Esther de Graaf. It was a day after the intense exploration in the museum, so everyone seemed fully charged with new ideas. After a short introduction, Esther proposed the kick-off activity: jotting down something that came to our mind. It could be any word, but we were told not to make sentences as much as possible. Even a sort of alien language was acceptable. It was quite difficult not to make sentences in the beginning as my thought was logical, but it was gradually falling apart while I was filling a piece of paper. In the end, I found it was a good activity for waking up my brain (I was traveling back and forth between my consciousness and unconsciousness).

After that, she asked us to think about what we wanted to show in the final exhibition, how to set the environment to unify it as a group show, and what we can do on a bigger scale to take over the entire ship and surroundings. We shared our ideas, which let us open up a discussion over planning the final show precisely. In the afternoon, we had our own time to digest all these inputs. We wrote down administrative and technical questions to ask the Het Resort team. Indeed, we have started to shape it.
#6: how to write a project plan with curator Arda van Tiggelen
Wooryun Song: From 10 am, we gathered on Zoom with curator Arda van Tiggelen. We introduced ourselves and talked about what we had for breakfast to warm up our meeting. In the beginning, we reflected on our project plan and then had constructive feedback from each other. We discussed what is missing in the proposal, and what could be better in the proposal. It was very helpful to look at each other’s proposals and learn from them as well as listen to Arda’s viewpoint. After the session with Arda, we went in-depth into the proposal individually with Gisanne, and we also got some other tips from Ellen. It was a pretty intense day for me, but it was truly useful for organizing my thoughts and being more concise in planning in order to make new work. It’s getting thrilling the fact that we have only 3 weeks left!
#7: how to write an artist statement with Anika Mariam Ahmed
Siem de Boer: During this meeting hosted by Anika Mariam Ahmed (SYB CIRCLES) we got glimpses inside each other's art speak and language use while writing artist statements. Some big and some small texts were presented and looked through by the fellow midseasoners and Anika herself. We found insight into displaying our practice within text and came to interesting points concerning artists' cultural background and the use of the English language. How do we speak to certain people and do we have to be blandly english all the time? We discovered that through our backgrounds many different types of writing developed next to our practice, which could be both very intimate but also sometimes written a little better. Anika gave us tips on how we could utilize these personal narratives and bring that over effectively to existing but also new audiences.
#8: online presence w/ Ellen de Haan
Michiel Teeuw: "Today, we met with Ellen (co-director het resort) to discuss online presence and websites. We started by surfing together and showing our favorite and inspiring websites. I love being online and looking at cool sites, so it was really interesting to see what inspires others. Marijke found the WimCity site from Wim Delvoye which was really funny and stylish, and Siem had found this super cryptic net-diagram that could be browsed through. Wooryun showed us a super minimal website, which just had a selection of images which could be clicked through. Sojung selected a very designed website with a very specific typography and layout, with lots of purple. I picked Robby Müllers photo-archive website which I found very poetic and cinematic. After this, we started discussing our own websites. We actually only had time to discuss Siem's and my website, but it was really in-depth! In February we will continue this process."