BLOW AWAY A BLUE WHALE, 2013

Installation of 10 blowing fans, total used capacity: 120 kWh over 30 days.

Stranded whales that are collected from the Dutch beaches are being processed into electricity for common use. With data from the rendering plant that is responsible for handling all animal surplus material, I was able to estimate the amount of electricity that would be derived from the biggest whale that was ever measured and blow it away in an effortless gesture.

courtesy of Teylers Museum Haarlem, NL

TOP OF A MOUNTAIN, BOTTOM OF A CUP, 2015

courtesy of Allard Pierson Museum Amsterdam, NL

2 times 26 x 38 x 6 cm piezoprints on Canson paper in chestnut wooden box frames

THE DENT OF WALTER UMENHOFER, 2015

21.15 x 16.92 cm offset print in Munken paper, Japanese folding

‘The Dent of Walter Umenhofer’ is a study in text and image on the relativity of size, especially with regard to things that are so much bigger than we are. I asked various people about the weight of a blue whale and followed the reference points from their estimations as a framework for this publication. The book became a research on how our definition of reality is founded on a constant comparison between subjects and shows just how many shapes our imagination can take on.

THE DENT OF WALTER UMENHOFER, 2015

Performance during the book launchUnfolded the pages of this book all together cover the exact same length of the largest measured blue whale

SUMMIT OF VAN DALE, 2015-2016

30.7 x 41 cm and 15 x 20.5 cm

piezoprint, single page from the Van Dale Dutch Dictionary, fourteenth revised edition, graphite pencil

TRAVELLING COLONY, 2016

(detail)approx. 100 x 100 cm

fiberglass measuring tape, silk yarn

CAPSULES, 2016

various sizes, each one containing 1 meter length

painted acrylic

DOODSREUTEL, 2017

The Dutch word ‘doodsreutel’ (death rattle) has recently been eliminated from the Dutch Van Dale Dictionary. This got me thinking of extinction within language, and the consequences to our perception of phenomena of which we have lost the words to describe. In an attempt to re-animate ‘doodsreutel’ I collaborated with Ecuadorian artist Oscar Santillan to bring this word back into the public domain.

To do so we followed the criteria by which the lexicographers from the dictionary conclude the liveliness of words: by using the words within public printing. Therefore we placed an obituary advertisement in the Dutch national newspaper, De Volkskrant, on April 5th 2017. The same day a performance took place in the Artis Zoological Library in Amsterdam.

WE SET OUT LATE BECAUSE WE HAD SNOW TO DISSOLVE FOR BREAKFAST, 2016

Collecting perpetual snow on 3,300 m above sea - Melting perpetual snow at sea level 47 x 70 cm

THE SUMMIT OF THE SHADOW OF MONT BLANC, 2017

100 x 140 cm C-print on dibond

SHADOW OF THE ROOSTER, 2017

Monument for the shadow of the church tower that touched this stone on June 18th 2017 at 10:41 amLocalising the shadow of the church tower

CLOUD INVERSE, 2017

The Elevation Chart serves as a table of content: it shows al ascend and descend throughout the publication24 x 16.3 cm

The summit of Mont Blanc was expropriated by geologist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure during the first scientific expedition op the mountain in 1787. For many years this triangle of granite rock has been residing in Teylers Museum, the Netherlands, at a mere 3.2 meter above sea level. ‘Cloud Inverse’ describes my own expedition of 17 days in which I follow the geologist’s footsteps and travel through a diverse landscape, both geographical and imagined, before finally arriving at an obscure mountaintop. Touching upon correlating traces within landscape and travel literature.

CLOUD INVERSE, 2017

offset print on Munken paper, with stone paper poster/dust cover