Category: Cultural Travel

Folkert de Jong in the Groninger Museum

Visited the Groninger Museum, which in itself is worthwhile a trip.

Circle of Trust. Folkert de Jong. Selected Works 2001-2009. In the Groninger Museum from Groninger Museum on Vimeo.

Folkert the Jong has a solo exhibition there. According to those “in the know” Dutch artist Folkert de Jong is going to make it!

Opening 2009 Holland Dance Festival

Dance Outside awaiting Public at Holland Dance Festival P1050356

A lonely dancer is outside to welcome the public for the opening of Holland Dance Festival.

The 2009 festival is entirely dedicated to the Netherlands Dance Theater‘s 50ieth anniversary and Jiri Kilian’s departure as the resident choreographer of NDT in The Hague.

Holland-Dance-Festival-President-of-the-Board-of-Trustees-P1050369a

The president of the Board of Trustees of Holland Dance Festifal, Mr Gilbert Monod de Froideville welcomed the public.

Minister Plasterk Opens Holland Dance Festival officially P1050366

Dutch Minister of Culture, R. Plasterk opens Holland Dance Festival officially.

I’m sorry the photos are not as sharp as I would have liked.

To be continued.

Burning Man – Must See Festival

Burning-Man-Unicorn

A magnificent unicorn struggles to emerge from the cracking dust-covered playa

Burning-Man-Flames

Rotating installation that breathes four hot streams of fire into the air at night.

Sand(wo)man made out of metal bowls celebrates the universe with outstretched arms, a fertile womb and dancing feet.

Over 200 feet long and 50 feet high, this awe-inspiring Conexus Cathedral, built in 2006, was a hallowed place that inspired both reflection and dancing.

Burning Man

Never knew what it was. Now I know … a bit.

Freelance Journalist Meredith Price describes the magic of the Burning Man Project, held yearly in the Nevada desert, with the help of some truly amazing photos.

Every year, over 40,000 people come together in a Utopian experiment showing the most stunning artwork, grandiose costumes and outlandish art cars and there is some fire too.

Held in Black Rock City, Nevada, the festival is named Burning Man after the ritualistic burning of a wooden effigy in the shape of a man.

Via the Tripbase Blog

The 10 Burning Man Principles are:

  1. Radical Inclusion
    Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.
  2. Gifting
    Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.
  3. Decommodification
    In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.
  4. Radical Self-reliance
    Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.
  5. Radical Self-expression
    Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.
  6. Communal Effort
    Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.
  7. Civic Responsibility
    We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.
  8. Leaving No Trace
    Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.
  9. Participation
    Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.
  10. Immediacy
    Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.

Waddenzee (Wadden Sea) becomes Unesco World Heritage Site

Waddenzee

This photo shows a large part of the Dutch Waddenzee (Wadden Sea): a large shallow water areal between a couple of islands in the Norh, the provinces North Holland below left, Friesland to the right and Groningen which is not shown on this photo. Right of Groningen it spans further across to Denmark above between the German North Sea Coast and German’s Wadden Islands. You can see the large dike (Afsluitdijk) connecting the two provinces. The Dutch word wad means a shoal that becomes dry at ebb tide. There are many of them and during ebb you can walk from several places on the mainland to several island. It is a real adventure and can be dangerous if not well planned time wise.

During its 2008 session the Unesco has entered the Waddenzee (Wadden Sea) in its register of Unesco World Heritage Sites

Its announcement reads:

The Wadden Sea (Germany / The Netherlands) comprises the Dutch Wadden Sea Conservation Area and the German Wadden Sea National Parks of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. It is a large temperate, relatively flat coastal wetland environment, formed by the intricate interactions between physical and biological factors that have given rise to a multitude of transitional habitats with tidal channels, sandy shoals, sea-grass meadows, mussel beds, sandbars, mudflats, salt marshes, estuaries, beaches and dunes. The inscribed site represents over 66% of the whole Wadden Sea and is home to numerous plant and animal species, including marine mammals such as the harbour seal, grey seal and harbour porpoise. It is also a breeding and wintering area for up to 12 millions birds per annum and it supports more than 10 percent of 29 species. The site is one of the last remaining natural, large-scale, intertidal ecosystems where natural processes continue to function largely undisturbed.

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Herewith The Netherlands counts 8 listed World Heritage Sites.

Feed People to the Pigs – A Mirror for the Pork Eaters among us!

Stroom AVL Foodmaster 01 by Eveline van Egdom

Joep van Lieshout of Atelier Van Lieshout (AVL) is “at it” again:

This summer Stroom organizes an exposition as part of a two year curriculum titled Foodprint in order to study the relation between food and the city. If you understand Dutch you can read more at Stroom’s blog Foodprint and here is their Dutch blog’s summary of the exhibition. The exhibition will run until August 23, 2009.

At the exhibition Joep, who recently sold some work – including his version of a pod hotel – to Brat Pitt at Art Basel, has reversed the “normal” slaughterhouse where pigs are slaughtered to feed the humans. He installed a slaughterhouse where humans are slaughtered to feed the pigs. A mirror for the pork eaters among us.

The photo is by Eveline van Egdom. I will certainly visit it to make some photos myself.