In Apnoea (2024, ongoing)
takes a closer look at the phenomenon of eutrophication in the Southern North-Sea, caused by the pollution of nutrients coming from agricultural land because of the massive use of fertilizers. I investigate the death’s aftermath of a specific colony of algae, the Phaeocystis Globosa, that thrive in the abundance of nitrogen and phosphorus and – at the end of their life cycle – are turned into foam by the whipping of the sea waves. The foam is a threat for the marine environment because it triggers anoxic events, meaning it depletes the sea of its dissolved oxygen. The project builds on the idea of suffocation of bodies of water and blurs the boundary between human and more-than-human breath. Not only does the thick accumulation of white foam in the water and on the shore represent a risk for the marine ecosystem, but it also proved deadly for humans, taking the life of 5 surfers in 2020 on the beach of The Hague.
Horët (2023) ; Genius Loci (2024, ongoing)
When I look at public archival images of Calabria, I almost do not recognize it. The feeling is different, one that I’ve only experienced through scattered oral narrations of my relatives. Especially when depicting the inland of the region, public archives show me itineraries of presence, traces of life blinking within the hilly landscape, hints of slow movement along the roads. Connection with space, human activity, labor and folklore.
There is something that served as a bridge to prevent these communities from being erased completely, at least from the memory of those who stayed: postcards. Most things I know about my father’s family, I learnt looking at postcards coming from abroad. Or flipping old photographs to read the notes on the back. The language used reads to cultural assimilation, it mentioned places that I could not locate on the map, created hybrid words that I was not able to understand, but would spontaneously signify.
Minimum Space (2024)
Puck is a queer woman in her 40s, from South Holland, who for 20 years lived in squats all over the Netherlands — until the ban of 2010. Since then, she’s been based in Maastricht – city that she affectionately addresses as a “conservative sh*thole”, due to Limburg’s extreme right-wing tendencies. Besides that, it’s a pleasure to hear her speaking about history, politics, her cat, and pretty much anything. She is very knowledgeable, and I will later find out that she used to be a journalist and a writer before becoming a train driver for Arriva, in Maastricht, to follow her childhood’s dream.
What does it mean to be a queer woman living in occupied spaces, mostly with people you don’t know, always in a different place? Can one ever feel to belong? But especially, to what extent do we need to belong somewhere?
She mentioned that time she squatted a farm in Elst, and there she built herself a round cabin to live in. About 5 meters of diameter, bed and oven included. This anecdote gets me overthinking about metaphors. Maybe we should learn to nurture certain ideals, get our hands dirty building ephemeral places, relations, societies. How can we teach ourselves to actively inhabit, and to inhabit the present? The inability to have total control over time-related matters shouldn’t prevent us from – at least – imagining alternative futures, the hands-on kind of imagining.