Selection of works:

Melle Smets / Maurits Herzberger:

Olympic Delegation to Promote the Chinese Product

The Olympic Delegation to Promote the Chinese Product took place in March 2008. The delegation visited factories in the regions Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong and furthermore the city of Yiwu. In this city, 300 km south of Shanghai, an exhange building can be found where over 58.000 factories and commercial agents trade over 400.000 different chinese products. As part of the Olympic Games, the Day of the Olympic Delegation will took place on August 24 at Museum De Paviljoens in Almere, the Netherlands.

Ecumenopolis (2004-2008)
MJPG nonlinear digital film experimenting with cinema as an apparatus of memory

Ecumenopolis (from Greek: inhabited city) is a word invented in 1967 by the Greek city planner Constantinos Doxiadis to represent the idea that in the future urban areas and megalopolises would eventually fuse and there would be a single continuous world-wide city as a progression from the current urbanization and population growth trends. As Brans Stassen, the man behind the planning of Almere said himself; such a dynamic is already occurring on a regional level in Flevoland. This brings to mind Freud's text "Civilization and its discontents," and the dual archaeological model of Rome as the visible city of ruins and Pompeii as the lost city. Before the word ecumenopolis had been coined, the American religious leader Thomas Lake Harris (1823-1906) mentioned city-planets in his verses, and science fiction author Isaac Asimov uses the city-planet Trantor as the setting of some of his books.

Ecumenopolis follows 4 years of collection: shot through a pocket digital camera, the piece is an MJPG nonlinear digital experimental documentary film trying to recompose a fictive city out of footages made in 65 cities worldwide. About 1000 short video sequences of 5 to 15 seconds are randomly selected and played from a database, generating a continuous and always renewed narrative ultimately bound to déjà vu. It is aimed as open-ended and evolving, incorporating the evolution of time. A "video still life" of a sort, it relates to some other films' attempt in the history of cinematography to envision a city's soul, as "A propos de Nice" of Jean Vigo or "Berlin, symphony of a great city" of Walther Ruttmann.

Bush’s names in Chinese (China, 2004) (50cm x 50cm each piece) Shanghaiese manufactured copper sheets

Context: the use of Chinese characters to represent phonetically the American president’s name in daily press allows or force Chinese journalists to attach a hidden meaning to it (since meaning is inherent to Kanji).

(Titles of each work)
- Bush = Buu-Shr: Buu-Shr, drew more negative associations than positive ones. The character, Shr, meant "assorted" (often used in things like Shr-Jeen, "combination fried rice") or "what." By itself it is a neutral word. However, there is a commonly used term, pronounced exactly the same way like Buu-Shr, meaning "dishonest", "unrealistic," or "fraudulent." So, when people hear "American President, Bush" on the television or radio it sound like "American President, flashy and without substance."

- Bush = Buu-Suu:  Buu-Suu, is the least used among the three. The character, Suu, meant "special." However, there is another word that sounded similar to Suu but it meant, "to lose." Since Buu could be a different word that meant "no," Buu-Suu can be "not lose."

- Bush = Buu-She: Buu-She, broke down to Buu and She. Buu is "cloth" and is neutral in meaning. The main character in this name that draws attention is the second character, She. She is "hope". This name is completely positive because She, or hope, is a high frequency and high emotion word. This name can be associated with the characters standing for “spreading of hope" or "give hope," pronounced and appearing in exactly the same ways.

Filipino emigration series (The Philippines, 2008)
ID pictures, wood, steel, glass.

 (Titles of each works)
- Japan Visa (photo= 4,5cm x 4,5cm - head size: 28mm)
- Japan Immigration (photo= 3,5cm x 4,5cm - head size: 28mm)
- US Visa (photo= 2 inches x 2 inches - head size: 32mm)
- US Immigration (photo= 3,5cm x 4cm - head size: 26mm - half-profile)
- US Visa Non-Immigrant (2 inches x 2 inches - head size: 30mm - rice paper)
- Chinese Visa (photo= 3,3cm x 4,8cm - head size: 28mm)
- Koran Visa (3,5cm x 4,5cm - head size: 30mm)
- Saudi Arabia Visa (4cm x 6cm - head size: 30mm)
- Taiwan Visa (2,7cm x 3,5cm - head size: 27mm)
- Canadian Visa (3,5cm x 4,5cm - head size: 30mm - matt paper)

Frank Koolen:

Suggestions for a New Taxonomy, 2007 (video, music Erik Satie)

Aside from a number of photos, his film Suggestions for a New Taxonomy (2007) is shown at LOCALISMS. In this film, he classified the animals he comes across during his travels, not in the usual way – as mammals, birds and insects, for example, but based on affinities such as looking towards the right, having long legs or being white with a bit of black.

Frank Koolen recorded a fictional nature documentary at the surrounding area around the Museum. The documentary presents a giraffe, a crocodile, and several other animals that all live around the museum ... This film will be presented next year in the summer at the second edition of Festival Site2F7.


Watervanger (Water Catcher) – Frank Koolen
I walk through Schiphol, considerably nervous about the plane trip I’m going to make to an obscure Greek island. I am only able to think about crashing airplanes. That my entire family will also be in the airplane with me is a small comfort – at least we’ll all go down together. Not using the moving walkway, I walk through the different terminals. My attention is drawn to a sanseveria in a huge pot. The sanseveria is a houseplant requiring minimal care and can be kept by pretty much anyone – an ideal plant for an airport. I walk to the potted plant to see if it is a fake. Ease knows no boundaries. By cutting a leaf open with my nail, I observe that it is a real plant. I take a step back. ‘Water Catcher’ is written on the pot. Nice name: ‘Water Catcher’. Even though I must have seen this already, I now take notice of the red door of the fire hose cabinet adorned with corresponding imagery. Sanseveria leaves reaching out to the fire hose. Ready to catch the water.

Kristen Posehn:

Reclamation is a reproduction of the last remaining façade from the ghost town of Metropolis, USA. The Lincoln School, completed in 1913, has almost completely crumbled to the ground - only the front entrance remains as the solitary structure against a wide horizon dusted with sagebrush. Pockmarked with bullet holes and corroding in the harsh desert weather, this entrance still stands upright in the shape of an arch.

The archway is reconstructed at 1:1 scale as a public outdoor architectural installation in Almere, the Netherlands. A three-dimensional replica of the decaying Lincoln School is clad with detailed photographs of the original. The work is a combination of architecture, photography and sculpture, and is fabricated from standard outdoor advertising and construction materials. Reclamation is located on SITE2F7, the last remaining undeveloped plot of land in Almere's city center.

For more information, see www.pacificreclamationcompany.com

Made possible by the Jan van Eyck Academie and Museum De Paviljoens

Savage:

Remains of youngsters underneath the museum are mirrored with the same but new products

If you die, I die (2008)
9 Amstel Bier (Cans), 2 Anta Flu, Boomerang Postcard with Blue Face, 7 Heineken (Bottles), Jet Gum (Menthol), Martini Bianco (Bottle), Moser Roth Chocolate, Nuts Chocolate Bar, Plywood (44 x 40 x 1.2 cm), Receipt (Indeterminate), Rizla (Orange), Silver Disposable, Lighter, Snickers, Weed (4 Small Size Bags), White Tissue, Wood (10 x 42 x 1.8cm), Burger King Meal (Indeterminate), Duracell Battery, Hertog Jan Lentebock (Bottle), Marlboro Packet (Red), Mauxion (Milk Chocolate with Nuts), Taksi Fruits Tropicaux (Carton), Weed (5 Mid Size Bags), Rizla (Red), Straw Wrapper, Metal Pipe (22 x1.8 cm), Amstel Bier (Bottle), Amstel Bier (2 Crates), Blue Plastic Tray (Indeterminate), Callipo, Euroshop Battery, Hertog Jan Bier (Bottle), Hertog Jan Bier (Can), L & M Packet (Red), Maoam Stripes, Marlboro Cigarettes (Red), Plastic Bag (Small), Rizla (King Siize) safari Senza (Bottle), Yellow Straw, Apple, Chupa Chups Lollipop, Heineken Bier (Lid), Hertog Jan Bier (Lid), Insualtion Tape (Green), Marlboro Packet (Red), Mascotte Rizla (Green), Biscuit (Sultana), Bungee Strap (Black) , Doritos Bits Honey BBQ, Febo (Indeterminte), Fernandes (Lid), Fini Sport Balls Gum, Hertog Jan Multipack (Bottles), River Orange (Can), Roos Vicee Multi Vit Tropisch Fruit (Carton), Satsuma, Shopping Trolley , Smakelijk (Indeterminate), Sportlife Peppermint Gum, 2 Straw Wrappers, Taksi Fuits Topicaux (Carton), Ticket (Maxx Reiss) €2.00, Tissue, Amstel Bier (Crate), Firework (Indeterminate), Leger Bier (can), Sultana Yo Fruit Bar, White Paper Bag, Cable Tie (Black), Newspaper (indeterminate), Paper Bag (Small), Plastic Bag (Small), Prince Mini Stars Cake, Straw (Yellow/White Stripe). KitKat, Snickers (Fun Size)

Discarded jumper cleaned and returned to where it was found (2004)
Blanket cleaned and returned to where it was found (2003)

Maarten Vanden Eynde:




Taxonomic Trophies (2005 - ongoing)
Ongoing collection of branches preserved and presented as endangered or extinct species. It consists of authentic trophies from Birmingham (UK), Death Valley (USA), Grand Canyon (USA), Tajimi (Japan), Rotterdam (NL), Chaumont devant Damvillers (France),Tbilisi (Georgia), Xiamen (China), Ghent (Belgium), Almere (NL), Shanghai (China), Malibu (USA), Riga (Latvia) and other places. All of these trophies were hunted on my journeys around the world and shipped to Rotterdam.





Rite for Almere, 2008
Museum De Paviljoens, Almere, NL
Oak wooden tree (8 meters) and fire (15 meters)

All over the world rites and celebrations form the backbone of a society and function as cornerstones of history. The rite is an event to remember or look forward to. An occasion to create a moment of reflection, an enlarged presence of the present, the ideal opportunity to commemorate once past and plan the future. It is an event of which if you are part of that particular society, you just have to be there. Sometimes the initial history of the rite is lost but still continued because it is part of everybodies life. Since Almere lacks a history (beyond 30 years) I thought of giving it one by initiating a rite. An oak tree from the first generation of planted trees in Almere (about 35 years old) was cut square, like a big beam splitting up in smaller beams, covered with dry pinewood and lit on the 21st of August 2008 at 21.00. The tree will stay for a few years as semi-permanent sculpture and will be relit every year untill it only exists in stories.

Richard Wentworth:



A ‘you’ spot - pale blue board balanced on two sandbags saving parking spot. Board reads ‘skip coming in morning’ X (student text received by RW while at Museum De Paviljoens)

As subtle as Wentworth’s actions are, they succeed in creating unusual juxtapositions using everyday objects. By placing objects together or by changing the viewpoint, the way in which we normally take these objects for granted disappears and we see, for example, how a bird’s nest can be a prototype of urbanism.
Wentworth made four spatial installations in Museum De Paviljoens. Also on display are photos from his continuing series Making Do and Getting By, in which the ‘sculptures’ he comes across on the street are captured on film.





Urbs (2008)

Claim (2008)

L.A. Urban Rangers (Sara Daleiden):

The Los Angeles Urban Rangers create their very first trail system in Almere, Netherlands. Almere is one of the newest and fastest growing cities in the Netherlands, built over the last three decades on the Flevoland polder's reclaimed sea bottom. Mowed in collaboration with the city's landscape maintenance crew, our modest pathway system encourages visitors to explore the vacant lot surrounding the contemporary art museum, named SITE2F7, the last urban wilderness remaining in hyper-planned Almere. Signage marks the intersections where trails extend from established concrete sidewalks and asks visitors to ponder questions such as “who decides what grows here?” and “when can a dead end wander?” With special guests including a botanist and a forester, Ranger Sara Daleiden led an ontdekkingstocht, or “explorer's hike,”.

Soundtransit:

Marjolijn Dijkman:

For the exhibition project Localisms I made a presentation of the ongoing research project Gestures. Together with designer Julie Peeters I made a selection of images for a wall piece and a poster with the categories of this part of the archive. On the wall there are images mixed from several categories and on the poster these categories are underlined. During this exhibition there will be images added twice. There are images from the surrounding area of the Museum and pictures I took during the exhibition period in other locations added. Download poster:  Gestures (pdf)

I made this postcard for the exhibition. The card is made of a collection of found images and self made images of figures wandering in contemporary, historic, virtual and cinematic landscapes.

Wondering around... Postcard A5 (edition 1250)
Download Wondering around... (pdf)

Exhibition: Localisms, Observations by...
Curated by: Marjolijn Dijkman and Museum de Paviljoens
Production of works: Museum de Paviljoens
Participating artists: Richard Wentworth, Marjolijn Dijkman, Savage, Eric Van Hove, Melle Smets, Maurits Hertzberger, Frank Koolen, Sara Kolster, Derek Holzer, Marc Boon, Kristin Posehn, SoundTransit, Maarten Vanden Eynde and Julie Peeters
Location: Museum de Paviljoens, Almere, The Netherlands
Duration: 12 April - 19 October 2008