Harmonie in de Linie

ABOUT Harmonie in de Linie

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Since I worked at Witte Rook before, Esther van Rosmalen invited me to curate the Fine Arts part of this one-day event, for which they organized the pilot a year before. They found this terrain, an empty platform amidst the residential area this art institution is based. And they saw an opportunity - like in many places, it will only be for so long until they start building apartments on top of empty space like that - and took it.

Besides the art route, they worked with sound artist Bart van Dongen who created a composition inspired by sounds within this area. A local dancing group called Dansnest reacted to this piece: they performed together with a local harmony, who played the composition.

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For the art route, I selected artists who either had worked at Witte Rook before, or had already been scheduled to be part of the upcoming AiR's. I looked at their mentality and way of approach towards work, instead of asking for existing pieces. So all of them, one way or another, approached this residential area and their way of work differently. Some of them worked in the neighborhood for a couple of weeks, others created site-specific works in empty houses or office spaces and presented them either there or on the streets. Interestingly, most of them also took the risk for the work to not be seen at all during the one-hour tour that Sunday.

Since I wanted the art route to be something different than a classical presentation, I also invited artist Malou van Doormaal to approach these routes as a piece of work of her own. It resulted in three different routes: one route that consisted of a 4-language presentation performed by locals, another route that focussed on cleaning the neighborhood performed by another local, and as third a paper route that anyone could follow - if they were able to perceive the piece and would be willing to get lost.
After the art routes, everyone assembled at the platform where the musical piece took place. But not without seeing Maarten Bel perform parts from his ongoing notation books. After the harmony played, we all walked back, carrying works of art in a procession, closing of the day.