Project 2005 Le Nord / Het Noorden
Theme: The North: Northwestern Friesland/Departement Le Nord in France
The Departement Le Nord in North western France is an area where I like to spend time. I live in Northwestern Friesland: ‘Het Bildt’.
Both landscapes and communities have become the starting points for this project.
First a video production came about as a result of a diary in letter form written by Victor Hugo during his travels around the 1850s.
When visiting and speaking to people in Le Nord I noticed that there is a difference in landscapes between the ‘wadden’ coast of Northwestern Friesland and the Departement Le Nord. The first is flat with a fixed seadike. The second is hilly with dunes and stark chalk-cliffs.
Comparisons are such that the farmers in both areas grow the same products: potatoes, grain, onions and rapeseed. In between the fields you will find pastures with cows and horses.
A difference appears to be in the small fishing business which has disappeared in the ‘wad’ but is practised to the full in Le Nord.
The solitude of the ‘wad’ presents a big contrast to the turbulent movement of the tides in Le Nord.
The solitude and turbulence form the basics of this project with digital photographs, videos and slides. Two monitors show the tides in both areas - he solitude of such in Friesland with its many bird species and the turbulent waves between Calais and Boulogne.
Two further monitors show an installation on the seadike with the 28 days of the moon as a starting point. The second monitor shows the film l’Impression. Two slide projectors show impressions of the areas in both regions.
Museum Smallingerland Drachten 25 juni – 4 september 2005
Gallery Josart Amsterdam 24 februari – 24 maart 2006
