Silence & The Presence of Everything takes you on a sensory journey through everyday natural phenomena. The exhibition consists of eight intriguing art installations that place natural forces at the center. Think of weather systems made of dust and light, or dancing droplets flowing toward the center of the earth. The artworks invite reflection on humanity’s place in the world. Are we not all entangled in the complex systems of culture and technology, while longing to once again become part of “nature”?
Silence is the presence of everything
According to curators Boris Acket and Sanneke Huisman, Silence & The Presence of Everything allows visitors to enter a world in which everything feels as if it is being experienced for the first time — through the eyes and ears of the artists.
The title of the exhibition is derived from a quote by Gordon Hempton and encapsulates it all: ‘Silence is not the absence of something, but the presence of everything.
Acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton, an important source of inspiration for the exhibition, once placed a microphone on the world and put on a pair of headphones. The experience was unforgettable: it felt as if the world expanded while he shrank, moving through it like an insect.
The art installations of artists Boris Acket, Carel Balth, David Bowen, Lily Clark, Tina Farifteh, Gordon Hempton, Sabine Marcelis, Lachlan Turczan and Guido van der Werve are spread throughout the Monopole and invite visitors to slow down and look at the world anew.
Unusual Weather Phenomena
Unusual Weather Phenomena by Boris Acket is an impressive installation that allows visitors to lie beneath it and experience an unusual weather phenomenon. The work can also be viewed from the balcony, where it undulates like a living landscape. It is ingeniously designed: the self-learning algorithm that Acket developed together with creative programmer Corey Schneider takes over the natural phenomenon, causing the artist to lose control over his own creation.
When I saw the sun and the moon at the same time
Tina Farifteh (1982) challenges us to look at our everyday surroundings through a different lens. What is home to you? Where are the boundaries around you?
Farifteh on her video work: “Every day I climb the Seedyk in Friesland. I climb straight up. I look at the sea. I look at the sky. Infinite variations in colour and substance. I watch as almost all boundaries disappear. And how the horizon remains the only boundary between heaven and earth. One day I saw the sun and the moon at the same time. A beauty that is more beautiful and more true than any man-made system.”
Wavering
How do water and light relate to each other? For Lachlan Turczan (1993), they are the two most important materials he works with as an artist. Wavering is a moving painting created with water and light and a little bit of technology. Do you want to dream away in it or do you want to unravel the illusion?
Tele-present Wind
Welcome to Minnesota, to the garden of artist David Bowen (1975). The movement of the local wind is sent directly to Schiedam via digital technology. Dried grass in Schiedam is dancing in the wind from Bowen’s garden, more than 6,000 kilometres away.
Dew Point
Water has several distinctive properties. For example, it always tends to take on a spherical shape and will always try to form an organic whole by bringing loose droplets together as much as possible. Water also always tries to flow towards the centre of the earth and overcome all obstacles it encounters along the way. Lily Clark’s (1993) sculpture highlights these special properties of water.
Sunbeam Captured II
Can you capture a sunbeam? Artists Sabine Marcelis (1985) and Boris Acket (1988) tried. The idea for this work came about when they saw a sunbeam shining perfectly in a puddle of water for five minutes. This artwork is a poetic attempt to preserve this usually fleeting image and thus pause time for a moment.
Silence & The Presence of Everything is made possible by the Fonds Schiedam Vlaardingen e.o., De Groot Fonds, Fonds21, Job Dura Fonds, BPD Cultuurfonds and the Mondriaan Fonds.