During the one-week-long ‘Kompost’ artist residency in Friesland, the Netherlands, in August 2021, ten Dutch and German filmmakers, visual artists, composers, and music producers strove to describe their surroundings with auditory, visual, and haptic works. The works exhibited were inspired by getting to know the landscape and its history and by dialogue with local residents. While the individual and collaborative processes developed in various ways, they resulted in works that are interwoven with one another: 

The animated and documentary videos put the context based on which the artistic ideas arose in concrete terms. In addition, Friesland’s idyllic existence is brought a bit closer by the tents being exhibited, in which the artists slept during their stay. Nature is made palpable by self-fired ceramics made of clay found in direct proximity to the tents. In the context of the exhibition title, The thing is, what is thus questioned is the extent to which objects are able to make statements regarding belonging and identity. 

The interactive installation also addresses the question of whether this idyll is perhaps only an illusion. In the supra-regional context, local residents and the artists are worried about the state of their environment. The threats to the Friesian coast and its security are examined in photographs. The exhibition KOMPOST 2021 documents the relationship of tension that arises from this.

Audio recordings of the landscape were transformed into musical sounds and formulated melodically in combination with the ideas of other artists. The result is a collaboratively produced ten-minute long audio piece and sound landscape that bring together the ideas of the residents of Friesland and the artists acoustically.

In interrelated works, the artists interrogate how we can live with others and our environment, process their sensory impressions and ideas, and provide insights into the inner and outer world of the residents of Friesland.

The artists:
⟼ Anne Fie Salverda (Leeuwarden): light installation and digital and analogue animations
⟼ Nathan Koonstra (Leeuwarden): music producer and sound artist
⟼ Henning Bischof (Osnabrück): filmmaker for documentary films and direct cinema
⟼ Nora Beyer (Osnabrück): composer of instrumental and film music
⟼ Hassan Sheidaei (Bremen): filmmaker with a focus on society and the environment
⟼ Katie Ceekay (Groningen): participatory and socio-societal-based artist
⟼ Esther Adam (Bremen): sound artist, artist with a focus on sculpture and painting
⟼ Stephan Thierbach (Bremen, Berlin): installation artist
⟼ Jochem Knoef (Leeuwarden): music producer and composer
⟼ Marinus Groen (Leuuwarden): specializes in sound effects for various media

• Sektion Section: KOMPOST 2021
• Programm Programme: „Try to describe a place!“