After two years of postponement due to COVID-19, I warmly welcome you to visit Soft Soils, aardtijd
February 19 – March 27, 2022 at Arti et Amicitiae, Rokin 112, Amsterdam

an art work that is too vulnerable to touch, while seeking sensorial connections with soil/Earth

Soft Soils, aardtijd is embedded within the exhibition Exploded View and the ongoing dialogue artists Eline Kersten and Jacqueline Heerema engaged in since 2019.

Invitation:
Opening on Friday February 18, 16:30 – 21:30 is due to storm postponed to Friday February 25, 20:00.
The symposium at VU and online is on Febr 25, 14:00 – 17:00. Moderator: Gert-Jan Burgers (director CLUE+). Panel: Imke van Hellemondt, Linde Egberts (VU Humanities), Maurice de Kleijn (VU School of Business and Economics), Bill Wei (National Heritage Board RCE).
On March 25 between 15:45 and 16:30, there are several artist talks at Arti and I will do a short performative intervention called ‘Gathering dust’, or delay as an artistic research method; see below.
Please check current COVID-19 regulations before you plan your visit at Arti et Amicitiae
Looking forward to meet you there!

Soft Soils, aardtijd is part of The becoming, The being & The meanwhile, subsurface as living climate archive, Land in Wording, Amstelpark Amsterdam (2019-ongoing).

Part of Exploded View, Art and Research on Layered Landscapes in Transition, Amsterdam-Rome 2019-2022. Participating artists at Arti et Amicitiae: Jasper Coppes, Maarten Davidse, Pavèl van Houten, Eline Kersten icw Jacqueline Heerema, Wouter Osterholt, Daniela de Paulis, Miriam Sentler, Silvia Stucky, Curdin Tones icw Frank Müller, Leonid Tsvetkov and Paolo Romoli Venturi. Curator: Krien Clevis icw Gert-Jan Burgers (CLUE+/ Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). The Amsterdam exhibition program of the Exploded View project took place at Zone2Source in the summer of 2020, curated by Alice Smits.

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in conversation with

Part of the exhibition shows the dialogue, that artists Eline Kersten and Jacqueline Heerema engaged in since 2019. Starting from a shared fascination of soil/Earth – or the subsurface, that is usually hidden out of sight and has not been touched by sunlight during millennia – they discovered the beauty hidden within soils. They engaged in an intensive parallel process of exploring the scope of artistic curiosity, and most of all with the sensorial responses these submerged soils as Earth offered them. This process became themed around the notions of allowing new or other horizons to emerge in a slow pace, of deep time. Acknowledge that artistic conversations with soil as Earth and beyond need to ‘gather dust’ became a working method.

On show at Arti et Amicitiae are four art works, that highlight these ongoing conversations:
the Roman sub-lava soils from Via Appia, Italy; dating back to the eruption of the volcano Colli Albani, 277.000 years before present time (YBP) by Eline Kersten;
Soft Soils, aardtijd, a 17th century artifact with responses of submerged soils, the subsurface as living climate archive; collected at Land in Wording, Amstelpark Amsterdam with a depth of 10 meters and a time-depth of 6,000 YBP by Jacqueline Heerema;
A dendrochronological tree sample of a pine tree near Via Appia by Eline Kersten;
Leporello Flora of the Colosseum by Eline Kersten.

March 25, 2022: ‘Gathering dust’ or delay as an artistic research method.
A performative intervention in the Exploded View exhibition on perceptions of imaging, image-forming and value systems in art and heritage. In a re-enactment of ‘Musée Imaginaire de la Sculpture’ (André Malraux, 1947), artist Jacqueline Heerema does not show the supposed collective image memory, but creates a world with images and words from her own oeuvre. High on the pedestal lies the work ‘aardtijd’ with the vulnerable soil/Earth, ‘low-to-the-ground’ she walks over art. In this way she elevates soil/Earth to the iconic origin from which life and also art arises.

Eline Kersten: ” Three years ago, Jacqueline Heerema and I found out we’re walking parallel paths. This resulted into an ongoing dialogue about soil and seeking a deeper understanding of the soilsphere. Now, we are showing various components of this journey; moments distilled in time that deal with geology, archeology, dendrochronology, botany and heritage.”

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Soft Soils, aardtijd by Jacqueline Heerema

an art work that is too vulnerable to touch, while seeking sensorial connections with soil/Earth

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… I experience again an uncanny sensation

 … the subsurface peat shrinks

… thus visualizing the sequence of peat, carbon storage, oxidation, land subsidence

… and this process is irreversible

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Part of The Becoming, The being & The meanwhile – subsurface as living climate archive
Land in Wording, Amstelpark Amsterdam, 2019-ongoing
#1 Genesis, #2 Onland, Guardian, #3 Breath of Soil(s), #4 Soft Soils, #5 aardtijd, #6 toenadering, #7 foreshadowing | residual intimacy.

With special thanks to artist Eline Kersten, danser-choreographer Kenzo Kesuda, climate scientist Tanya Lippmann (VU), geologist Bert van der Valk (Deltares), Stroom Den Haag, Sundaymorning@ekwc, Zone2Source, In Principio, CLUE+/Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Arti et Amicitiae. Photography by Gerrit Schreurs, Luuk Smits, Maarten Nauw.

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A dendrochronological tree sample of a pine tree near Via Appia by Eline Kersten

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Leporello Flora of the Colosseum by Eline Kersten

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I wrote the essay Mirroring the Parco Regionale dell’Appia Antica in Rome and the Amstelpark in Amsterdam that is published in ‘Exploded View, Art and Research on Layered Landscapes in Transition’ by CLUE+, the Interfaculty Research Institute for Culture, Cognition, History and Heritage at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2021). This publication is available for free during the exhibition at Arti et Amicitiae (2022).

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Links:
The becoming, The being & The meanwhile
Please check current COVID-19 regulations before you plan your visit at Arti et Amicitiae
Exploded View