De Verbeelding: FLUID VISTAS FLEVOLAND

De Verbeelding is organising its third project in 2004-2005. This year six experts from the world of art, architecture and landscape architecture have been invited to supply initial ideas about the specific cultural identity of the Flevoland polder landscape in the light of future developments centred on the Flevoland Environmental Plan. The experts are (provisionally): Stefano Boeri (I), Center for Land Use Interpretation (USA), Georges Descombes (CH), Helen and Newton Mayer Harrison (USA), Craigie Horsfield (UK), Alicia Framis (ES).

To inaugurate FLUID VISTAS FLEVOLAND De Verbeelding asked three partner organisations to make presentations in 2004 in the De Verbeelding Pavilion: Foundation Art and Public Space (SKOR)(Amsterdam), Kasteel Groeneveld/Staatsbosbeheer (Baarn-Zeist) and the Netherlands Architecture Institute (Rotterdam). On the basis of their own viewpoints these organisations are contributing with a special project to the discussion about the Flevoland landscape within the framework of FLUID VISTAS FLEVOLAND.

Joachim Koester The New Land(s) and the Tale of Captain Mission (SKOR)

Joachim Koester (born in Denmark in 1962, lives and works in New York) is photographer and makes multimdia installations. He presents a new work for FLUID VISTAS FLEVOLAND. The New Land(s) and the Tale of Captain Mission investigates the changing landscape of Flevoland and establishes a relation with the illustrious past of The Netherlands through the Batavia ship and the 18th century pirate Captain Mission. The project takes place both inside and outside the De Verbeelding pavilion.

The installation inside the pavilion is anchored with a series of photographs that Koester took in Flevoland, focusing on the changes that the region has undergone. There is also a model of a pirate ship and a video of a woman reading about Captain Missions deeds from Cities of the Red Night by William S. Burroughs. A photograph taken by Charles Breijer in 1940 of the reclamation in Flevoland (collection Nederlands fotomuseum) and maps of the Province of Flevoland and the De Verbeelding Route connect the past and present.

For the outdoor part of the installation Koester marked the locations he photographed on the map of Flevoland. He then projected this map onto the map of the De Verbeelding Route so that each photograph corresponds to a location on the Route. These points are indicated with concrete blocks in the southern forest area of the Route. Visitors can go on a discovery tour by walking along the outdoor paths of the De Verbeelding Route and looking for the markers that all refer to the history of Flevoland. Together, the blocks become the beginning of a construction, an architecture with as yet unspecified form and function. Its completion is lost in the past or in the future.

FLUID VISTAS lecture by Wilfried Lentz