Zeger Reyers already attracted attention years ago with his work in which he handed, in a way, our culture over to nature. He created countless works in which the objects around us (chairs, plates, tables) became moldy, overgrown with mushrooms, moss or grass. He gives a place once again to what we have wanted to banish for centuries.

Although Reyers’ work says something about our relationship with nature (excluding, framing, applying), it is clearly also about a new awareness of form.

Few people have seen his work in real life. Indeed, it is difficult to present in museums and galleries. This organic work always produces an unpredictable result atthe end. Zeger creates the conditions in his work and then an image grows out of it.

www.zeger.org

He opposes the manner in which earth layers form under incredibly high pressure with human actions that ‘forcibly maintain our (cultivated) nature.’ The everyday, the possible future, the materials, and phenomena of the geological time scale – all of it come together in the installation resulting in a subjective experience of deep time. Felt as incomprehensibly large, the geological deep time connects the experience of our human time dimensions to the infinitely slow-moving ground under our feet and the direction of the slow-changing rivers.

From the title of the work Just Wave and Smile, one might conclude that the development and deformation of the earth and mankind are evident. Man as a species is like a geological force that also shapes the earth at a dizzying speed far into the future. Kevin Bauer investigates these shaping forces, seeking to know what is real and what is artificial.

www.kevin-bauer.com

Brutally pruned branches give rise to new shoots, fallen forest giants allow offspring to rise from their crushed bodies, wounded trunks bear their fate and fuse into twisted but powerful muscle tissue. Trees embody the alliance between vitality and injury, creation and destruction, life and death.

Anna J. van Stuijvenberg is interested in places where human intervention, nature and wilderness coexist as a matter of course. These places are recorded with a camera, after which van Stuijvenberg translates the photographs into monumental installations. Intuitively and in an organized way, she cuts up often rigid and laborious material into a layered and almost graphic landscape that is on the cutting edge of control and sprawl.

With her installations, she aims to create a place where viewers can once again coincide with their surroundings. Her landscapes are grand and impressive but also open-worked, almost fragile, as if one could touch an ancient spirit. Their power lies in the firm and at the same time subtle way in which the spectator is tugged out of his orbit, towards a universe in which control and wilderness, decay and growth, man and nature touch each other again.

(text C. Samsom)
www.annajvanstuijvenberg.nl

Egied Simons facilitates looking. By giving the whole a tight shape, smaller more detailed forms get the attention. His growing installations are instruments that are programmed with seeds, offshoots or rhizomes depending on their environment. The duration of the exhibition helps to determine this. Within this framework, playing with nature takes place. He is not looking for a solidified moment in time, but for the whole process of growth. It is clear that Egied Simons is not concerned with a theatrical action.

Simons investigates the strategies plants use to get a foothold in the earth and to absorb food. He experiments with pigments that are also nutrients. Then again, he allows seeds to germinate, exposing different growth structures. He also made light installations in which he scanned the contours of bushes using lasers.

The work has a strong investigative character and often touches on science. The forms and movements of vegetation and organisms fascinate him and are the material with which he works.

He also likes to make use of the knowledge of the people in the place where he exhibits. At Steck, he heard of a particular orchid that has a special root growth. This plant is now the guiding principle in the installation he made for Art on Full Ground.

Most works are developed specifically for a particular place. Often they are temporary works for in an exhibition or in an outdoor location. There is a certain expectation of the outcome, but nature never quite allows itself to be predicted and plays with it.

This art requires maintenance and a rhythmic, ritualistic way of working. There is a certain time frame and within it the work must emerge. Nature determines the final work of art.

www.egiedsimons.nl

When an insect or small mammal became entangled in sticky tentacles or drowned in a calyx full of digestive juices it was considered an accident or the result of a defense mechanism of the plant. Ultimately, it was Charles Darwin who, through careful observation, came to the conclusion that the eating of meat by plants was an evolutionary adaptation to specific environmental factors. In his 1875 book Insectivorous plants, he describes how plants catch and kill insects, and the origin of the specialized organs that carnivorous species have developed. Carnivorous plants have evolved at least seven times, in different places on Earth, independently of each other. The conditions are often similar: There must be plenty of sunlight and enough water present but the carnivorous behavior is primarily an adaptation to a very food-poor environment. Only when nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen are lacking does it seem to make sense for plants to indulge in eating meat. In the popular literature of the time, a lively genre of what you might call carnivori porn emerged in which the relatively modest little plants were blown up into grotesque human-devouring monsters. In reality, their evolution moved in an entirely different direction. A number of carnivorous plants became vegetarian again after a period of eating meat to survive. Sometimes this happens only after the plant’s adolescence. Apparently, the young plants need something more than the adults. In other cases, through cooperation with other species, an alternative food source was found such as the droppings of insects, mice and bats. Also, some carnivores switched to consuming algae, pollen, leaves and other plant material. Meat eating in these cases seems to have been a temporary adaptation until other nutrients became available. In a nutrient-rich climate, plants rarely eat meat.

The wondrous and inspiring journey of the vegetarian carnivorous plant inspired the creation of an intimate and cross-species meal: Nephenthes alata (Monkeyjar) & Homo sapiens (Man) consume vegetable soup together from the cup of the formerly carnivorous plant.

text Arne Hendriks

www.arnehendriks.net

The artist is present in the restaurant:
Saturday 10th September       14 -17
Sunday 18th September          14 – 17 (also lecture Arne Hendriks at 14.30 in the Noordertuin)
Sunday 25th September          14 – 17
Saturday 1 October                    14 – 17

The project Kaia is about the big challenge and the incredibly complicated topic: CO2. The research is about the development of new sustainable CO2 filters using algae, specifically the species diatoms. CO2 is absorbed in the object and oxygen is released through photosynthesis. After two months there is enough to harvest on the object. With the end product, the biomass, new material, biodiesel or even glass can be made.

‘For me, a design would never be successful if we, in the final product, only took from nature, exhausted nature.’  Kim van den Belt wants to find a way to also give back to nature in new developments. This can be done by thinking about the development process in advance, about how you can make a product CO2 neutral or CO2 negative. But you could also develop products that enter into a symbiotic relationship between man and product, where nature also benefits.

@kimvandenbelt

Claassen’s work is about authenticity, indomitable inner forces, and the struggle to remain yourself in a world that constantly pushes and pulls and presses on points of pain. Nature sometimes offers solace, a place to hide.

In her collages, staged photography, installations and sculptural acts there are certain layers that together form a story. What she makes is temporary and fragmentary. She alters existing images. A collage can be created impulsively, sometimes even in 1 minute. She wants to keep that freedom.

All her work seems to refer to an endless and obstacle strewn human quest of blowhards, inners, wallflowers and callers for escape, freedom and happiness. Sometimes nature lends a hand.

 www.francineclaassen.com

What do we really see and what do we imagine? According to Maze de Boer, visual interpretation leads us away from the content. Everyone knows this process. We tend to complement visible images with images we know.

With his work Maze de Boer puts his finger on the viewing process. He describes his artworks as conceptual attractions. The concept is his starting point and the visual (attraction) power of the work is then the result.

Maze de Boer is interested in the blurring of boundaries between visual art, architecture, theater and performance. His work often stems from the historical background and social context of the location.

Although his installations are usually called site-specific, he sees the works themselves more as site-responsive.

www.mazedeboer.com

Her work arises through imagination and observation. She exposes plant structures as an attempt to understand the larger picture through microscopic detail. The work ultimately forms a combination of imagination and scientific observation.

In yet other works, she competes with nature in beauty and inventiveness. She tests nature’s resilience in paper, for example. In the long fiber of mulberry paper she cuts out drawings ‘to the bone’.
Nature is her companion and competitor.

www.nikkivanes.nl

In his object of mainly recycled material you are no longer part of the environment. You have become an observer. The streams of cars on the traffic square look like ants. Each one on its way with a goal. Just like in an anthill in which the apparent chaos is a high level of organization in which every creature is part of the big event. By staying in this little building on legs, nature and culture seem interchangeable.

Jonathan Straatman usually makes architectural installations; sculptures with an inside and an outside. A timeless experience between two worlds.

For this work, sound artist Twan Bracco Gartner created a soundscape that guides the visitor through the experience.

www.instagram.com