Hydroformations

This page is a small report and selection of activities I am undertaking as part of this project, as a placeholder for the dedicated project website that will launch later this year. Should you be interested in showing my work, there are many artistic experiments waiting to be further developed and shown to the public!

Partnering with POST Arnhem, I am very excited to announce the Open Call for an interdisciplinary lab exploring the flood plains of the Rhine, mapping and sensing the tensions and multiplicities present.

How do you meet a river on their own terms? How can you sense a rivers’ nature, their being? How to know a river? We will collectively enter in a 5-day contact zone with the Rhine River, exploring these questions and together developing new methods in the process.

Flowing from the long-term research programme Hydroformations that investigates the Rhine as an entity in and of itself, and that focusses on developing artistic methods that enable the river to voice itself, this lab focusses on building new relationships with the river, specifically through its physical, material presence.

𓀦 8 - 12 October 2025
𖡡 POST, Arnhem
✎ Apply by 15 August 2025 23.59 CET

Due to a bug I can't hyperlink here, for the full call please go to www.hydroformations.com
Thank you!

In light of my solo exhibition at Zone2Source, I spent time exploring the Amstel river. Based on my fieldwork encounters, I created the work Mother of Pearl. Apart from that, I did extensive fieldwork in Diemer Vijfhoek, and dove into the world of fish acoustics. That led to a collaboration with Kees te Velde at Leiden University, and a new soundwork called Fishes' Lament. Both projects are described in more detail on this website (link at the bottom of the page).

Last year I joined the Confluence of European Waterbodies on behalf of the Rhine. Organised by TBA21 and Embassy of the North Sea in Venice for 2024, with the edition of 2025 coming up soon in the Netherlands.

As a grassroots, growing community of care and concern, the Confluence of European Water Bodies aims to foster new dialogues and relationships with water. Water is vital for all life on Earth, yet the voices of water are rarely heard in political decision-making. Current laws and policies cannot stop the loss of biodiversity or the poisoning of soils, lands, waters and air, because they are grounded in the fiction of the natural world as property or ‘resources’ for human desires.

Born out of growing water challenges and demands for water democracy worldwide, the Confluence of European Water Bodies sprang from a collective pursuit of a deeper understanding of the ‘Rights of Nature’ in Europe. As a learning system for water diplomacy, new strategies for effectively representing water in Europe’s cultural, legal and political realms are being explored, rehearsed and advocated.

Joining Sportvisserij NL and Rijkswaterstaat to learn more about their research on the Rhine. Fish monitoring and plastic pollution research go hand in hand on this traditional vessel.

The Rhine used to be lined with these specially designed boats meant for river fishing. Today, fish from the Waal can not be eaten. All traditions and boats have dissapeared, except for this one, that has been handed down generations and is still operated by the same family. Following through with my fish research, I got to see eels, brass and a few other species, learning more about their migration routes and the challenges they encounter underway.

Continued fieldwork, focussing on the lower Rhine, the practice of course corrections and the businesses that are attached to that practice, and understanding the meaning of borders in the context of a river that flows through six countries (seven Italy included).