'Groningen Light' - MOW - Bellingwolde
February 5 to September 10, 2023

The exhibition "Groningen Light" can be seen in the MOW from February 5. When you think of "Gronings Licht" you may think of the vast space there, but I take a different starting point. The wealth of ideas in Groningen.

I have created a spatial work that brings together an old innovation with a new one.

The starting points are the strawboard industry in the past and the “wide green dike” project for the future.

The straw cardboard industry in Groningen arose because farmers had a surplus of straw. And there were sufficient labor, fuel and clean water in the area.
The industry was destroyed by shorter grain varieties, odorous cardboard, water pollution, etc.
In the 1980s, the last factory of that specific product closed.
Also see..

The new innovation for strengthening dikes is located above the Carel Coenraadpolder.

The project is a test to see whether a safe sea wall can be made with local clay and an adjustment to the design. Bellingwolde was located on the Dollard around 1500 and we want to prevent that in the future.
This produces natural benefits, among other things because the sludge no longer floats in the Eems-Dollard estuary, biodiversity increases and the transport distances of the clay/silt are shorter. An island (avocet pond) has been dug just in front of the test dike for the avocets, with results. Breeding pairs immediately took possession of the site.
Also see...

I started working with this information.

For the installation I collected cardboard boxes of the same size, Natuurwinkel Fluitekruid was kind enough to help me with this. .
The boxes have laser engraved images of what you find around a dike. A number of boxes have been opened up so that you can more or less see the contents. They are stacked in front of a window and the light plays diffusely through them.

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24 artists will show their work in the museum until September 10.