ReCNTR Members’ Meeting + Happy Hour + Film Screening Episode of the Sea + Q&A | 21 June 2023 | 17:00 | Pieter de la Court Building (Leiden)
We are delighted to host our first members’ meeting and happy hour, which will be followed by a screening of Episode of the Sea! The screening will be followed by a Q&A with one of the artists, Lonnie van Brummelen, moderated by Julian Ross. This evening event also opens ReCNTR’s three-day closed symposium on Interstitial Infrastructures: Labs, Studios, & Other Interdisciplinary Experiments
Date & Time
Wednesday 21 June 2023
Location: Pieter de la Court Building, Leiden University (Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333 AK Leiden)
17:00 Members’ Meeting in Room 0B.23
18:00 Happy Hour in the FSW cafe
19:00 Screening & Q&A in Room SC.01
Register for the events here !
Evening Programme
17:00 Members Meeting
The evening is full of activities. We begin with our first ReCNTR Members Meeting, where the directors will announce some exciting developments and share some highlights from the past months. We then open the floor to solicit ideas and suggestions from our growing community of members. We are eager to hear what kind of events and activities our members would like to see in the coming seasons.
18:00 Happy Hour
The meeting follows with a ReCNTR Happy Hour in the FSW café where members can mingle and discuss ideas further while enjoying some snacks and refreshments.
19:00 Screening
The highlight of our evening is a screening of Episode of the Sea by Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan. The screening will begin with introductions by ReCNTR co-director Julian Ross, who will lead a discussion with Lonnie van Brummelen after the film.
Episode of the Sea (2014, 63m) is the outcome of a two-year collaboration of Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan with the fishing community of Urk, a former island in the Netherlands. In the previous century, the Dutch closed off and drained their inland sea to reclaim new arable land. The island of Urk, situated in mid sea, suddenly found itself embraced by land. Its inhabitants were expected to switch from fishing to farming, but the fishermen managed to continue their trade. They found new fishing grounds, far out in the North Sea.
Despite being part of the mainland for decades, the fishing village is still reputably insular and its inhabitants speak in their own tongue. With a residency and numerous visits, the artists gradually gained the Urker’s trust. Between 2011 and 2013, they documented the sites and work of fishing and filmed a dozen staged scenes performed by members of the fishing community themselves in their local dialect, while keeping a log book of their encounters and experiences in situ. Episode of the Sea brings these diverse materials together.
The film documents the material world of contemporary North Sea fishery and the fishermen’s struggle with a changed public perception, fluctuating regulation, and excessive global competition, while parallels are drawn between fishing and filming. Rendered in black- and-white the film recites neo-realist drama and early documentary styles, and evokes a way of life that has been passed on by ancestors and that is about to disappear.
About the filmmakers
Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan work together as collaborating artists since 2002, producing film installations, sculpture and collages that explore cultural and geopolitical landscapes such as Europe’s borders (Grossraum, 2005), sites of resource production and global trade (Monument of Sugar – how to use artistic means to elude trade barriers, 2007; Episode of the Sea, 2014, Stones Have Laws, 2018), and the (non) sites of cultural heritage (Monument to Another Man’s Fatherland, 2008, View from the Acropolis, 2012 and subi dura a rudibus, 2010). Most of their projects involve extensive fieldwork and long-term collaborations. As part of their artistic practice, they express formal and informal research trajectories and the contingency of fieldwork in textual supplements. They do their own camera work, sound recording, production, montage, sculpting, and graphical design.
Registration
Image Credit: Still from Episode from the Sea (Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan, 2014)
