Maurice Meewisse
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php
Zaagkoffer
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry100830-172908
Suitcase for my chainsaw made of the chippings produced by that same saw ]]>Land Art Biënnale 2010 Valkenswaard
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry100818-173644
Land Art Biënnale ]]>Bewegter Wind
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry100814-182851
Windfahne
a new work at the 'Bewegter wind festival' in North Hesse, Germany
Bewegter Wind ]]>Bewegter wind
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry100718-171713
In the trees
a new work at the 'Bewegter wind festival' in North Hesse, Germany
Bewegter Wind ]]>contact
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry100422-181542
De Houtwerken
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry100214-114228
We travelled to the woods in the most eastern part of the Netherlands, there I chopped down a lot of trees and Casper Rila made photos. The wood harvested in the forest we took home to produce a variety of construction materials.
De Houtwerken (the woodworks) is a project in coorporation with Casper Rila.
opening 15:00 14th of March 2010 at CBK Rotterdam open from 9th of March til 4th of April
The Chimney from the Fabriek on the Art Pie, Amsterdam
13may-23may 2010
De Fabriek the Art Pie]]>P.A.I.R
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry091019-200610
Update #1 The P.A.I.R. is located in 'het Valtherbos', on the edge of a small man-made Dune area. The basic layout is simple: over the length of the area there is a two meter high dune with next to it a 'valley'. Above het working area there are powercables.
My plan is simple: halfway the dune I want to make a artificial dike that stretches into the valley. The sand needed for this oparation I will take from the bottom of the valley where I will dig two big holes.
To make it possible to succeed in the two weeks workingperiod (I need to shift over forty kubic meters of sand) I will make a basic roadnet, of course with pavement, For that purpose I can the surrounding woods.
Yesterday I chopped down my first tree. Update #2 Solar power sounds great but I lost my faith and I am back to the old fashioned way a generating electricity: burning petrol. Which brings me to explaining something about how this landscape is desiged. I know: DESIGNED......
In the thirties also the Nethelands was a victim to the global crisis. In that time the P.A.I.R. would have overlooked a vast dune area whith here and there some heath. But in all its wishdome the government decided to support local workforce by plantig a forest. This is how 'het Valtherbos' came into existence.
Some time later, I think in the eighties, a powerline had to cross this Forest. With the use of helicopters and caterpillar vehicles they build the support towers and laid the actual cables. Where the cables were suspended the trees had to be removed. The poeple running this forest (yes, in the Netherlands nature is highly organized and planned up till the last twig) tried at the place where I work now to bring some of the former landscape back. This resulted in this minature dune area underneath the powerline, which now transports large quantities of electricity, probably generated by burning stuff.
Update #3 I put my axe to good use. I created almost enough gangways and beams to finish my roadworks. With the gangways on the ground I can easely carry large quantities of sand and brigde the height differences in this minature landscape. The dike is growing slowly but steadyand I think that by the end of this week the two sections with be joined in the middle.
In the infra-scructure there is one part I'm escpecialy fond of. It is a ramp that srarts on groundlevel and reaches by the end a height of almost two meters. I dump the sand from that point down to create a big pile that will develope into the end/beginnig of the dike. It is maid out of a five meter section of a tree, with two flattened sides. Some other beams are used to support it. The hole structure only contains wood and is kept in place by gravity and wedges.
My labor in the coming days will be focussed on shifting sand, sand and sand.
Update #4 During todays digging I found a big rock. This rock has travelled during the ice-age with a glacier from sweden and was left behind when the ice disappaered. I reached historic ground today... But that is not completly correct: I reached prehistoric ground.
The proof of that is not only my big rock. I say my big rock, because tomorrow I will carve a big M in it. In the neighboorhood, only four hundred meters away there are the remainings of a prehistoric society: the funnelbeaker culture. They used lots of stone that drifted in to make a variety of megalith structures. This specific kind is the hunebed, extremely basic structures: two stones with a big stone on top and this repeated a few times. They are build around five thousand years ago.
From somebody visiting me in the P.A.I.R. I learned another intresting fact. In this forest they found the remainings of a road, from around the same time they constructed the hunebeds. Even though this prehistoric road was nothing more then a footpath it still implies that this area is 'used' over the ages. It has been given a dozen different functions and I am now adding an extra one.
It is also nice to know that I am not ruining a piece of untamed nature but in fact acting in a long tradition. Tomorrow I will lay the stone in the foundation of my dike and cover it with two meters of sand.
Update #5 The two dikes touched eachother today!
Update #6 Finally, the work is done. After the two dikes touched, it took the best of two days to improve them to make them suited for a small footpath. Thankfully I got the help from some people and they were there to join me in the glorious moment when the final wheelbarrows were emptied.
My work is done and earlier this day I left the P.A.I.R. to go back to Rotterdam, back to civilazation. At least that is how it feels but it does no justice to my temporary neighboors. During my work I slowly gathered some faithfull visitors, most of them walking thair dogs for the living area two hundred meters away. Almost every day they came to see how the work was proceding and even two of them offered me to help. Unfortunatly neither of them showed up.
I should tell you something about the lay-out and the intresting features of dike. The basic design is simple: two big holes, five meters wide and thirty meters apart, with in the middle a fourteen meter long and two meter tall dike. The dike stretches between my wooden ramp and the dune. I carried the sand from the two pits over their own routes to their own side of the dike. That also explains the color differnces in the dike: in one pit there was only yellow sand while in the other I found a variety of colors, from white to a rust-brown.
I also realize now that the term 'dike' is not the best way of calling the body of sand created over the last few weeks. It is not meant to protect land against water, it just has the same shape. It would have been much more correct to call it an artificial dune. Which is also nice to use, because the 'artificial' will quickly be left behind because it is too time-consuming to use. And this will also happen with my dune: is will lose its hight and steepness, but it is very likely that in twenty years the shapes still stay visible. Everybody, except the few who witnessed its creation, will think it is a natural dune and has always been there.
Post-beaver is a dystopical landscape. It is a glimpse into a future where wild nature has been brought into order. The landscape is a forest where the trees are created in geometrical shapes and arranged in a linear pattern. It is an attempt to control and to economize the wilderness.
But something has crawled in; a new force of nature. A destructive force that reshapes the landscape by its own laws.
solo exposition in 'Spanien 19C' opening september 12th, 2009 Århus, Denmark
Concrete is a performance at the 12th of December, 2008 in 'Electron’ , Breda, the Netherlands, hosted by Stichting KOP. During the event I had a huge pile of grounded cocrete. With a shovel and a wheelbarrow did it take me five hours to carry the complete twelve metric tons into the projectspace.
In coorperation with Casper Rila I made a photoserie of this performance
During 'Footprints along a coastline' in Myrthue and Blaavand, Denmark (at the most northern part of the Waddensea), I made several attempts to help the sea conquer land and to help land conquer sea. I did my attempts by making performances that resulted in land-art like interventions in the landscape. The performances evolved during the workingperiod and resulted in a big performance which is documented by Casper Rila. The goal of the photos is to make a document in which physical labour is presented as a cultivated tool.
Baäl is made in cooperation with Jordy Walker and Erik van Wesel in 'de Fabriek' Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Baäl is a multimedia installation representing a bolt of lightning. It is a direct follow up for 'Sint Elmo'
Photography by Peter Cox]]>Atlas
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry080311-101939
Atlas is a three-hour long performance carried out in 'de Fabriek' Eindhoven, the Netherlands. In the basement underneath the exhibitionfloor I relieved one of the pilars from its bearing funtion. I did that by cutting away the concrete with a stonechisel and a hammer. I took over the bearing function by placing a lot of support beams.
Photography by Casper Rila ]]>Sint Elmo
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry080304-121100
Sint Elmo is a cooperation between Jordy Walker, Erik van Wesel and Maurice Meewisse During the openmuseum night in Rotterdam we used all the lights from the stockroom in TENT. The lamps are connected to a series of modules which make the lamps flicker at random. This resulted in a simulation of the saint elmsfire
Photography by Casper Rila
TENT. short video]]>dagbouw
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry071209-190842
Evolution de l’art is a gallery for imaginary art. During the opening of the Dutch annex in 'Het Blauwe Huis' Amsterdam, I searched for mineral resources. Based upon the devastating open-pit mining projects in Brasil I hoped to find minerals on this manmade island. I couldn't find any. In cooperation with Casper Rila it resulted in a short photo-documentary.
Photography by Casper Rila duration 2.5 hours 4 photos, 30cm by 45cm
evolution d'el art.org]]>Jack
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry071203-175225
Installation as a result of the performance 'Lumberjack' 16th of November 2007 in 'Spam' Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Photography by Casper Rila steel and wood, 1m50 by 1m by 1m]]>short statement
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry071201-132746
Physical labour is disappearing and with it also the image of the ‘hard labourer’. In my work I am looking for the heroic portrayal of man that is willing to sacrifice himself out of a necessity. I am also trying to find a definition for a currently relevant perception of nature. This perception is based on the harmful effects inflicted on each other. On one side there is mankind trying to control the wild nature and on the other side nature leaving its mark on our cultivated surroundings. I work out those themes by developing performances.]]>regenboot
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry070628-202903
During 'Artic PicNic', een art festival in 'Zeeland' the Netherlands, did I take people sailing. I took each time two passengers and gave them green army ponchos. After 15minutes of rowing upstream did we reach the location where I placed a rain making installation. I held the boat for some time steady under the rain until the rain had time to make a real impact. After that did I row quickly downstream, back to the normal world. ]]>pusher
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry070624-213341
Performance icw Dirk van Lieshout at the 'conclub' ]]>paparazzi, foto's losse werken
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry070529-153024
De dodo is uitgestorven, robots zijn zielloze wezens, dieren in de dierentuin zijn gek en bomen zijn van hout.
the dodo became extinct robots are soulless creatures animals in the zoo are crazy and trees are made from wood ]]>dodo
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry070419-113054
wood, lead, 60cm by 40cm by 40 cm ]]>in search of greatness
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry061205-112933
details of the installation]]>linde
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry061205-112635
wood, gaffer tape, 80cm by 70cm by 60cm ]]>de boom, de kist en de lamp
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry061205-112418
presentatie in de Rotterdamse schouwburg tijdens motel mozaique 2006 waarbij de kist rondjes rijdt, lamp flikkert en de booom staat]]>zombie
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry061205-112348
performance ism Jordy Walker tijdens 'Off_Corso off the road show' ]]>Poolstation
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry061203-143420
]]>Gargouille
http://www.mauricemeewisse.com/index.php?entry=entry061201-111735
2006]]>
