Arts Thread

Cows, fruit flies, horses, cats, sheep, herring, badgers, moths, moles, slugs, deers, hare From the village to the city, humans are surrounded by all kinds of animals. These animals, small and large, are dependent on our actions; we decide where they live, how they live, whether they live at all. We each have experienced the death of an animal—swatting an annoying fly, poisoning a lettuce-eating snail, or putting down beloved pet. Conversely, far fewer people have witnessed the butchering of a chicken, pig, or cow. Dierendoders is an audiovisual investigation into our varied responses to the many forms of animal killing that happen daily. How do hunters Geert and Loes, Wally who does animal testing research, Edith who killed mice for her owl and Valentijn who killed roosters in his backyard experience death? By giving a platform to those who regularly end animals' lives – professionally or as a hobby – Okki Poortvliet highlights the complexities of animal death and our relationship to it. Through her multimedial works, she explores how art can portray the many facets of animal death: the painful, the beautiful, and the hidden. By making all forms (of animal death) equally tangible, the works unravel how the visibility of some deaths and the invisibility of others impact our connection to the many animals around us. Why do we grieve the death of a dog but tolerate the killing of a fish? Where do we draw the line between pets and livestock, between grotesque and tolerable death? Dierendoders invites us to rethink our own relationship to animal death, looking at the often unseen and repeatedly disregarded.

When is the moment you think: I'm going to hoist my regional flag? Who are these flaghoisters? And what does it mean to identify with your region? These are questions that filmmaker Okki Poortvliet, theatermaker Hans van der Werf and designer Vera Vos asked. So, they went through the whole of Drenthe, the region in the North of The Netherlands where all three of them grew up, to collect as many stories as possible from hoisters of the flag of Drenthe. The Flaghoisters is a film about the confrontation between the countryside and, as the Drents call it, “the city dwellers”. A story about a disappearing language, the safety of your village, creating each other, being proud, and just acting normal. Next to the film, Hans, Vera and Okki developed a theaterplay that was performed on different locationsin open airthroughout Drenthe.

IJswee is a documentary film about an iceskateclub, a village and the warm winters. It’s a story about a community with a passion for ice skating and how they deal with climate change. In the film we follow Oringers, the inhabitants of Odoorn, through the winter. The Oringer all experience in IJswee (longing for ice) in their own way. Christmas tree farmer Manus thinks that we will never be able to skate again and that the winters will disappear. Treasurer Henk tells about the days of 15 centimeters of ice. Raoul, son of a farmer, had to stop skating in Assen after the ice rink closed, now he keeps an eye on the weather app every day in winter. Yet they also feel hope, ex-farmer and ex-chairman Jans is confident that there will one day be another Elfstedentocht. His grandson Jeroen, who became a Drents skate champion as a child, is sure that he will stand on the ice as board member in the near future. Director Okki also experiences IJswee herself. In her youth she could skate almost every winter and now she has the feeling that the temperature rise melts away a little bit of winter every year. You will also see the Ice Counter (Rafael van der Ziel), who builds ice sculptures and drinks frozen milk. You see the Drenthe countryside change with the weather. You see animations, archive images and you hear the mysterious sounds of IJswee in the music of Wietse de Haan. And there are two trumpeters who, with their music, welcome the winter and bid it farewell again.

In Over the Cattle Grid you watch and listen to Robert, Rinke and Ytzen. Three people who spend every day in the woods between the villages of Odoorn and Exloo. Ytzen and Rinke because they live in the middle of the woods, Robert because he cycles through the woods every day to get to work. All three experience the world behind the cattle grid as a different world than the one in front of the cattle grid. Behind the grid there is peace, the forest is sometimes endless and time seems to pass in a different way. Or as Ytzen says "there is no time, there is just being". Yet they experience a lot of change, because the forest is different every day. But Robert, Rinke and Ytzen also see things they have never seen before, such as trees that lose their leaves in September and plants that want to start growing in the middle of winter. You will also see Wietse de Haan and Evert Prummel, they build instruments from dead trees. All the music you hear in the film was played on these tree instruments and recorded in the forest. Okki herself also occasionally passes by. She has been coming to this piece of forest all her life, which is a kilometer from the house where she grew up. Not only has she known the forest, but also Robert, Ytzen and Rinke for most of her life.