This workshop is part of Met andere ogen: Landschapsfestival.
A more-than-human shelter is springing up at the Amsterdam Science Park! With The Holebearers, architect Estelle Barriol and artist/earth scientist Esmee Geerken investigate how our structures can be useful for ourselves and our fellow animals. They wonder how the desire for shelter can also lead to shared places and thus to interspecies dialogue.
They came up with a colourful installation where all kinds of inhabitants of the Science Park can stay and meet each other. The installation will consist of a hut where the returning wolf can mate, flanked by a habitat wall for kingfishers, a bench made of 'rammed earth' and a rabbit burrow where foxes can also settle. The hut also serves as a meditation and observation spot for people, where you can follow the comings and goings of the other residents without disturbing them.
The installation will be built on a nice, sheltered corner of the Science Park, next to Anna's Tuin & Ruigte and the open field with the wadi. The installation will be on display there for at least the whole summer during the landscape festival, and then slowly digest and become part of the local ecosystem.
Workshop 1: rammed earth
To shape this multifaceted palace, we are organising two workshops. The first focuses on 'rammed earth', or making building blocks by compressing locally mined materials. It is an ancient technique that is now being rediscovered as an ecological way of building. During the workshop, we will become familiar again with the materials that surround us: sand, earth, clay, loam, lime, plants, and how we can use them to think differently about our outgrown shelter, the city. With this knowledge, together we will build the walls of an aesthetic and inspiring more-than-human shelter, where, of course, we will 'ram' earth!
Programme
13:00. - 13:15 hrs: Introduction
13:15 - 13:30 hrs: Explanation of building technique rammed earth
13:30 - 16:00 hrs: Building a more-than-human shelter at Amsterdam Science Park
17:00 - 18:00 hrs: Drinks and a snack
Extra info: ideally you should come to the workshop for two days, if this does not work out you are also welcome to come for one day.
Clothing regulations
Put on worker clothes and working shoes (mountain boots or steel-toed shoes). You do not need any prior knowledge.
Accessibility
This event takes place on the ground floor of the Amsterdam Science Park and is wheelchair accessible.
If you are tight on cash but would like to participate in this event, please contact tanja [@] waag [dot] org.
This intervention was developed by artist and earth scientist Esmee Geerken as part of the Landschapsfestival.
About Esmee Geerken
Esmee Geerken is an artist and earth scientist. Her work combines these disciplines for her artistic research and design practice in which she questions the experience of our material environment. Esmee graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld academy and completed a PhD in geochemistry at the Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ). As a research fellow at Waag, she will research the symbiosis between animals and minerals, with the aim of creating new materials through biomineralisation.
Met andere ogen: Landschapsfestival
Met andere ogen: Landschapsfestival invites you to set your senses on the Amsterdam Science Park and discover the city as a living place, together with artists, local residents and scientists. During the landscape festival, we will build a different relationship with nature together. Workshops, installations and biodiverse interventions will shift our attention from bricks and structures to critters and soil during the summer months.
About T-Factor
This programme is part of the international project T-Factor. How can we create city initiatives in an inclusive way and for a variety of life forms, such as humans, plants, animals and microbes? Over the next two years, Waag will investigate these and more questions within T-Factor about interim initiatives at the Amsterdam Science Park.
