During her 2023 road trip to Kyrgyzstan, Marjolijn Boterenbrood, invited artists she met along the way to react to her art project Letter to a Silk Road: a series of drawings on pages from a Soviet era atlas. Her maps/drawings were literally overwritten with stories, sketches and written thoughts; an extra layer in response to her ‘letter’. 

This new content and meaning, shifted the ‘power’ from the map maker to those who contributed. In this way the contributing artists and Marjolijn Boterenbrood made an alternative ‘Silk Road’ in a joint process of cartography based on exchange.

Walking as embodied research, drift , pause, indirection is een boek samengesteld door Christian Ernst en Nick Shepherd. Met tekst van Bas Pedroli bij mijn bijdragen. En artikelen van Jan Rothuizen, Henriette Waal.

4 artists talk about the physicality of geographical connections and alternative cartography. http://rrraw.work/connecting_geographies

Vandaag In Mediamatic Welkom

Connecting Geographies in the exhibition Home is Where.. in Bishkek, April 2024

My notion of home is very much influenced by being the daughter of a sailor, the ship was our traveling home. Later, when grown up, I continued to roam about, using my van as my home. The car plays an important role in my artistic research, it brings me to many different places where I talk with local people like farmers or fishermen about what the landscape they live in, means to them. 

In 2011 I insulated the inside of my van and constructed the very simple wooden interior. The construction is flexible, for example: within a few minutes I can remove the bed to make room for my ‘velocipede’. The kitchen is very basic with a little gas stove. Water I take from any available source like waterfalls, melting ice, public water taps, natural sources etcetera. Candles are my source of light. 

As you can see in the picture below, I use the wooden interior walls to make notes of the shade of the sun at various times at various places. In fact I travel with a time/space map at hand, new notations are added at every stop.  

In 2023 I drove my car from Amsterdam to Kyrgyzstan, though mountains, steppe, desert and taiga, along the former Silk Roads that connected Europe and Asia. Camping along the route in nature. In Kyrgyzstan I found a temporary home in generous and hospitable Bishkek and at Issykul lake. 

The white line exposed on the floor is the trace of a new Silk Road connection. I would like to invite the public to add objects like cards, maps, tickets, poems, a song, stones, anything personal, ’necessary additions, to make a new, alternative Silk Road in this way.

Thanks to #malikaumarova and #ulandjaparov #afk #mondriaanfonds

Van harte welkom tot en met 21 januari bij de tentoonstelling Connecting Geographies  Glazen Huis, Zone2source in het Amstelpark.

Mede mogelijk gemaakt door het Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst