Connections
'Landscapes'
shows & archive
A stay in the country

related link
Our Villages Wjelsryp

 
'Landscapes', Wapke Feenstra (ENG)
introduction text in the book “A stay in the country”, published by Wapke Feenstra & myvillages.org, Rotterdam 2003

“The declamation of Frisian poetry is the first public cultural moment I remember. The poems were mainly about the surrounding landscape and everyday anecdotes. Practising the verses, I expressed what I saw in someone else’s words. This made me really see the landscape. For the rest, I grew up not knowing that, in art historical terms, landscape is a painting genre. A genre that can channel indefinable feelings and narrate our relationship to our environment. Now that I live in a neighbourhood where different cultures co-exist (Bloemhof, Rotterdam), I often think about landscape. It’s all around me, but somehow just out of my reach. The media tells me where I am. Documentaries about my neighbourhood (national and regional) seem able to channel indefinable feelings. That scares me. I’d rather look myself.”
In this book three people describe their environment.


 
Bookcover.