VALERIE VAN LEERSUM

artist based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

DAAR WAAR DE VISSEN DOL WORDEN

In 2024, as a guest of the Into the Great Wide Open festival, I visited Vlieland multiple times. I spoke with various island residents about the place where the North Sea and the Wadden Sea meet. The captain of the boat had never really thought about it before. The forest ranger took me to the western part of the island, where she believed the boundary between the two waters was most visible. Jan, who worked for the rescue brigade for many years, told me that this is the spot where the boat starts to rattle. For one person, it is a clearly perceptible meeting of two bodies of water—‘where the fish go mad’—while for another, it is merely a political boundary that was recently moved by 10 meters due to ferry permit regulations.

The stories that emerged from my conversations with islanders, combined with my search for the color of our water and a more philosophical perspective on natural dividing lines, were published in four editions of the online art magazine Mister Motley and on the ITGWO website.

The second layer of the work consisted of an installation. Where the Fish Go Mad was displayed on the eastern side of Vlieland, at the location where the North Sea and the Wadden Sea may converge. It was composed of a series of objects, consisting of two round discs interlocking at right angles. The discs were painted in the colors of the Forel-Ule index, a color scale used worldwide to measure the color of water and one of the oldest oceanographic parameters. One disc resonated with the color of the North Sea, the other with that of the Wadden Sea. They were supported by poles inscribed with statements from island residents about this place. At set times, I would pull the discs against the wind together with the audience, then release them, allowing the wind to roll them over the potential boundary between the two bodies of water.

Exposed: Into the Great Wide Open 2024

Thanks to: photographers Marleen Annema (1,2,3) // Sander Heezen (5) // Moon Saris (small pictures)

“I am searching for the place where the North Sea and the Wadden Sea meet. I have a deep love for places where two natural entities merge. The place where nothing is absolute, the transition zone, the gradient. They seem to remind us that everything is connected. On our maps and in our laws, we often divide our environment with lines and boundaries. It is a reflection of our human desire to organize, define, and even claim. But what would happen if we let go of this rigid perspective and started looking in a completely different way? Shifting, adapting, blending, embracing… just like the way two waters merge.”