Presentatieplatform en kenniscentrum voor fotografie
18.10.2023 – 29.10.2023
Culturalized Wind Power
Noud Sleumer
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Our relationship with wind energy has changed, but how?
The Netherlands has a century long relationship with wind energy, as traditional windmills cannot be missed within the visual representation of the country. In the past, windmills used to be a direct gain for one's local living standards – from grinding grain and pumping out polders, whereas the sails were used as a means of communicating messages throughout a village. Windmills offered not only an economic or technological contribution, but also had social implications. Fast forward to 2023 and we see enormous anonymous towers of steel and blades within the Dutch landscape. The country that was once famous for its personal relationship with wind energy, lost its humane connection.
This exhibition is a quest to re-invent our relationship with wind energy. How can we create new rituals with wind turbines, in order to grab back our personal and communal connection? How can wind turbines become our new national monuments?
In this exhibition designer Noud Sleumer proposes newly designed wind turbines, by creating them out of Delfts Blue. For this project he worked together with researchers from the RIVM, whereas he analyzes their data about wind turbines in order to bring new perspectives on this important topic.
Designer Noud Sleumer turns his attention to the worlds that underpin our objects. What we take for granted, he questions. His practice deconstructs and asks us to do the same. Sleumer shows us that every designed thing we meet is not static, but part of an interconnected and ever shifting web of cause and effect. Through the (un)making process, the conceptual designer Noud Sleumer exposes us to the tragicomic worlds underpinning our existence.
From energy, to technology, to global trade routes, Sleumer's designerly touch is one that unpicks. His hand does not just sketch a form, but pulls at a thread. Keeping the pressure until the whole thing unravels and we are left with the feeling that everything is just a little bit… confused.
Noud Sleumer (1995) obtained in 2018 his master's degree in Social Design at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. His work was on show in the exhibitions 'Geo-design: junk' (DDW 2019) in Van Abbemuseum and 'Signs of (un)making' (DDW 2021) in TAC.