Kunstwerk-Almere

Not only artists make art. Engineers also create works of art. Not to mention architects, who like to say that architecture is the mother of all arts. Viewed in this way, Almere is a work of art and the title of my work for Almere (Kunstwerk-Almere) is therefore a tribute to Almere as a civil work of art.

The relationship with water and waterworks is quickly established with Almere. The land reclaimed from the water, the city as a symbol of post-war optimism and future thinking. Culture as a conquest of Nature.

As the effects of climate change become increasingly visible and palpable, there is also a growing realisation that our planet has a limit. A limit to its adaptability. Associations of Almere and water are also changing with it. Pride about the origins and an indefinable feeling about the future coexist.

The Sea Green Carpet

Mothership developed a vision for the Municipality of Almere that is based on this very special history: Almere as a new city, built on the seabed. Under the umbrella title ‘De Zeegroene Loper’, Mothership made a series of coherent proposals to make the inner city, between CS and the Weerwater, greener (sea green…) and more attractive. To let everyone in the new city experience the special quality, the unique identity, of Almere. One of those pearls is Kunstwerk-Almere; the perfect representation of that vision!

Art gives no answers and solves no problems. But you can expect art in public space to add something to its quality. An extra dimension, enrichment and deepening of that space. This is important because the exterior of buildings, is the interior of the city we live in.

In Almere, with a new, rather stony city centre, the need for softening is great.

And this is precisely Mothership’s expertise: from an overarching vision to come up with a concept that positively marks the public space in a special way. One that senses the history, the DNA of the place and brings out its power.

Kunstwerk-Almere does that in an exemplary way: it brings to life, in a somewhat dreamy surreal way, the relationship of water and Almere. Is this the sea from which Almere was reclaimed? Or is this a vision of Almere as Atlantis? The artwork is not unambiguous and is inconclusive. If it is good, it gives space to think and experience public space in other ways. The work explicitly seeks a relationship with the renewed station area, which does not focus on bricks and imposing squares and buildings and sculptures, but on the quality experience, through little hills, beautiful gardens and paths.

The light artwork Kunstwerk-Almere wants to be present at this location precisely in dark days and hours, literally and figuratively illuminating the place and thus allowing everyone to experience the quality of Almere along the Sea Green Carpet.