Weemoed & Wildernis

What does a landscape hold? WEEMOED & WILDERNIS, one of four films that Digna Sinka made about the transformation of the island of Tiengemeten from farmland to managed wildlife reserve, holds fast to a series of “fixed points” recorded over a period of thirteen years. These refer to camera positions, precisely measured at the juncture of roads, sluices and the ever-present horizon of this flat and orderly land, with most revisited every year. They are like fenceposts, regular features that structure a film about a disappearing place and the memories of the people and places that once passed through it, many of them deeply personal to Sinke. In voiceover, she records the date and the points’ distance from the camera. We catch glimpses of Sinke herself, her red curls tossed in the wind. In between these moments, she films the work of the five farmers who live and work on the island, before they gradually leave. She reads snippets from her diary. There is a feeling of multiple pasts being evoked at once, as though time were folded over itself like an accordion. She recalls the lyrics to a song her father learned in childhood, which she remembers from her own, when he sang it to her. “Time passed, yet we didn’t notice,” she says. (Genevieve Yue)

In the presence of Digna Sinke and Gerwin Tamsma (Curator).

Digna Sinke (selection): GROETEN UIT ZONNEMAIRE (1972), DE STILLE OCEAAN (1984), BELLE VAN ZUYLEN (1993), Tiengemeten Project (2001–2006), WEEMOED EN WILDERNIS (2010), AFTER THE TONE (2014), UNDER THE SURFACE (2016), BEWAREN / KEEPING & SAVING (2018), ZOET & ZOUT (2019), GRENZEN (2020), HEMELSLEUTEL (2024)