• Storm

Art installation &  film created using 13.000 year old organic material.

• FILM

An ancient forest was found below the landscape of den treek (province of Utrecht, Netherlands). Pine trees from an era at the end of the last ice age, leafs and branches form dwarf birch were kept well after they were blown over and embedded in a layer of peat. Dune sands from the period just after covered it up and recently this area was discovered by a team of researchers. The climate in this period changed very abruptly, which is accounted for by melting water from the North-American arctic flowing into the atlantic ocean. The warm gulf stream came to a sudden hold and caused the Netherlands to fall back into a new ice age. This happening is one of few that scientist opt as a possible future scenario.

 

• ART INSTALLTION

Next to the film, an art object and two photo images are part of the exhibition package. In the production process of the film I used a lot of organic material. The scientists allowed me to take one piece of a tree with me for the production of my art film. Trouble was that I would need to slice pieces of this tree for the animation, so I would loose the original. Another organic item I found I could use were very small leaves of a dwarf birch, Betula Nana. They were still in tact, but  only 6 to 10 mm large so it was difficult to work with this in a technique of stop motion animation. I decided to photograph the tree trunk and the birch tree leaves before cutting and using  it, in order to allow myself bring an image of the tree to exhibits. After the process I had the slices of the tree trunk available to create an object with. This I found interesting to seek collaboration with artist Rob van den Broek, an artist who works a lot with wood crating music instruments and art objects. I gave the pieces to Rob as a present and see what he comes up with. He created a round object referring to a circle of life idea, wood and trees being a lively entity in itself, but also feeding ground for new life when their own life ends.

The film, art object and photographs together make an installation that completes the story of 13.000 year old trees.

• EXHIBITIONS

Storm has been on display at
University Museum Utrecht
Koppelkerk Gallery, Bredevoort 
City Hall Utrecht

• TECHNICAL SPECS

 Film HD 16:9
Object diameter 83cm
Photo frames 25,5 cm X 53 cm

• CREDITS

Director Udo Prinsen
Sound design Temo Gonzalez Moreno
Technical support Calé Mazza.
Thanks to Jos Bazelmans, Esther Jansma, Petra Doeve, Wim Hoek, Rob Looff, Johanna Kehmeier, Jurjen Bosklopper, Calé Mazza, Stichting RING, Universiteitsmuseum Utrecht, Rijksdienst Cultureel Erfgoed, Robin Wood muziekdoosjes

• SCIENTIFIC RESULTS

This film Storm was inspired by archeology, dendrochronology, geology and climate research concerning the find of these 13.000 year old pine trees.

Under the leadership of author Prof. dr. Jos Bazelmans a paper is written and published concluding this research. The title is  ‘Environmental changes in the late Allerød and early Younger Dryas in the Netherlands: a multiproxy high-resolution record from a site with two Pinus sylvestris populations’

Follow this link to the conclusive paper

One of the authors, Esther Jansma (emeritus Utrecht University), mentions:
“In the Netherlands these last years  had the opportunity to study a buried Pine stand dating to ca. 13,000 BP, using a variety of methods including dendrochronology and radiocarbon wiggle matching. To our surprise the remains of the trees, preserved in an organic layer with a thickness of only a few decimeters, respresent two vegetation phases separated by an interval of ca. 400 years. The paper and its supplementary materials including the tree-ring measurement series are open access.”

• PARTNERS