Solid, Liquid, Vapor

This first major solo exhibition by Esther Kokmeijer was entirely dedicated to water. With existing and new work, including an igloo made of air conditioners and a rain chapel made of salt, Kokmeijer took the audience along in her observations about the relationship between humans and the natural environment. In the chapters Solid, Liquid and Vapour, the three states that water can assume, she highlighted different facets of this paradoxical relationship and created wonder and friction between them.

Vapour (vapour)
China recently announced that it would create clouds on a massive scale to provide rain for an area three times the size of Spain. Weather manipulation may have reached extreme proportions in China, but it is a widespread phenomenon: from traditional rain ceremonies to the hail cannon that is also used in the Netherlands by farmers and festival organizations to manipulate the weather to our advantage. With airgloo (in collaboration with Henrik Jan Haarink), an igloo made of air conditioners, Kokmeijer playfully showed how attempts to control the climate in one place simultaneously have a direct effect on other parts of the world.

Solid (ice)
Kokmeijer contrasted the global phenomenon of weather manipulation with the joint effort of all the world's countries to protect one place from the impact of man: Antarctica. She created a series of works about this continent: the only one that does not belong to any nation, where visitors are not allowed to leave any trace of their presence and from which not even floating polar ice may be taken. Using, among other things, washed-up glass that she collected during her travels to Antarctica, Kokmeijer depicted the paradoxical nature of the attempt to protect one continent from developments that have the rest of the world in their grip.

Liquid (water)
In preparation for the exhibition, Kokmeijer travelled to the Marshall Islands to explore a very different relationship to the natural environment. In this environment, which is under pressure from rising sea levels and a history of Western interference, she worked with grassroots initiatives, canoe builders and scientists. They draw on the traditional knowledge with which people have made the immense Pacific Ocean their habitat and are reviving that knowledge today as the basis for a sustainable future. Kokmeijer created new work, partly in collaboration with oceanologist Gerbrant van Vledder, inspired by 'wave navigation', which is based on learning to feel and listen to the natural environment.

The exhibition Solid, Liquid, Vapor was versatile, but with the water cycle as its motto, it simultaneously created a powerful image of our planet as a closed system, in which small changes in one place can also have an effect elsewhere – positively or negatively.

Esther Kokmeijer
In the artistic practice of Esther Kokmeijer (Brantgum, 1977) the relationship between man and nature is the central theme. Her work often arises during the journeys she makes, where the journey itself is an important part of the work. She undertakes her journeys independently, but also works as an expedition photographer on a ship that sails to the North Pole in the summer and to the South Pole in the winter. The dialogue with biologists, oceanographers and anthropologists has come to play an increasingly important role in her work.

Collaboration partners
Kokmeijer collaborated with, among others, architect Henrik Jan Haarink; Elmar C. Fuchs, program manager of Wetsus Center of Sustainable Water Technology; oceanologist Gerbrant van Vledder; Alson Kelon of the Waan Aelõñ in Majel program on the Marshall Islands; Dustin Langidrik of Okeanos Marshall Islands; Stefan Grob of Stil-hagelkanon; Sence of Place, Holwerd; and Club Imagine of Theater Rotterdam.

Solid, Liquid, Vapour was made possible by the Mondriaan Fund, CBK Rotterdam, Verbeke Foundation and Nederlandse Zouthandel.