︎

a river
plus a river
are not
two rivers @tent



Available and the Rat
Rotterdam 2021



Dear Rotterdam,

After many office days with countless conversations and all sorts of contributions, the envelope collage was carefully wrapped in the company of Marika @of_the_marika, Linnea @linneasemmerling, Darly and Anke (artistic leader @tentrotterdam ) to be mailed back upstream to the "Ideas and suggestions" department of Gemeente Rotterdam @gemeenterotterdam

The "temporary support office for those who fear closed envelopes" thanks everyone who trusted the project and joined their rivers, brought their envelopes, share stories and opinions, wrote messages, bureaucratic poetry, insults, suggestions, made drawings, origami, hearts, monsters, architectures, middle fingers, and in general improvised from their muscle memory of doing something with paper. In the end, the collage is a sum of many feelings, from love to anger, and went from trying to do something big to a very detailed landscape.

Some have asked and no, I do not expect a response (but I am open to it), and the conversations about the imaginaries of power, violence of bureaucracy, state theory, the personality of the state, design and power, the feelings we have about institutions (and hopefully how to reverse them) were kind of the point.

Of course, the long list of acknowledgments: @gizzembb + @_lowbudgetprojects_ for an amazing soft-launch of their “do not expect anything out of the blue”. Cannot thank enough Marika @of_the_marika, we edited, read, archived, had fun and felt like a collaboration. Special thanks to the teams of mediators Simon, Tracy, Floor. And to all the teams at Tent: Judith, Esther, Aletta, Jordy, Menno, Raquel, Darly, Dico, Eden…

And of course to my partner Kari @firmlarvae for having the patience and supporting all the extra-time that the office demanded…

Thank you all,

*This project was part of exhibition There is no party so noisy as the one you're not invited to, curated by Linnea Semmerling.