S+T+ARTS4Water II Challenge and STARTS Residency
Stijn Demeulenaere – Saltveins
Host / Region
GLUON / Brussels, Belgium – Port Of Ostend
Abstract
This residency invites an artist to develop an in-situ performance exploring coastal and water sustainability through a more-than-human perspective, creating engaging and imaginative scenarios that connect Ostend’s cultural scene with local communities to promote ocean and water preservation.
Keywords
circularity, interactive art, biodiversity, local participation, in situ,
Description of the regional challenge
The port of Ostend, is located in the city of Ostend, within the West Flanders province of the Flemish Region in Belgium. The port of Ostend is unique in Belgium as it is the only port nestled in the touristically buzzing coastal area amidst sandy beaches and wide boulevards, with a rich tradition of fishery that is still alive but undergoing significant changes, just as is the life below water. Additionally, Ostend’s port area is a key science hub fostering blue economy innovation, distinguished by its focus on marine research and sustainable practices around circularity, sustainable water-management and bioengineering and has a lively cultural scene, with Theater aan Zee being one of Belgium’s most unique and most loved on-site performance art festivals.
How is the mission S+T+ARTS driven?
A residency for an artist motivated to develop an in-situ performance (theatre/dance/music/opera/public intervention/hybrid space/sound work), around themes of coastal and water sustainability research and biodiversity from a more than human-focused perspective, creating playful, inspiring and aesthetically intriguing future scenarios imagining alternatives combining circular living and a rediscovery of the nourishing interdependence between people, biotopes, elements and organisms. Translating water research into an engaging performance a/o interactions in situ, together with Ostend’s cultural scene and local (fishery) communities. We seek to encourage everyone through experiments in performative futurology to actively preserve the ocean and waters for generations to come.
The result of the residency will be shown during the TAZ (Theatre Aan Zee) Festival 2025.
Artist-in-residency – Stijn Demeulenaere
Stijn Demeulenaere is a sound artist with a background in sociology, journalism and radio. Since 2009 he creates installations, soundscapes and performances. He also frequently works together with choreographers, theatre makers, film directors, and scientists. Stijn researches the relationship between identity, sound and listening. His work grows from gathering testimonies, memories, stories and field recordings. He weaves these collected histories into questions. Through recording Stijn explores the bonds between sound, space and listening. From remote, pristine, nature areas, over sleepy villages, the sonic onslaught of a metropolis, to the umwelt of more-than-human spaces: Stijn tries to understand places by listening to them. Stijn thinks of hearing as a sense of touch; sound as direct, but also malleable, and mysterious. Stijn tries to unravel social structures, personal history and people’s unconscious imagination through listening. Figuring out how we give meaning to sound, and how sound gives meaning to places.
About The Project – Saltveins
We often imagine the sea as a space without people, liquid wilderness. But humans shape its waters as much as we do the land: we’re everywhere. In sound, in chemicals, in countless ships, oil rigs, underwater cables, wind farms, fish farms, military endeavors, …. The waves are subject to national and international laws, treaties, plans, projections and political aspirations. A whole economy sprouts from these aspirations. Over the next decades we will change the North Sea dramatically. A tenfold increase in wind farms, the opening of the Northeast passage, climate change and rewilding efforts are just a few examples.
‘Saltveins’, looks at these interconnections between man and sea. Stijn will explore this changing symbiocene by focusing on the seabed. Listening to shellfish reefs, exploring how we map and develop the sea. How this development connects to new energy policies, away from fossil fuels, and new geopolitical realities. Listening to scientists, entrepreneurs, historians, and connecting with people who have been living and working on the North Sea for generations.
‘Saltveins’ will become a performative installation, combining marine tech in sound and video with stories about and hopes for the North Sea. What does the seabed tell us about ourselves?
