Jetske Verhoeven: Castaway / Interview

Another artist in the “No Holds Barred” section of Art Amsterdam 2011 was Jetske Verhoeven with her work “Castaway”, presented by PARC-Editions. In 2010, Amsterdam-based artist Jetske Verhoeven was invited for a residency in Korea. As the only Dutch artist in the Korean village, Verhoeven became the representative a the countries’ shared history, more specifically the Dutch seafarer and writer Hendrik Hamel van Gorkum. In this video, Jetske Verhoeven tells the story of her adventure in Korea and how it came to the work “Castaway”.

Jetske Verhoeven was born in Nijmegen in 1980. She studied Fine Art at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and is now finishing her masters in Fine Art at the Sandberg Institute. In November 2010 she won the 5th Sybren Hellinga Artprize with the video-installation “J’attends la Guerre” (Waiting for the War).

Jetske Verhoeven: Castaway. No Holds Barred, PARC-Editions, Art Amsterdam 2011. Interview with Jetske Verhoeven, May 11, 2011.

> Right-click (Mac: ctrl-click) this link to download Quicktime video file.

From the press release:
The work of the Amsterdam-based artist Jetske Verhoeven reflects on time and the fluidity of memory and historic writing. By combining different narratives and by interchanging perspectives Verhoeven points out the complexity of determining what truly “is” and “was” and puts questionsmarks at what can be seen as solid descriptions of the ephemeral.
Verhoeven often presents her films in installations build out of re-located and re-build elements from the film, creating a strong atmosphere for the films to be seen in. The film Castaway (2011) will have its premiere at the No Holds Barred, Art Amsterdam.

Castaway is a photographic journal inspired on the Korean encounter with Hendrik Hamel van Grokum that took place in 1653, and the “accidental” re-enactment of that encounter by the artist in 2010.
Hendrik Hamel was the bookkeeper of de Sperwer, a ship of the Dutch East India Company that got wrecked just off the coast of Korea. After years of imprisonment in Korea, Hamel managed to escape and presented the journal that he had kept during his imprisonment to the Dutch government, as the first introduction to the Korean land and its culture. Korea now remembers this early Dutch intervention with a Hamel-museum, a Hamel-statue and a windmill in the village where he had once lived. In 2010, Verhoeven was invited for a residency in this village, and – being the only Dutch artist in the village – she became the representative of the countries’ shared history. The confusion that arose from this unexpected exchange of time and identity became the leading aspect during Verhoeven’s residency and has now found its final form in the film Castaway and the installation in which it is presented.

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