An exhibition about tinkering, failing, and starting all over again
Tinker: in English, it means crafting and improvising, but in Frisian, it means thinker or philosopher. At first glance they seem like two very different activities, tinkering and contemplating, but is it possible to practice them simultaneously?
In the exhibition Tinker, curator Michiel Teeuw brings together various creative practices. Artists, designers, activists, and other tinkers attempt to make the world a little more livable and beautiful – for themselves and others, from Fryslân and far beyond. They tinker, build, mess around, play, experiment, gamble, fail, fumble, and start again. Through the act of making, these tinkers explore themes such as magic, play, violence, time, the mundane, liberation and spirituality. In doing so, they work – together or alone – towards a better existence. The exhibition gathers the playful and the peculiar: from beachcomber clocks to cosmic amulets, from attempts at flight to snowmen, and from phallic posters to glitter weapons, ancient stone drawings, and activist camps. These are attempts to pry life loose from its hinges. The tinkers craft their lives together through play, protest, dreams, action and ritual. The exhibition invites you to start tinkering yourself: by making, failing, and starting all over again.
About the artists
Fleuri La Belle Ngapy
Fleuri La Belle explores identity, strength, and connectedness through amulets, necklaces, and Afro combs. She weaves traditional Congolese materials into contemporary forms to tell stories of Black pride, cosmology, and African roots. Her work functions as a ritual in which skin, history, and ancestors converge.
Jan Evert Musch Jan Evert Musch is an artist and “re-discoverer” with a deep spiritual connection to the Drenthe landscape. At stienbargen, he leaves behind stones, drawings, and stories that challenge conventional interpretations. Since 1992, he has been exploring these sites from his home base in Ixt (Eext).
Kelsey Corby
Kelsey Corby is a glitter mason and sparkle practitioner who works with revenge fantasy and queer rage. They use spectacle and apocalyptic desire as a form of pre-emptive archiving of justice. Currently, they are creating gravestones for homosocial miners from the Californian Gold Rush.
Le Fou de Coucou
Le Fou de Coucou originated in a French clockmaking workshop in 1882 and was re-established in the 21st century by Aart Kramer and Irina Filtzer. Since 2011, the duo has been working on Terschelling with washed-up salvaged materials. Their assemblages honor what the sea leaves behind and the poetic power of reuse.
Personal Care
Personal Care makes music in a world in constant transformation. Through distorted drones, fractured rhythms, and processed religious sounds, a sonic landscape emerges between the sacred and the artificial. His live-built compositions move within an in-between space of mourning, longing, and disappearing structures.
During the exhibition, archival materials and loaned works will also be on view by Joost van Bodegom, Dick Coersen, Gino de Dominicis, Agnes van Enkhuizen, and the Frysk Flikker Front.
Tinker is free to visit from 7 February through 29 March, every Tuesday to Sunday between 12:00 and 5:00 PM. The festive opening takes place on Friday 6 February from 6:00 PM onwards. There’s also a performance at 5:00 PM that is free to visit beforehand.
About the performance
The Brabant-based producer Personal Care makes music for a world in constant flux. Using distorted drones and fractured rhythms, he translates religious inspiration into digital techniques. His screen is his workshop: a modular system in which sounds are built, dismantled, and reconfigured live. In this process of tinkering, the source material sometimes becomes unrecognizable. What emerges is a set about mourning and longing (Sehnsucht), in which old structures dissolve and make way for something new. He processes his music live, rebuilding it again and again.
