Sunday, 19 October, 13:30–17:00 / Leidsche Rijn area
Meeting point: Leidsche Rijn train station (Brusselplein 100, Utrecht)
Snacks provided. Bring a bicycle, prepare for outdoor conditions, and bring a recording device — this can also be your phone. RSVP via info@casco.art
As a final excursion in the Autumn show Rerooting in the Polder, we sonically thread through the farmlands of Leidsche Rijn and its surrounding edges in a day-long journey of recording and reading.
Historically, the enclosure of common land marked a violent shift in relationships between people and territory, transforming shared resources into privatized property and displacing lives and practices. In the Netherlands, commoning took many forms over time: meents, marken, and other collective uses of land. Dikes and reclaimed lands were often managed collectively, and polders were frequently organized as cooperations, but these were quickly prone to privatization as well. In this context, the activity reflects on how communities organize themselves from the bottom up and resist on this land in the face of ecological hazards and power dynamics.
Participants are encouraged to capture sounds that embody the ambient poetics of a landscape shaped by human settlements — imagine the distant bellow of cows, the low hum of a tractor, or the reverberation inside a metal silo or construction site. During various stops, we collectively read aloud historical and contemporary texts on topics such as the commons and land use change.
Alongside Wapke Feenstra, the tour is guided by Reza Afisina, with a history in radio and field recording and member of the lumbung ecosystem and ruangrupa; Katja Berends, who organizes collective study through Reading Counterpower Amsterdam; and Luke Cohlen, sonic practitioner and member of the Casco team.
The sounds from the day are harvested and processed into a sound piece, which will later be aired on Radio Robida, a broadcasting initiative of art collective Robida, based in Topolò on the border of Italy and Slovenia.
Photo by Mirella Moschella.
