During this knowledge evening of art stage Into Nature in Roderwolde, the focus is on language and reciprocity of birds. The evening aims to get to know each other and exchange knowledge about the De Onlanden nature reserve.

The knowledge evening takes place as part of the Inhale-Exhale programme, a programme with artists from Drenthe, in cooperation with Stichting Kunst & Cultuur and kuunst.nu. In this programme, five artists from Drenthe delve into De Onlanden, a young marsh area in the head of Drenthe, near the city of Groningen. After a period of reclamation, man has ‘given back’ this area to nature. In a short time, De Onlanden has become a true paradise for numerous bird species.

Programme
19.15: Walk-in (coffee & tea available at the bar)
19.30: Welcome and introduction by Hilde de Bruijn, chairman of the evening and artistic director of Into Nature
19.40: Guest speakers Priscila Fernandes, Martin Brandsma and Ben Koks. With room for questions and discussion.
21.30: Closing.

Priscila Fernandes
Artist Priscila Fernandes (lives and works in Kolderveen) became interested, through her visits to De Onlanden, in the question of what would happen if we gave up our voices to the birds out of love and we could thus hear them. What would they say? Fernandes will talk a bit more about her visual art practice and elaborate on the question that concerns her in relation to De Onlanden.

Martin Brandsma
Martin Brandsma (lives and works in the Drents-Friese Wold), is an artist and behavioural biologist. For the past 12 years of his life, he has devoted much of his time to the shrike. Brandsma studies this mysterious songbird with raptor traits in the moors and moors along the border of Friesland and Drenthe. He will discuss how, as an artist with behavioural biology interests, he views the language of birds – and that of the shrike in particular. He will share his experiences with shrikes and talk more about their mode of communication (sound). To make this insightful, he will also perform something on his overtone flute. We will also get to know Mylo and Yoni, some of the shrikes he works with.

Ben Koks
Ornithologist and conservationist Ben Koks, author of the booklet ‘Birds show us the way’, has been watching harriers for decades. In De Onlanden, quite a few greylag harriers roost. Their roosts are much more than the simple sum of security and use of space. To understand the phenomenon behind roosts, Koks travelled to West Africa, India and also many European countries. This is how it dawned on him that a kind of communication is taking place in those sleeping places that we humans, with our usual scientific tools, cannot grasp. “Because that’s it,” says Koks, “scientists ultimately understand very little about the communication of these kinds of specialised birds, which also hold up a mirror to us when it comes to how we humans interact with our nature.”

Image: site visit to De Onlanden