Michiel Teeuw

I am an artist and researcher. My work takes place on the overlap of the systemic and the personal. In my life and practice, I learn to relate to the systems around me. Systems which are full of complex political relationships of subjugation and resistance between all kinds of members. Members which were once part of a holistic whole, but are now violently segregated into hierarchical categories.

In my practice, I initiate assemblies. I come together with knowledge fields, plants, machines, humans, disciplines, animals, beliefs, things, media, and spacetimes. We curiously learn from each other, through embodied encounters, conversations, and exchanges. I facilitate these encounters through a diverse set of roles and methods.

Sometimes, these assemblies themselves form the artworks, in forms like performances, lectures, workshops and assemblages. Other times, I present recordings of these assemblies, in forms like videos, photograms, writings and drawings. Besides my artistic practice, I work in various other disciplines, together forming a life-size practice, moving towards the mending of a holistic, many-world world.

During my Borderland residency at Odapark, I will work with de Peel, a post-extractive peatland, partially falling under Natura 2000 protection. De Peel is currently suffering from groundwater drought and nitrogen spread, detrimental to its lifeworlds. In the process, I will initiate assemblies with different plants, infrastructures, waters, organisations, animals and humans in the area. This on-site research will be informed by archival and textual research into ecology, land use, labor, violence, spirituality and madness.