I Have Never Seen Volcanoes but when Travellers Tell

Off the coast In the north of the Netherlands, an extinct, prehistoric volcano lies dormant in the layers of the earth and beneath the waters of the Wadden Sea. This volcano is 160 million years old and it was active for several million years. In the 1970s, while drilling for gas, volcanic specimens were found and thereby this volcano was discov- ered. In the late 1980s a gas-drilling platform was placed precisely above the apex of this submerged volcano and is still in function. When passing by aboard a local passenger ferry, one has a direct view of the platform; since I have obtained this knowledge, the platform for me, now equates to the summit of the volcano.

I have invited filmmaker/writer Peter Delpeut, researcher/writer Siri Driessen and visual artist Roman Signer to write a contribution for this publication, in order to imagine this phenomenon from diverse positions. I informed them about the existence of this volcano and asked them to respond to this unknown knowledge. I also sent a photograph that I took during my one-day visit to the volcano on a winters day in 2010. In reaction to my question, Delpeut wrote a fictive story, Driessen wrote an analysis of the photograph, and Signer sent me a publication of his works on the phenomenon of volcanoes. From this publication I chose to republish three short texts where he writes about the construction of three specific works.

Publication July 2011
Concept: Eva Olthof
Title: Emily Dickinson, poem 175, c. 1870, first two lines
Authors: Peter Delpeut, Siri Driessen, Eva Olthof and Roman Signer
Photograph: Eva Olthof
Design: Stefano Faoro/ Werkplaats Typografie/ArtEZ
Publisher: Dutch Art Institute/ArtEZ
Edition: 350 copies
Pages: 32
ISBN: 987-94-90294-27-4

This publication was made possible with the generous support of Stokroos Foundation

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