You can visit five locations around town for the 2017 Noorderlicht international photo festival until 26 November. During NUCLEUS | De verbeelding van wetenschap (Science in the Viewfinder), contemporary photography at the intersection of art and science will be shown. Curator Wim Melis talks about putting together the 24th edition of this internationally renowned Groningen festival: ‘It is an ode to man's curiosity, but there is also a warning in it: think about what you are doing.’
For more than a year and a half, Wim Melis has been collecting images. ‘All together, at the seven of our own locations, we’ve got about 70 artists, with a total of around 700 works of art,’ he says. ‘It's a hefty task, but it’s my job to look at things often and thoroughly," he said The result can be admired at five sites around the city: The Aa-Kerk, the Noorderlicht gallery, Centrum Beeldende Kunst Groningen (visual arts centre), NP3 and the basement of De Faun, the old Zara building on Herestraat. Also among the official Noorderlicht locations are Museum de Buitenplaats in Eelde and Kunst in de Nieuwe Kolk (KINK) in Assen. Finally, there are several off-route institutions scattered throughout the northern provinces that are basing their programmes on the NUCLEUS theme. Melis: ‘We are celebrating photography in the city this month. Noorderlicht is from Groningen, but we really are a northern festival.’
HUNDREDS OF PHOTOS ON A4 SHEETS ON THE WALLS
The curator, who has been involved with Noorderlicht since 1980, knows all the ins and outs of curating such a large project. At Noorderlicht's headquarters, a long, narrow corridor is set up with hundreds of photographs on A4 sheets on the walls, where Melis can arrive at a well-considered selection. ‘This is where I just walk by from time to time. Walking by and looking, just until it feels right.’ The content of the images also plays an important role. Melis: ‘You just look at the stories very literally: is it a good story? Does it fit with the theme?’
Making meaningful connections is the most important function of a photo event in the year 2017, in Melis’ opinion: ‘Our function used to be discovering new work and presenting it to audiences. But the internet allows people to see any image, anywhere. Now it's about telling a story that excites and surprises people. The trick is to get artists to tell stories together, to show that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.’ The story at the centre during NUCLEUS | De verbeelding van wetenschap is about the pursuit of knowledge and the inquisitive human being. Melis: ‘We want to understand how the world works. Nucleus means ‘core’. In science and in the arts, people really want to understand what is happening. The desire to pierce through to the essence of life resonates throughout.’
THE MAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ARTISTS AND SCIENTISTS
According to Melis, artists and scientists often ask the same questions and both are possessed of originality, creativity and an open mind. Yet there is also an important difference between artists and scientists: ‘Scientists are the actors, concerned with replicable results, while artists look more for meaning. Art is not about repetition or fact, because it is about a vision and impression of the world around us. Bringing those two sides together, imagination and facts, is important.’
However, it is sometimes not entirely clear whether what you see is real or not. Take the series Outer Space by German photographer and future astronaut Michael Najjar, which is on display during Noorderlicht, as an example. Is this artist really going to travel through space, or is it all fiction? Melis: ‘In this case, it is real, but there are stories among them where we are not sure. The common thread that runs through our organisation is: you should not accept all images as true without good reason. In photography and in the arts it has always been about the question: what is true, and what is not? Photographs, by definition, are a framing of reality, a moment in time. This is very relevant.’
Melis, originally an astronomer, also has a personal connection to the subject. ‘The theme was always in the back of my mind. I am someone who is interested in making connections. You see the great disorder around you, and science tries to bring order to that chaos. And I also do that a little bit as a curator, by looking at images and adding structure to them that you can communicate.’
The photo festival NUCLEUS | De verbeelding van wetenschap was on show from 22 October to 26 November 2017 at various locations in Groningen, at Museum de Buitenplaats in Eelde and KINK in Assen.