SCHIERMONNIKOOG
Holland 2004

Eddie Marsman, a kind and gentle Dutchman who had organized my very first solo exhibition at the Noorderlicht festival in Kroningen back in 2001, got me this sweet gig to spend a couple of weeks taking pictures of Schiermonnikoog, an island in the Northern Netherlands, a project organized by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture to document the environmental changes taking place.

There wasn’t much to do other than to cover the outer edges of the island every day on a bicycle, stopping once in a while to try to make friends with horses with the help of apples and carrots. On a lucky day, I would stumble upon a resident who spoke English who proudly extolled the virtues of his beautiful island. 

The evenings were always the same. A bar near the house where I was staying. More than a few genevers, which I never learned to pronounce properly, but the effects of which were always steady and reliable, and a plate of bitterballen, meatballs of distinct and agreable variety.