Laurens Kolks > spatial design

the Weathermen's Country Club

After being selected to participate in the Koningstocht Art Route, I was given the opportunity to choose a specific site for my project proposal. The site had to be situated along a bicycle route that runs through the agricultural landscape connecting Delden and Diepenheim in the Eastern part of the Netherlands. The site of my choice is a non-place, a literal turning point, next to the bend in a narrow secondary road following a channel. Clearly visible from an adjacent bridge, the site is worth discovering: it is here that channel, bridge, a woody slope and cornfields meet.

The Weathermen's Country Club consists of three umpire chairs that are freely accessible to the public. The chairs give the individual user a majestic overview of the surroundings. Each individual chair is equipped with a meteorological measuring device: a weather vane, an anemometer and a 'pitch fork' (an object that resembles both antenna and lightning rod). All instruments suggest (possible) changes in weather conditions without supplying exact data. The three chairs are positioned around a static compass of which the arrow points North.

The installation's title (the Weathermen's Country Club) is meant to ironically play out my passion for public space (conditions and places that are for everyone to enjoy) against my dislike for places that exists solely by the grace of exclusion.

'Have a seat, make yourself comfortable and wait for the weather to change...'