Arcadia is an arts and community triennale in the North West of Europe (Friesland) that challenges us to become good ancestors. The first edition will take place on May 7th – Aug 14th 2022.
In 2022, we will offer a stage for makers and doers who want to change the world for a hundred summer days. With a walking forest in the streets of Leeuwarden (BOSK). With an international, visual art exhibition in the greenery of Oranjewoud (PARADYS). Or with a province-wide community (mienskip, Frisians say) program on ice rinks, that invites us to think about the way we live together (IIS). And this is only a part of the program.
Energy
Arcadia is created by the makers of the event Cultural Capital of Europa Leeuwarden-Fryslân 2018. Dive into the incredibly rich program of 2018 or watch the aftermovie:
The energy that year evoked, will find its way to Arcadia 2022. We’ll work with volunteers, artists and our creative network in the Netherlands and Europe. Are you working in the arts and do you want to be involved in Arcadia 2022? Please send a message.
A glimpse of the program:
Walking forest
BOSK is a slow-moving art installation, a slow-walking forest of fifteen hundred trees, which travels through the streets of Leeuwarden for a 100 days. With BOSK, Arcadia gives the trees – and therefore nature – a voice: how does the forest view the human world? The forest will also stage cultural activities. BOSK invites us to look differently at the relationship between man and nature.
Still paradise?
About fifteen to twenty international visual artists are creating new work for PARADYS, to tell a different story about the Oranjewoud Park Landscape. Oranjewoud, with its ‘former’ estates, spacious parks, country houses and water features, sometimes looks like paradise on earth. In this Arcadian place, PARADYS asks questions about the origins of this paradise. Curator Hans den Hartog Jager, writer and art critic, asks the artists to reflect on this.
Ice and community
The IIS project is about ice as a connector of the community (mienskip in Frisian). As soon as it start to freeze, we will take action to ensure that everyone can get on the ice. On skates, with the sled, on foot or otherwise. But at the same time, the ice rinks have become a symbol of the climate crisis. In 2022, for example, it will be 25 years since the last Elfstedentocht, a famous trip on natural ice across 11 Frisian cities, was skated. Where have our winters gone?