We once looked to the intangible void of heaven for the unfolding of life after death, but in this installation, artist Noa Jansma seeks it in the earthly realm. Following the death of her father in 2023, she realized after his burial that his body—his material self—had not simply disappeared. Her father was becoming soil, not ascending to heaven. He was being absorbed into the metabolism of the planet.
With her biologist brother Mas, she filmed the microscopic microbes living in her father’s grave and recorded their otherworldly noises. You watch and hear the recordings as you lie on a rug—or is it a shroud? After experiencing the soil through your eyes and ears, you are invited to perceive it in another way too: by eating root vegetables grown in the same soil and fermented by Jansma using the microbes living there. In this alternative form of communion, Jansma’s father lives on in her meals—and that’s not a metaphor.
On November 13–18 and 20, the artist will be present at the installation from 17:30 to 18:00 for a shared moment in which visitors are invited to taste.
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