SCHIEDAM.- In the festive year that marks Schiedam’s 750th anniversary as a city, the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam breathes new life into the former dance hall and cinema, Monopole, through art. On Saturday Night 20 September, the museum opened a new sister location with the exhibition Silence & The Presence of Everything, featuring captivating art installations that explore natural phenomena. Artists including Boris Acket, Sabine Marcelis, and Lachlan Turczan use technology to reflect on nature, showcasing captured sunlight, weather systems made of fabric and light, swaying grasses from Minnesota, boundless horizons, and dancing droplets that flow towards the centre of the earth.
Installations by Sabine Marcelis, Guido van der Werve, Tina Farifteh, Lachlan Turczan, David Bowen, Gordon Hempton, Lily Clark, and Boris Acket are spread throughout the Monopole. Acket also serves as guest curator of the exhibition, together with co-curator Sanneke Huisman.
Silence is the presence of everything
Acoustic ecologist and philosopher Gordon Hempton, a key source of inspiration for this exhibition, once placed a microphone in nature and listened through headphones. The result was an unforgettable experience. Boris Acket and Sanneke Huisman explain: “That feeling was our starting point for this exhibition. You enter a world where everything feels like it’s being experienced for the very first time — through the eyes and ears of the artists. The exhibition title is drawn from one of Hempton’s statements, which sums it all up perfectly: ‘Silence is not the absence of something, but the presence of everything’.”
The works, displayed across two floors of the building, invite visitors to contemplate our place as humans in the world and how we are entangled in the complex systems of nature and technology. Where does the boundary between humanity and nature lie, if it exists at all? Is the horizon perhaps the only real border on Earth? Do these works help us better understand the world, or do they highlight just how distant we are from the often incomprehensible forces of nature? Silence & The Presence of Everything is both an invitation and a challenge to rediscover the world around us.
A sensory journey through natural and physical phenomena
Visitors are taken on a sensory journey through everyday, natural, and physical phenomena. Lily Clark beautifully captures the idea that even the smallest water droplets always flow towards the centre of the Earth. Guido van der Werve spent 24 hours standing at the very tip of the North Pole, refusing to rotate with the Earth. His film Nummer negen, the day I didn't turn with the world serves as a silent witness to that act.
Unusual Weather Phenomena by Boris Acket is an impressive installation that visitors can lie beneath to experience an unusual weather event. Alternatively, you can view it from the balcony above, where it moves like a living landscape. Ingeniously designed, it features a self-learning algorithm developed by Acket and creative programmer Corey Schneider. This algorithm takes over control of the natural phenomenon, meaning the artist eventually relinquishes command of his own work.
David Bowen’s Telepresent Wind simulates the effect of wind across a field of rustling grass. By attaching a moving mechanical device to a field of dried grass stalks, he uses technology to link them with similar grasses in his garden in Minnesota (USA). Digital technology transmits real-time wind data from Minnesota to the Monopole installation, causing the grass in Schiedam to sway in sync with the wind across the Atlantic.
The Monopole and its curators
At the invitation of the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, curator and artist Boris Acket – in collaboration with co-curator Sanneke Huisman – is creating the very first exhibition in the former cinema and dance hall, Monopole, located directly opposite the museum. After standing empty for many years, this listed building is finally being given a new purpose. With striking, immersive installations by a range of artists, the museum brings the Monopole back to life from September 2025 onwards.
A platform for a new generation of artists
Anne de Haij, Director of the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, looks forward to the start of programming at the Monopole: “It will be the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam’s younger sister. The artworks on show not only offer a unique sensory experience but also carry an important social message. The former cinema is the perfect setting for this. We offer a platform to a new generation of artists, and with that, we also hope to reach a new generation of visitors. Through large-scale, immersive installations, we’re focusing on young culture enthusiasts and young adults who are engaged with art and creativity, but don’t always feel at home in museums or within the offerings of major cultural institutions.”
Boris Acket
Boris Acket (1988) is a contemporary artist and composer who works with sound, light, and movement, exploring the balance between control and surrender within the natural world. His work, originally rooted in electronic music and club culture, has evolved into a boundary-pushing investigation of the relationship between sound art, music, and performance spaces, where the line between exhibition and club experience often blurs.
He has previously collaborated with a network of Dutch and international artists, including Sabine Marcelis and Joep Beving, on large-scale visual installations in the Netherlands and abroad, at venues such as Mutek MX, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NXT Museum, Holland Festival, Het Hem, Amsterdam Dance Event, and Down The Rabbit Hole. He is continuing this mission in Schiedam.
Sanneke Huisman
Sanneke Huisman (1985) is an art historian, writer, and curator specialising in media art. She is the co-editor of A Critical History of Media Art in the Netherlands: Platforms, Policies, Technologies. In 2023, she curated the exhibition Ekstasis. A Universe of Light and Sound for the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, in collaboration with the artist Nick Verstand. She is also the curator of Tec Art (Katoenhuis, 2025) and We Can Talk About Something Else (Loods6, 2025).
