SILENT WITNESSES HARD FACTS
In collaboration with Parklaan Landscape Architects and commissioned by the municipality of Enschede and ADT (Area Development Twente)
Assignment; the transformation of four historical objects into meaningful places in a ‘guilty landscape’.
AFSZ PARALLAX The tanks of a former Air Fuel Station (AFS) now form two immense eyes focused on the redeveloped nature development area on the site of the former airport.
C26 DOPPLER A former test building (run-up) where the jet engines of F16’s were tested has now been dismantled and transformed into a cathedral shaped skeleton in which the dying away noise of aircraft is mixed with bird sounds. Silencers at the back of the monument tell stories of crashed planes, peasants driven away by the Germans and the story of a daughter about her still missing father.
TARGET Deep in the forest against the flanks of the Lonnekerberg lies like a chapel a mysterious building. It turns out to be a bullet-catcher with which the guns of bombers were aimed during World War II. The bars of the fence that now protect the interior of this monument seem to represent the shock waves of impacting grenades.
RICOCHET In the wooden walls of the bullet-catcher of the range, the grazing shots are still visible as silent witnesses. The design of the bars of the fence that now protects this object still resonates with the sound of the bullets.
Realisation; 2016
READ; ‘Art as a silent witness to hard facts’ Kester Freriks, NRC April 2016
HERE you can download a booklet about this project