In the spring of 2019, together with my musician friend Marnix, I started with the creation of a character. A character based on the region in the Netherlands we are both from; Westfriesland. The region is known for its stiff, stubborn, not a word too much, and concealed character, but as a result of the boredom, it is also known for her typical eccentric provincials who attempt to conquer the world. Because with no drama happening around you, you have to create your own.
The project started out as an ode to the way we always exaggerated our lives as a result of the boredom we have experienced growing up in the flat and dull Westfriesland. This ode is the character Martin Malibu. Martin is a parody on romanticising provincial life, and the pain and burdens of the troubled provincial artist. Martin’s life is dominated by his dream of becoming a singer, following in the footsteps of world famous West-Frisian singer George Baker.
The fictional character, played by my friend Marnix, started out with a short film followed by the debut release of Martin’s music. In the process of creating this film I already started noticing how similar Marnix started to behave to Martin. He started to wear the same clothes, say the same things and act the same way as Martin. This made me curious to research this further. I started to approach the character in a more documentary way to slowly introduce him from his fictional world into the real world. I noticed that the more I was doing this, the less I had to direct it.
Marnix started morphing into Martin.
FOIL
Covering up a chemical disaster with foil.
The Volgermeerpolder is a nature reserve north of Amsterdam in the village Broek in
Waterland, which function is mainly recreational nowadays.
In the early 40’s the area became a dumping ground for household waste, from the 60’s large pharmaceutical companies started to illegally dump chemicals on this terrain. At least 100 000 barrels of chlorobenzene, toxic dioxins, residues of the herbicide chemical Agent Orange and other toxic chemicals were dumped here. After this was discovered in the 80’s the Dutch government started to clean the area of 100 hectares.
They managed to do this by covering the whole area with foil and building a new artificial nature reserve on top of it. It is expected that the foil will eventually dissolve and that the nature reserve will build up its own natural protection from the polluted soil beneath.
2016