Comissions
Comissions
Once a year, Thinking Forest commissions a new artwork to be presented at andgoed Welna. To date, two artists have realized this commission: Gerbrand Burger with On A Trajectory Through A Maze Of Trajectories in 2024, followed by Germaine Kruip with Resonance Field in 2025. These works have become permanent additions to Welna’s landscape.
Thinking Forest invites artists to explore the rich ecology of Welna through their work and, in doing so, to examine the place of humans within the living world. How can we, as human animals, (re)connect with that world? How do we find a balance between the use of materials and resources and the protection and preservation of vulnerable habitats?
Artists are encouraged to physically enter the forest and make contact, allowing answers to emerge from direct engagement with this environment. The work may be created during a stay at Welna and produced on site, or developed over a longer period through multiple shorter visits, in accordance with the needs of the artist and the development and production process.
The commission is characterized by an organic working method that allows ample room for experimentation, adopting a fluid approach to time rather than a rigid schedule. The commission may unfold over one or several years, as collaboration with the Welna environment is central. We move in alignment with the cyclical, seasonal processes of the forest and shape the commission in response to the artist’s wishes as they relate to these processes. The artist and the listening process of the work— in dialogue with the ecology and the landscape — take center stage. In this way, the commission offers an alternative to conventional modes of art production, in contrast to the pace and dense programming of the more institutional art world.
Our forest is hosting a growing body of evolving permanent works.
Artists for the annual commission are selected by a selection committee consisting of Gerbrand Burger, Rowan Stol, and Esther Schipper (advisory).
Rather than working through an open call, the committee discusses artists whose practices they recognize as resonating with the vision of Thinking Forest.
The first commission coincided with the launch of the foundation’s activities in 2024. Founding director Gerbrand Burger created the sculptural installation On a Trajectory Through a Maze Of Trajectories. The title refers to a text by anthropologist Tim Ingold, who writes how objects and materials as separate, finished entities don’t really exist; all materials are continually becoming, sometimes in correspondence with human makers, on their trajectories through a maze of trajectories.
For the 2025 commission artist Germaine Kruip developed Resonance Field, which transforms a traditional pastoral element into a continuous sound sculpture. The work features a herd of sheep, each wearing a custom-cast, harmonically tuned bell that creates an ever-evolving soundscape as the animals move through the landscape.