Where are you really?
if you pause for a moment traveller
you can hear a rustling maybe
a forest of your own in need
of an ear, hands on the bark
breath caught
Edwin de Groot
(translation: David Colmer)
About the bench
Machiel Braaksma: “The concept for this literary bench came about while philosophizing and walking with writer Edwin de Groot. We walked through the forest and – to my mind – word and image found each other almost automatically. That is probably thanks to the magic of a forest and the state of mind it can bring you. Edwin’s poem is preceded by a question. A very rich question, which allowed me to make all kinds of connections right away. And that is how I ended up with an ‘elf bench’ (the Dutch name for the turkey tail mushroom, or Trametes versicolor). ‘The question opens the spiritual door a crack,’ said Edwin. The person who sits on the bench can open the door further. With an enlarged ‘elf bench’, you as an adult become part of something fairytale-like for a moment. There is almost a kind of ‘teleportation’, because you can take on the role of being ‘small/insignificant’. It evokes a situation of ‘being in your head’. The recurring descriptive rings are reminiscent of something mental and they almost function as a kind of aura. Inviting, soothing, festively decorative. Is the ‘elf bench’ an oracle, a listening big ear, does it represent the zooming in or out of a big bang, or do we see the cross-section of our brains? Shut yourself off and let yourself be enchanted.”
About the makers
Poet | Edwin de Groot (Heerenveen, 1963) is a poet and editor of the Frisian literary magazine ensafh. De Groot publishes in various magazines in Frisian and Dutch. A 6th poetrybook is planned for 2025. He has won a Rely Jorritsma Prize several times for Frisian poems. In addition to writing poetry, he is active in photography and visual arts. Has exhibited with it several times. Both writing and making images are strongly rooted in the landscape, which, as a nature guide for various nature organizations, he likes to talk about during excursions. Language and image increasingly go together in his work.
Visual artist | With a lightly Dadaist slant, Machiel Braaksma takes objects out of daily life, with which he creates new images and situations which are funny, moving or confusing, and nuance or comment on life. He chooses things from everyday life, reassembles them and creates new pieces. Braaksma says about his work: ‘I put everything in the wrong order in the ‘right’ way. “What I want from my work is that it’s original, unmistakable and that it has longevity. I’m looking for resilient, sturdy objects that can unashamedly be themselves yet engaging. Images with an exuberant integrity and a shameless, inner beauty.”
With thanks to
Provincie Fryslân, Gemeente Heerenveen, Walter Baas, Repos Dokkum, Piemschuimletters.nl IJlst
Picture: Hoge Noorden | Jacob van Essen