Toevluchtsoord

Toevluchtsoord 
 (installation)

Work period H(a)L, Rotterdam, Liza Wolters & Raquel Vermunt, 2021


For our site-specific work period at Hilton Art Lab, located in the old breakfast room of the Hilton Hotel in Rotterdam, the hotel was our starting point. We stayed there day and night, roamed around and worked on multiple site-specific exhibitions together with others. Everything we made in the hotel was directly translated into the space of H(a)L. We got to know the spaces through our own and each other's eyes. We were absorbed in the hotel, its rooms and corridors. A hotel is always standing still in a way. It’s a place where the visitors do not define the place; it’s the place itself that does this. 
It doesn't matter who is sleeping there, as long as someone is sleeping there. It's not about who's waiting in the foyer, as long as someone is waiting.



We invited other artists to roam with us during the work period and with whom we created the exhibition moments. Visual artist and filmmaker Emma van der Put sent us a combination of two video works to which we responded with work of our own, and which we brought together in a video installation. We organised a live printshop with visual artist and writer Lorelinde Verhees, where collages and combinations were made in one day, with the images we photographed in the hotel. Musician Wouter van Nienes played a live set surrounded by videos and moving photographic images by us. Artist duo Leopold/Emmen, consisting of filmmaker Nanouk Leopold and visual artist Daan Emmen, delivered two works that we brought together with our own video work during the closing weekend of the work period.



With great thanks to

Emma, Lorelinde, Wouter, Nanouk and Daan

Herman Lamers, initiator Hilton Art Lab

Roel Meelkop, TENT Rotterdam

Paul van Gennip, Kunstinstituut MELLY

Loes van Duijvendijk, Robin de Vries and Hilde Speet for the documentation

Joep de Boer for filming and editing the live set of Wouter van Nienes
/Laplander
Patrice Winfield for filming along for one day

and all our dear friends who helped out during the work period

CBK Rotterdam for the financial support