Archive Event VI - The Chase
Miriam Sentler
29 October – 30 October 2022

The Archive Series invites artists, curators, researchers and institutions from the Netherlands and abroad to participate in conversations around the nature of the archive and the impulse to collect information, ideas and materials. Stemming from Looiersgracht 60’s commitment to a dialogue surrounding preservation, the Archive Series’ is made up of unique, site-specific events investigating archives through installation, performance and conversations with artists and practitioners actively engaged in better understanding the past in our present.

For the sixth edition of the Archive Series, Looiersgracht 60 presents ‘The Chase’, a unique installation by visual artist and artistic researcher Miriam Sentler. Accompanying the installation will be a public program with Sentler’s frequent collaborators, environmental humanities researcher Sadie Hale, and composer Drake Stoughton. Sentler and Hale will perform Cairban: A Contemporary Shark Hunt followed by a panel discussion between Sentler and Stoughton, moderated by Alicja Melzacka, curator of Jester, an exhibition space established on a former coal mine in Genk, BE.

‘The Chase’ brings together three of Sentler’s projects surrounding artistic methods of archiving endangered species in landscapes exploited for fossil fuel extraction. Considering the act of the ‘chase’, Sentler does not strive to capture her subjects, but rather focuses on the reach towards engagement with fleeting sources. Methods such as translating the sounds of endangered birds into sheet music or following the legendary basking shark as dual industrial resource and sea-monster are presented in the installation as methods to engage with the changes of precarious landscapes. Sentler explores these on-going research projects through the performance, discussion and installations and questions their methodologies as (im)possible archival instruments of the chase.

The performance and panel talk will take place on October 29 from 16:00 - 18:00, and will be followed by drinks.

Admission is free, but there are limited seats available so please RSVP for the public programme by emailing info@looiersgracht60.org

The installation will be open for viewing on Oct 29 and 30 from 12:00-20:00

Miriam Sentler

Miriam Sentler (b. 1994, DE) is a Netherlands-based visual artist and artistic researcher. Sentler's work emphasizes the continuous changing of environments, focusing on the cultural and environmental legacy of (fossil fuel) industries and the contemporary landscape. Sentler holds an MA in Artistic Research from University of Amsterdam and a BFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht. In 2020, she was awarded the Mondriaan Fund Stipendium for Emerging Artists. In 2020 Sentler founded the interdisciplinary artistic research project Deep Time Agency together with artist Wouter Osterholt, as a practice in fostering a deeper sense of belonging by returning archeological finds to their (post)industrial landscapes. Sentler’s work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions at institutions such as Radius Centre for Contemporary Art and Ecology, Delft, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, Museum Bommel van Dam & Odapark, Venlo and CIAP Kunstverein, Genk.

Sadie E. Hale

Sadie E. Hale is an environmental humanities researcher and current PhD fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen (Norway). Hale’s research stems from human-whale relations in the Anthropocene. Hale works as a part of the SEATIMES project, where she conducts ethnographic fieldwork at sites where contemporary whale tourism takes place and where whales have been historically hunted in locations such as the Azores, Portugal and the Arctic Norway. Hale held a residency in 2021 at KNOCKvologan with collaborator and artist, Miriam Sentler. She was joint winner of both the ASLEC-ANZ Deborah Bird Rose Prize in 2022 and the ‘Best Performance’ prize at the Department of Gender Studies at the London School of Economics in 2016. Her published work can be found in Edge Effects digital magazine (2020) and The European Journal of Women's Studies (2018).

Alicja Melzacka

Alicja Melzacka is an independent researcher, curator and writer. Melzacka is a graduate of the Curatorial Studies programme at KASK, Ghent. She has studied Art History at the University of Gdansk, Heritage Studies at Maastricht University, and Applied Linguistics at the University of Gdansk and Technische Universität Braunschweig. Melzacka has collaborated with a number of institutions in Belgium and the Netherlands, including CIAP Kunstverein (Hasselt), KRIEG (Hasselt), and Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts and Design. She co-curated State of Statelessness and co-organised Rites of Exchange, both at L’ISELP in Brussels. She is one of the members of the artist collective NOW/HERE. Melzacka is currently the curator of the exhibition space, Jester, born from the merging of FLACC and CIAP in Genk, BE.

Drake Stoughton

Drake Stoughton is a performer, arranger, and educator of saxophone pedagogy and musical approach. Stoughton studied saxophone performance and literature at the Eastman School of Music and received a Bachelor’s of Music Education degree at Shenandoah Conservatory in 2018. Between 2018-2019, Stoughton was the recipient of a Fulbright Grant to continue his studies in The Hague, NL with saxophonist Raaf Hekkema. Stoughton has played in a multitude of both solo and chamber ensemble settings across the United States and Europe and has been awarded within the Shenandoah Conservatory Concerto Competition, the National Glen Miller Birthplace Society Scholarship Competition and the Grote Kamermuziekprijs Competition and was presented with the Presser Foundation Award for his merit as an instrumental performer.