Inside Poolside, 2020
Artist in residence Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn
with accompanying public program

[Nederlandse versie]

As part of the summer programme Inside Poolside at Hotel Maria Kapel, artist Rik Dijkhuizen has developed a new work that reflects on the swimming pools of our lives, both physically and metaphorically. The work, a swimming pool of 5 by 8 meters in the centuries-old exhibition space, is the result of a research trajectory and brings together various references in a narrative installation that ‘is not entirely out of this world, but feels strangely familiar’.

Says Dijkhuizen: “My installation Inside Poolside reflects on the idea that water carries matter, meaning and memory, and distributes positivity and negativity through our bodies and across time and space. Our bodies and beings are more watery and fluid and less static and isolated than we tend to think. Water already brings us pleasure and respite; we feel nurtured by taking a shower, we feel connected by immersing our body in a river, we overcome failure by taking a plunge – we can almost taste happiness in a glass of water. Pools are places where we come together, like water, with water, through water. What if we build watery communities – like pools? The installation I have made is meant to be a communal oasis of (collective) wellbeing, caring and togetherness, somewhere between memory and fiction.”

Be like water
Inside Poolside brings together a host of references, like water philosophy and Masaru Emoto’s book The Hidden Messages in Water. The writer claims that water remembers, carries and distributes positive and negative influences in its particles. While speculative, the theory is an evoking attempt at thinking materially with water. The essay Hydrofeminism: Or, On Becoming a Body of Water by Astrida Neimanis reminds us that water itself runs through all of our bodies and landscapes, connects us across time and space: ‘We are all bodies of water’.

A pool in a chapel
We come together at swimming pools to play, to feel our bodies and those of others, to rest, to gossip, to illicitly gaze, to check in with ourselves or check out of the stress of everyday life. Pools are places of communing and of exposure, of vulnerability and sheer joy, where we enjoy endless summer days, melting ice creams and the cool sting of chlorinated water on sun-kissed skin. We all have memories of pools.

Brightly coloured and inviting, Inside Poolside invites the audience to commune, to dip their feet, to chill by the pool, to reflect, and to interact with the water. As such, the work aims to establish a local hydrology of collective embodiment, wellbeing and shared happiness. It thinks of pools as models for utopian communities in which water is an extra dimension that we all share and where we come together, like water, with water, through water.

Opening and public programme
At the opening on 31 July (16.00-21.00), attendees gathered to sing around the water with a collective choir session of Kanye West’s song Water (chorus). The installation Inside Poolside set the stage for a summer programme, a.o. a synchronised swimming workshop in the IJselmeer, a video work and a series of photo works.

Read the accompanying essay down below:

Our relationship with water knows a long and rich history. We are surrounded by water and it is central to many of our needs, activities, customs, traditions and rituals. We grow up in water, we move on water, we take care of our bodies and landscapes with water, we come together through water, we ponder about water. The streams and rivers, the lakes, seas and oceans – water is the largest body on earth, it is always moving, it is both sublime and awe-inspiring, and it also manages to slowly seep through the smallest imaginable cracks. We learn about the unknown in its particles, we wonder about the mysteries on its surface, we long for miracles in its depths.

It is not surprising that many properties are attributed to water that transcend its materiality. We know that water takes care of us, that it purifies our body and mind, and we believe that it cleanses us from the mistakes we made, that it relieves us from the struggles we face. Water brings us pleasure and respite: we feel nurtured by taking a shower, we feel connected by immersing our body in a river, we overcome our fear of failure by taking a plunge – we can almost taste happiness in a glass of water.

Our bodies consist largely of water and with water we feel and are connected to each other and the world around us. The distinction between our body and the landscape is less static and isolated than we tend to think. We are all watery bodies that are part of a large hydrology; fluid, dynamic, porous – always in relation to-, everywhere close, never a being, always a becoming. Or, as Astrida Niemanis teaches us in her essay Hydrofeminism; Or, On Becoming a Body of Water: ‘I am a singular, dynamic whorl dissolving in a complex, fluid circulation.’

Water gives and takes. It pulsates and moves. The influences to which it is constantly exposed, from within and without, the positive and negative, are absorbed, housed, remembered and distributed like water, with water and by water – everywhere, always. They float with the current through our landscapes and bodies, it comes and goes like ebb and flow, like waves from deep water. It seeps in and out of tiny pores, on its way to new territories to grow or erode. Our watery body nourishes while it gets contaminated – it pollutes while it is being cared for.

Wellbeing moves like water, with water, through water. It is not localised but flows through our watery bodies, our watery landscapes, our watery communities. Our feelings and emotions, our fears, traumas and loneliness, but also our memories, desires and ambitions – they are constantly in motion; they are neither absolute nor absent; they come together in our bodies like temporary ponds or subterranean lakes. They keep quiet in the undertow, they create a ripple or a wave, they surface like a spring – before they move on with the stream that connects us all. Body and landscape; ‘me’ and ‘you’; wellbeing – everything is like water.

Tasting happiness in a glass of water
Drinking from a fountain
A boat journey to new shores
Gathering at swimming pools
Taking the plunge

We come together at the swimming pools of our lives to enjoy the water and being like water. We remember the pools from our youth and we think about the pools -dreamed or real- that we visit or want to visit in the future. Places where we are like water, with water, in water, as watery bodies, together, as watery communities. Places where we experience the joy of a cannonball’s splash, of diligent laps made by able bodies, of synchronized swimming, of melting ice creams, poolside parties and drunken karaoke – where we can relax, rehabilitate, recuperate and reflect; where we do not have to feel alone; where we leave our worries and fears behind. A sanctuary, for ourselves and together.

The nurturing water from our swimming pools flows like a river of poolside memories through our lives. As we move from pool to pool, we experience moments of (shared) happiness; we gather and enjoy; we become part of different communities and histories. Some pools have been there for many years, others are newly built. Some are from drifting, others are for diving. Some are filled with laughter, others are more quiet. We dip our feet in cold water, we go down a steep slide – splash, ahh, here we are – before we move on to other pools to discover.

Inside Poolside at Hotel Maria Kapel adds another pool to that history – where we come together in a time of social distancing, where we have fun in a time filled with worries, where we care while being cared for, where everyone is welcome to create and share new poolside memories. This pool is an oasis for happiness, wellbeing and collective embodiment. Here, everyone is invited to put their feet in the water and think, talk, sing, dance and laugh by and with the water – and to be like water.

To me, and hopefully to many more, Inside Poolside is a temporary escape from a world flooded with crises, viruses, inequality, discontent, deep individualism and the mental challenges that surface from it. Inside Poolside – part nostalgia, partly imagined – takes us (back) to moments of joy and thinks about community and care; where the good is shared and the bad can be overcome; where we are watery bodies, where we make new memories, where we build watery communities.

Photography: Bart Treuren

The exhibition and summer programme Inside Poolside was kindly supported by Mondriaan Fonds, Stichting Stokroos, Gemeente Hoorn and Stichting de Hoorn.