On 2-3-4 June the first edition of Making Wave, a cultural event with different artworks and activities around Flag of Compassion, takes place at Nieuw Dakota, space for contemporary art in Amsterdam Noord.

Making Waves 1 is organized by young creators and compiled by artists Didi Lehnhausen and Suzanne Bernhardt in close collaboration with Nieuw Dakota and the Unda Foundation. During this weekend an exhibition and a public program can be seen and experienced, a program consisting of performances, films, artworks, lectures, a round table discussion, a radio show, a special dinner and many more.

With all these works the Making Waves Team searches for ways to create connections with the city and its inhabitants. It investigates and makes visible ethical issues, related to the notion of compassion nowadays.

Flag on Compassion is a dynamic artwork without an ending.

Making Waves is a nomadic movement connected to Flag of Compassion, which tries to trigger awareness for ethical issues in our society, again and again in different collaborative projects.

During the collaboration with Nieuw Dakota the Making Waves Team invited young creators, Wave Makers, to make works connected to Flag of Compassion.

This weekend program includes works by Suzanne Bernhardt, Loukie van Hasselt, Sarah Mei Herman, Rini Hurkmans, Tobias Karlsson, Didi Lehnhausen, Rosa Sijben & Margit Odems, Reve Terborg & Lucinda Wessels and Fabiola Veerman.

Guests are invited to join the Making Waves Fundraising Dinner to help making possible the first edition of Making Waves. The challenging dinner is part of the social sculpture Idem Dito by Suzanne Bernhardt. No plates are used but food is presented as a 'landscape' throughout the table and guests have to feed each other with a special cutlery made by Bernhardt in collaboration with Keramiek Atelier Cordaan in Amsterdam Noord. Under a large transparent tablecloth, the Atlas Flag of Compassion and brainstorm drawings can be seen, a collaboration of all Wave Makers that serves as an introduction to Making Waves. The tablecloth is rolled up at the end of the evening with the leftovers in it and is included in the exhibited as an object.

Program Making Waves I

2 JUNE
Friday June 2 the dynamic exhibition Making Waves takes place. Visitors can experience different works, such as the radio station of Fabiola Veerman, the wall installation of Sarah Mei Herman, the installation of Tobias Karlsson, the ceramic cutlery of Suzanne Bernhardt, the photo installation of Didi Lehnhausen, the film installation of Rini Hurkmans, the floor installation of Louki van Hasselt and works by Rosa Sijben.

Also, the first public presentation of the book Compassion, A Paradox in Art and Society takes place. On this occasion a debate about the relationship between art, the public and the public domain takes place, organized in collaboration with Valiz publishing house and LAPS/Rietveld Academy. (link)
AmsterdamFM radio maker Fabiola Veerman runs her radio station Waves On Air, doing live interviews with the three editors of the book, Jeroen Boomgaard, Rini Hurkmans and Judith Westerveld, and director of Nieuw Dakota, Tanja Karreman.

3 JUNE
On Saturday 3 June the Making Waves Fundraising Dinner takes place, a challenging evening with food, performances, art and dance.
-At 18:00 and 18:30 Rosa Sijben and Margit Odemsop perform their performance Mensding at the ferry between Amsterdam Centraal and NDSM.
-At 19:00, Suzanne Bernhardt's performance Idem Dito begins. This is the Making Waves Dinner, which has 50 guests attending who have signed up for it.
-After the dinner, Judith Westerveld and Rini Hurkmans give an explanation of Flag of Compassion, the idea behind Making Waves and the book Compassion, A Paradox in Art and Society.
-Sarah Mei Herman presents a slide show of her work julian and jonathan.
-At 21.00 Loukie van Hasselt reads from her own work Dinner Stories.
-Around 21:30 Tobias Karlsson performs Concert in Support of the Pathetic.
-Afterwards, the The Energy Movement trip by Revé Terborg and Lucinda Wessels takes place.
-The evening ends with the performance Post of Didi Lehnhausen, around 23:00.

4 JUNE
On Sunday 4 June performances of Sarah Mei Herman, Loukie van Hasselt and Tobias Karlsson take place. Fabiola Veerman runs the Waves On Air radio show, in which she interviews the various artists taking part in Making Waves, the Wave Makers, about their contributions and what compassion and the Flag means for them. You can listen to the interviews on SoundCloud (in Dutch only): https://soundcloud.com/fabiola-veerman/sets/waves-on-air-vanuit-nieuw-dakota

The Wave Makers

Suzanne Bernhardt
Idem Dito

Idem Dito is a social sculpture consisting of a series of ceramic ‘cutlery’ deployed during a meal. The participants have to feed each other with the ceramic cutlery. The rhythm and harmony of the meal is determined by an object that constitutes both a bridge and an obstacle between two people. Like Flag of Compassion, Bernhardt's performance is about creating interpersonal contact using an object. With Idem Dito, she investigates how much stability is needed to support something or someone else. The cutlery was made by Bernhardt in collaboration with Keramiek Atelier Cordaan in Amsterdam Noord.

Loukie van Hasselt
Dinner stories / 1,2,3 Guide to Domesticating Space

During Making Waves Loukie van Hasselt shows one of her social sculptures, a floor piece, existing of several pieces of carpet on which texts can be read, that wants to inspire the spectator to imagine being in a different environment. In her work Van Hasselt investigates the influence that spaces have on human behavior and what happens when these spaces change. During Making Waves, she reads from her publications Dinner Stories and 1.2.3 Guide to Domesticating Space.

Sarah Mei Herman
Untitled, Kaunas and Mees / julian and jonathan

Intimacy, coming of age and development play an important role in Sarah Mei Herman’s portrait series. She photographs her often young models over a long period of time, making visible the transition from childhood to adolescence. For Making Waves, she creates an installation of two large pictures, Untitled, Kaunas and Mees. Because of the large size and placement of the images, the viewer relates him/herself to the person depicted, and becomes aware of his own body and position. On Saturday Herman's photo series julian and jonathan is projected on the wall, an intimate portrait of her father and her twenty-year younger half brother. (more)

Rini Hurkmans
The Twirler

The film installation The Twirler shows how in heavy weather a flag twirler performs certain patterns from the ritualistic 'flag prayer' using a Flag of Compassion.
A 'flag prayer' is a historical tradition from the South of The Netherlands, wherein flag twirlers waving a flag in a specific way, symbolically expressing the fight against evil and injustice. The work also refers to the book Don Quixote of Cervantes. The book describes the clash between the ideal and fictional world (of Don Quixote) and the real world. It is a classic contrast of mind versus body, reason versus desire and ideals versus reality.

Tobias Karlsson
B – PATHETIC. B – E – PATHETIC

'Pathetic' is a word that usually calls for a negative connotation. In his comic and emotional communication theatre, Tobias Karlsson holds an argument for a positive meaning of the word 'pathetic', which he believes can be related to the word 'compassion'. Using personal examples and semantic argumentation, he investigates what ‘being pathetic’ means.

Didi Lehnhausen
Post / Dear Friend

During Making Waves, Didi Lehnhausen exhibits her installation Post, four prints on barite paper showing the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam and the replica of a VOC ship. In the way the printing process is used, the building in the picture looks deformed and the walls damaged. The work investigates the way we look at our colonial past and how we relate to the physical remains of colonialism that still surround us. In the performance Dear Friend, the negatives of the photographs are projected and cleaned on the spot, while spectators listen to a sound clip in which we hear Wave Makers reading a letter, discussing an intimate friendship as a relationship between two countries.

Rosa Sijben en Margit Odems
Mensding

During Making Waves, dramatist Margit Odems and visual artist Rosa Sijben show a part of their performance Mensding, a work they made for the Over the IJ festival. Mensding is a visual performance about watching and being watched. The performance is performed on the ferry between Central Station and NDSM. In their performance, Sijben and Odems fade the boundaries between human and object, visual arts and theatre, and art and daily reality. What does it mean to objectify a human and vice versa, is the question they pose to their spectators. Odems and Sijben reveal the human in the thing and the thing in humans.

Reve Terborg en Lucinda Wessels
Energy Movement Experience

The Energy Movement Experience of choreographer Revé Terborg and DJ Lucinda Wessels is a dance performance in which participants are challenged to invent their own movements and copy the movements of others, according to the music. For Making Waves the duo adapted the music and dance to the theme of waves and water. With this interactive performance, Wessels and Terborg want to bring awareness of one's own body and the body of others. Following the movements of the other dancers creates a connection between people who do not know each other.

Fabiola Veerman
Waves On Air

During Making Waves artist Fabiola Veerman gives on location a live report of the events at Nieuw Dakota. The broadcast includes a series of interviews, in which the participating artists, Wave Makers, describe their work and explain the role that compassion plays in it. You can listen to the podcast of “Waves on Air” on SoundCloud.