Visited the Domkerk in Utrecht today, the old cathedral church in the center of town. Its tower is a true landmark & has long been a favourite of mine.  Also the cloister gardens that are a green away-from-it-all space in the center of a busy shopping area. Today I had a look at  the inside of the church with a group of fellow students from HKU.

We met with Desiree Berendsen and Jaap Tuin who represented the church community that has the Domkerk as their home base.  Apart from the services on wednesday evening and on sundays, the Dom is open to the public all year. At christmastime they display a life-size nativity scene that has been designed and made in the ’70s. They are presently looking for a new nativity scene & want this to have an up-to-date look. Via one of our teachers, Elias Tieleman, they contacted us to ask us to make a proposal for a modern nativity.

So we met, talked about what kind of proposal they expect and what timeframe they have in mind,  and were shown around the church.  Next week we will brainstorm about the proposal & try and get 7 or 8 creative minds to work together in the same gear. Challenging!  Will propose that we use my ‘box’ that I developed in Experiment 003 – for instance to have the microphone register sound (songs) and convert it to light somehow?

Church made me think of Pieter Saenredam’s drawings of Utrecht churches, done the early 1600’s.

The church warden drew our attention to a mysterious black square painted high up over the altar. Apparently nobody knows how the thing got there or what it means. Was Malevich ever here? Cannot be: it dates back to the 1600’s too.  If you look closely you can see it in the Saenredam drawing above.

Beautiful church window made by Richard Roland Holst (cousin of Adriaan Roland Holst the poet) in 1920