Studio Orta

We are happy to announce Peewit a new public sculpture for the European Capital of Culture Leeuwarden-Fryslân 2018. The work is permanently installed in the Dutch town of Sloten as part of the 11Fountains, a major contemporary art commission curated by Anna Tilroe.

11Fountains is inspired by the most legendary of all Dutch traditions, the so-called ‘Eleven Cities Tour’, a 200-kilometre ice-skating race through Friesland’s landscape and eleven beautiful historic cities. Eleven contemporary fountains have been commissioned by eleven renowned international artists to build a bridge between the complex, global world of today and the history of a place and its population.

Lucy + Jorge Orta’s “Peewit” fountain comprises of a haphazard stack of buckets, jerry cans and water tubs and basins, implements you come across anywhere in the world. They refer to something that we in our society possess in abundance but that cannot be taken for granted in other parts of the world: water! Water is the source of all life. The water pours into and over the containers in a continuous stream, as if it were never going to dry up. Two children have climbed up the teetering tower to free the peewit from an old Frisian tradition: the gathering of peewit eggs in the spring. For the peewit has become an endangered species due to the rapid growth of intensive agricultural and cattle breeding technology. The bird is carrying a golden key in its beak, the symbol of the city of Sloten and its closely-knit community.

The 11Fountains artists include Allora & Calzadilla, Stephan Balkenhol, Johan Creten, Mark Dion and Cornelia Parker, for further information contact 11Fountains.