23 March 2024

Presentation Pilar Mata Dupont & Erika Roux: Unpacking The Polder Western

Public presentation

Image in progress van The Polder Western door Pilar Mata Dupont en Erika Roux, 2024

Kunsthuis SYB warmly invites you to Unpacking The Polder Western, a presentation concluding the residency of Pilar Mata Dupont and Erika Roux, on Saturday, March 23, 2024 at 15.00.

Mata Dupont and Roux will show drafts of the first edited scenes of their film The Polder Western. The presentation includes a Q&A between the artists and director Arnisa Zeqo as a way to unpack the research behind the film, and the motivations behind their cinematic language. Visitors are invited to ask questions and give feedback to the artists about their work in progress.

The final outcome of this cinematic experiment and broader research will take the form of a solo exhibition Scenes From the Polder Western curated by Niekolaas Lekkerkerk. The exhibition opens on May 18, 2024 at RADIUS, Center for Contemporary Art and Ecology in Delft.

We look forward to welcoming you to SYB on Saturday, March 23 at 15.00.

Program
15:00 Walk-in
15:15 Screening of first edited scenes + discussion
16:15 Closing drinks
17:00 End

About their residency
At Kunsthuis SYB, Pilar Mata Dupont and Erika Roux worked on their research Floodland: research for a Dutch Western.

Drawing from three years of interviews and writing, this residency signals the end of a longer ongoing period of investigation into how the Western genre and concerns with sea-level rise can be articulated together within the artistic realm.

At SYB, Mata Dupont and Roux combined their different approaches to filmmaking and research to dive into a shared interest in investigating urgent ideas surrounding the Dutch and Frisian local response to climate change and rising sea levels. They particularly focused on deconstructing national myths and political narratives around water management. During their stay, they have worked with a film crew and actors, and have filmed different scenes, re-imagining the Frisian landscape as the set of a Western genre film.