In May 2026, I presented the first chapter of A Basket Holding Land at puntWG, as part of The Long Middle, a collaborative exhibition with Youngeun Sohn and Romy Day Winkel.
This artistic research began a year earlier during a residency at Nesse–Terneuzen in Zeeland. In a region where water is omnipresent, I investigated an invisible yet crucial element of Dutch water infrastructure: to prevent erosion, large-scale woven willow structures are submerged along the dikes, called ‘fascines’. My interest lies in the bodily intelligence and collaborative labour involved in their making (harvesting, bundling, and weaving willow), and collectively moving these large, flexible structures into water. Guided by the willow plant and its long histories of bodily and manual knowledge, the research unfolded into three components:
— a 16-metre replica of a ‘willow sausage’ (this is the actual technical term in hydraulic engineering :) expanding through the gallery space
— a printed matter tracing my stream of consciousness through archival materials and the semantic of ‘fascines’: from the intensive labour of harvesting willow, to basketry techniques, to the historical healing properties of willow bark (chemically synthesised as aspirin), to the corruption of the bundle symbol by fascism, to the figure of the witch
— a willow-woven back-brace, as an ambivalent promise to soothe the pain of labour while extending its endurance.
Central to the work is the relationship between body and labour, articulated through repetitive handwork and the endurance demanded by willow processes. By reflecting on bodily experience within systems of landscape management, historical craft techniques, and material traditions, the work aims to draw out the interchangeable forms of care and violence enacted between land, plants, human bodies, and water.
Photos by Harm van den Berg
Assistance by Menyhért Pragai
With many thanks to Nesse–Terneuzen, Adriënne van der Werf, van Schaik Salix, Betty van Schaik, Landschapsbeheer Zeeland, Van Oord, Lotte Walvius, Het Zeeuwse archief, Jan de Vos, Mandenmakerij De Mythe, students of U gent, Daan Schermerhorn, Den Hartog drukkerij, Ambacht Voucher Mondriaan fonds, puntWG team, Susan Kooi, Jacob Hoving, and my dear fellow exhibitor Romy Day Winkel and Youngeun Sohn.
About The long middle by Marie Ilse Bourlanges, Youngeun Sohn, Romy Day Winkel
puntWG in Amsterdam, 9 t/m 24 mei 2026
Graphic design: Jacob Hoving
The long middle is a collaborative exhibition by Marie Ilse Bourlanges, Youngeun Sohn and Romy Day Winkel. Through sculpture, installation and performance works, the exhibition takes weaving as its underlying logic and as a way of thinking about embodiment and materiality.
The long middle explores bodily engagement with materials like silk, hair and willow bark, and the works share an interest in maintenance work: actions that must be performed continuously in order to keep things going. Weaving thread, shaping bark, and brushing hair are all durational gestures. Through them, materials and bodies are kept in use, shaped by prolonged contact with one another. This closeness to material can be tender, yet also awkward, tedious, or uncomfortable. The exhibition does not idealise this work, but stays with its ambivalence.
The exhibition title draws on multiple references, including Kate Briggs' book The Long Form, which reflects on the sustained effort of creative work while caring for a child. 'The long middle' also refers to the challenging middle phase of a project, after novelty has settled but completion remains open. A mode of labour that is ongoing and often invisible. By allowing such tensions to remain unresolved, The long middle resists sanitised narratives of bodily engagement with materials. Contact is neither purely nurturing nor purely degrading; it is a fact of working with and through bodies. This ambivalence resonates with the history of puntWG, housed in the former Wilhelmina Gasthuis, where bodies were shaped by regimes of care, control, and hygiene. Working within this history, the exhibition refuses the clean separation between care and strain, maintenance and exposure, tending and being worn down.
