Minnari Lee

The Creature

The North Sea has long been an imaginary space for mankind. This project is a future archive from the year 2200 in IJmuiden, imagining a new form of offshore infrastructure: a floating entity that serves as an ‘indeterminate interface’, intertwining ‘hard’ technological systems with ‘soft’ biophysical processes. This entity can be seen as a regenerative farmer of the North Sea:  growing seaweed and fish, desalinating seawater into freshwater, harvesting energy using waves and carrying these sea products to nearby cities, such as IJmuiden. People live in close proximity to it.  They engage in its construction, operation, and maintenance in return for ‘harvest’. It aims to redefine our – somewhat forgotten – relationship with our resources, landscape, non-humans and natural elements. Ultimately, it seeks to replace the way conventional infrastructure operates in our current environment. This is also a criticism of the latter, which involves brutal removal of unwanted – mostly natural – elements for its efficient operation and for the benefit of humans.  

This project establishes the theoretical concepts, which is confined to the realm of abstraction and presents a concrete model through a more tangible practice. The ideas are communicated through diverse formats, such as moving images, paintings and a sculpture.  In this way, the project slowly materialises on the horizon of the North Sea, in the form of ‘The Creature'.   
 

Graduation date: 29 January 2024
Graduation committee: Jeroen van Mechelen (mentor), Jandirk Hoekstra  †, Marten Kuijpers
Additional members for the exam: Geurt Holdijk, Susana Constantino