2025 SITE-SPECIFIC RESIDENCY #1 :

“CAN YOU HEAR ME?” 

Saar Amptmeijer

We are very excited to welcome Saar Amptmeijer for 2025's first site-specific residency here at CURRENT. Saar will use the space between 27th February and 31st of March. Saar's residency "Can you hear me?" is best described by their own words:

“Current lies at the intersection of a series of network nodes. The Fremantle Port, intersecting highways, and submarine internet cables penetrating the Indian Ocean mere kilometers away. There is a mesmerizing effect  the traffic of networks that intersect this place. In what ways are these interconnected routes physical manifestations of human desires? What defines and choreographs that desire - which in turn materially shapes our world? Do we really want what we think we want? And, how does this infrastructure remind us of the irreducible physicality of data?

I am interested in creating physical translations of the institutions and mediums of connection, while examining what shapes them. I wonder how various ‘relationship institutions’ influence these interactions - I refer to relationships such as friendships, partnerships, work relationships, as well as the channels of connection, including shipping routes and, naturally, the internet. Did you know that the submarine cables follow most of the established international shipping routes - eventuating in plain view of Current?

These in turn are modern rehashes of historical sinews of trade and colonialism. As a settler that has migrated from the Netherlands to this continent, I am keen to further investigate the cultural history of these ocean routes and include this into my research. My cultural ancestry is deeply intertwined with mapping out the waterways, and therefore the current data streams of the world, bringing chaos instead of connection.  When making works connected to place on stolen land, it is significant to recognise who’s count we are on. I am new to Walyalup, and would love to learn about the stunning location of Current, and approach country and waterways with curiosity and respect in my research, and include and acknowledge First Nations presence where appropriate and necessary. "

READING GROUP:
Join artist Saar Amptmeijer for a reading group exploring routes and networks that shape our world, and how we imagine these often unseen connections.

Curriculum:

~ Introduction to The Undersea Network by Nicole Starosielski

~ Chapter 1 of Sinews of War and Trade by Laleh Khalili

~ Pandora’s Vox Essay by humbug

Dates + Times:

~ Tuesday 4 March 6-8 pm
~ Tuesday 11 March 6-8 pm
~ Tuesday 18 March 6-8 pm

This group is designed as a space for open conversation, where we can come together to share our ideas, ask questions, and explore the readings. No need to be an expert.

All reading materials will be shared ahead of time, comfy seats and snacks will be supplied :~)

Please email current gallery for expressions of interest — max 15 participants

Halfway through Journal by Saar:

The obvious aesthetics of ports has
got me thinking
About the experience of beauty
Me and the ‘positive challenger’
both staring at neatly lined up cargo
Mesmerising

Blurred boundaries between
cyber and physical space
Suddenly, this infrastructure
makes clear

Who has access to what?
Water
Water
Water

Data
Data
Data

I am obsessed with, tubes
What would it take to create a
world where the internet’s
infrastructure is transparent?
What’s invisible can’t be challenged
I like to imagine
No more heads in the cloud

Phone calls, txt messages,
what would it sound like?
Down there on the ocean floor where,
Underwater tube-like-creatures
dressed up in fibre optic meet?
Can you hear me?
Are you still there?

It’s all dug up here in front of current,
for the new bridge
Got lost trying to get closer
take some photo’s hoping to catch a
glimpse of where those cables
become tubes
And see for myself the irreducible
physicality of data, phone chats
with my mum

Following those same shipping
routes that carried destruction
Forever becoming
This data once sailed.