The tranquility, space, connection with nature, silence, and seclusion: the island offers ideal conditions for reflection, experimentation, and research.
Within the Werkplaats, we have been inviting emerging and established creators to stay on Terschelling for several days to conduct research in this scenic context. This can be done year-round. Based on an artistic question, we challenge artists to develop new or existing projects on and with a location.
Sometimes this is specifically in preparation for a project for the upcoming festival, other times it is because we find a creator interesting or want to bring together certain people and ideas. It is always a surprise where it will lead. We believe that the residencies contribute to our ambition to create new forms of site-specific work on the island. We also see a need from the creators themselves for a laboratory where new ideas can be developed.
2025
2024
FloenK, consisting of Meia Eggermont and Cas de Graaf, is the winner of Kunstbende 2023 in the Theatre category. For Oerol 2024, they have developed a new performance, Kapotte Poppenkoppen, which they presented to the audience at the festival hub, De Deining. The performance was designed to leave the audience feeling confused, giving them the freedom to decide for themselves how deeply they wanted to reflect on it. Their work, often spontaneous and improvised, is a search for new and unexpected ways of storytelling.
Within Werkplaats Oerol, the team of Niet Mijn Huis has been working on a scene inspired by the short story Casa Tomada by Julio Cortázar. This performance, which focuses on language barriers and accessibility, explores how multilingual theatre can be created. During the residency, audiences were given unique insights into the creative process, with opportunities to attend rehearsals. The performance is presented in spoken Dutch, Dutch Sign Language, and with audio description, engaging with themes of alienation and loss.
More White Money focuses on the impact of European art subsidies on the global art market. This international residency on Terschelling, facilitated by Oerol, brought together artists from various countries to explore these imbalances. During Oerol, they shared their initial impressions and findings with the audience and fellow professionals. The performance will premiere in November 2025 at Sophiensæle in Berlin and will subsequently tour throughout the Netherlands.
During her residency at Werkplaats Oerol, Amira al Rawi worked on her first site-specific performance, Majnun, a dance piece that will be further developed and presented at the Over het IJ Festival. Based on the ancient Arabic tale of Layla and Majnun, the performance explores themes of alienation and deep longing. Al Rawi, both creator and performer, incorporates dance styles such as waacking, house dance, and flamenco. The music, composed by Esmail Bnaoe, blends electronic, industrial, and Middle Eastern influences.
The musical makers’ collective BUI developed their work What are you building in there!? on location within Werkplaats Oerol. On the beach near the festival hub, they created an improvisation space that shifted and transformed with the tide over the course of six hours. Musicians built and dismantled structures, sang melodies, and played wind instruments and drums, drawing inspiration from the moment and their surroundings. The work was a celebration of the here and now, where the landscape, the audience, and passers-by became integral parts of the performance.
Within Werkplaats Oerol, Romke Gabe Draaijer developed an audio installation titled SEAGULL 6004 (not Chekhov), which tells the story of the herring gull from the bird’s own perspective. Based on scientific research, the installation explored the interaction between humans and gulls, posing the question of who truly is the greater nuisance. During Oerol 2024, Draaijer shared the first results of this work in progress with the audience. His artistic practice is supported by Tryater.
What is the wiser choice: to die or to reproduce? Within Werkplaats Oerol, Eva Bartels explored confronting questions that resonate with the painful phases of our earthly existence. Inspired by Ana Mendieta’s Earth Works, Bartels carried out re-enactments and group rituals with the audience — including a living burial and a collective fertilisation. Through these acts, Bartels questions both herself and the audience, seeking to let go of traditional norms and feelings of guilt and shame.
In his project Lacuna Kitchen, Abhishek Thapar explores the gap between the audience and the often invisible people who cook, serve, and clean up our meals in restaurants. During his residency at Werkplaats Oerol, Thapar prepared a Terschelling edition of Lacuna Kitchen as part of the Oerol Festival 2025 programme. He researched suitable locations, explored the island’s hospitality scene, and discovered where Terschelling’s food comes from. In addition, he explored potential collaborations for next year’s project. The aim is to invite the audience to participate in both the front and back of the restaurant experience, fostering awareness and care for the food and the people involved in creating it.
In September 2023, Johannes Westendorp began a two-year research project at the University of Antwerp. His work explores the potential of site-specific concerts in which insects and amphibians take centre stage. He and his team have built an eight-speaker sound installation that immerses visitors in an acoustic environment. Using effect pedals and self-made electronics, they create sounds reminiscent of natterjack toads (“low fi”), resulting in a composition or soundscape that responds to the animals’ natural surroundings. The goal is to develop a public performance, hopefully to be presented during Oerol 2025. The residency proved crucial for refining both the setup and the musical elements.
Johannes: “For us, the challenge lies in finding a balance between an organic structure that fits within the environment and a richness of sound that can sustain an engaging concert performance.”
Nina Iggy is following a development trajectory with Station Noord, with Oerol as a partner. During her creative process, she spent a week conducting research on the beach of Terschelling. Nina: “The making process for me is greatly affected by my feeling of possibilities. The natural surroundings, only accessible somewhere like Terschelling, were an integral part of my research into reconnecting the body with itself and the natural elements to which we surrender in birth, life, and death. (…) The obvious natural restrictions and freedoms we encountered while moving through the sand — such as the heaviness of the ground itself and the sunburn from the sun above — all inspired my movement choices, which I certainly would never have discovered while creating material in the studio.”
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