Friday and Saturday 12–24h
Sunday 12–22h
Art is our first language. Throughout the year, Het HEM presents a range of temporary art programmes as well as more permanent art installations.
May 7 – 25
There is always music to listen to at Het HEM, with programmes focused on experimental ways to create, present and experience music in the building through listening sessions, live shows, and musical artis-in-residence initiatives.
Come by for a drink and a bite, wine and dine at one of our restaurants Zanini, Bois or get a sandwich at Bakery Solinger,. With good wether we suggest you settle down on our sunny terrace on the Costa del Zaano.
Het HEM loves books. During your visit, come lose yourself in the library's rich selection or discover new favourites in the SANZ Shop.
Situated in a former munitions factory, Het HEM is a new home for contemporary culture.
The building's industrial design and our experimental art programme bring ambience and meaning to every event.
Relearning Aquatic Evolution (2022)
Relearning Aquatic Evolution, 2022
Mixed media
From time immemorial, the Netherlands has sheltered behind ever-higher dykes. We have been schooled to think of these dykes as our raison d’être, that they save us from destruction. But is that true? Is the continual raising of dykes due to the rising sea level a sustainable solution, and what would happen if we would welcome the sea instead? To what extent are humans able to adapt physically and develop a more symbiotic relationship with water?
Since 2015, the artist collective de Onkruidenier has been conducting research on how we can build a different relationship with our saline and increasingly wet living environment. Their proposition is that humans can adapt not only technologically but also physically and biologically to their surroundings. For instance, studies show that sea nomads, like the Bajau people near Indonesia, developed a different physiology, resulting in their eyes responding better to saltwater and being able to hold their breaths for minutes on end. In the Netherlands too people lived symbiotically with water for centuries. In the north of Friesland and Groningen they build their houses on artificial mounds, the land around it flooded regularly.
In Het HEM, de Onkruidenier presents an aquatic revolution: in this training area, visitors can train their bodies with the help of tools to become sea-loving creatures. From elastic bands and headgear to help increase the elasticity of our imagination, to activating our vocal skills and training our ‘tongue waves’, which simplify communication in an aquatic environment and moreover increase our lung capacity. With the help of these training objects, the urge to be on dry land gradually decreases, and a future is imagined where we’ll bob along to the rhythm of the waves.