Marit Westerhuis

Marit Westerhuis’s previous work concerned her own body and the role of technology. For her degree project at the Frank Mohr Institute, on the subject of the quantified self, she subjected herself to a radical regime of examination with the aid of self-built measuring equipment.

During a two-year residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, she expanded the themes of her work. Technology and the speed of technological progress continue to fascinate her. Increasingly, Westerhuis also focuses on prehistoric technology, which she interweaves with subjects such as occultism, alchemy and the supernatural, which appear to be at odds with the modern ideology of progress and belief in technology. She also takes inspiration from Bronze Age and Stone Age rituals and sacrifices and views of nature from Germanic myth. Thus, she has been investigating the qualities of various types of fluid, from water to blood.

In her recent work, Westerhuis envisions a world in which humans are no longer the dominant life forms (or have exterminated themselves) and new ones have evolved to take their place.