Museum Belvédère - Heerenveen (NL)

At Museum Belvédère, Noorderlicht presents artists who explore how we humans relate to nature. How are we connected to it? In what ways can we work together to improve both our own and the planet’s well-being? The works on display reveal alternative ways of looking at, experiencing and relating to a world that doesn’t revolve around humans alone.

With REGENERATE as its theme, Noorderlicht International Photo Festival points to the desire to restore and strengthen nature’s health and resilience. This can be done in various ways. Sometimes by actively intervening or by simply taking a step back and trusting the restorative power of nature itself. The goal is to protect our environment and ensure that the world remains a liveable place.

Our instinctive relationship with nature encourages us herein. Humans still feel a deep-seated emotional connection with nature, which we are part of, like all other living beings on this earth. Recognising this is invaluable. Especially in our Western world, where everything strives to be ever more individualistic, materialistic, faster and efficient, we tend to forget this. Yet in some other cultures, we see this connection with nature coming to the fore.

The various works on display invite us to reflect on the immediate impact our actions have on the environment, on how ecologically fragile nature is, but equally how strong its self-healing and regenerative capacity is. In the global ecosystem, all life is interconnected. Nature deserves as many rights as humans and their modern developments. With this idea in mind, the festival encourages the exhibited works to question the direction we want to take and how to get there, to question the times we live in and the times yet to come.

Noorderlicht International Photo Festival 2023 kicks off at Museum Belvédère. The festival, which became a biennial two years ago, offers exhibitions throughout the Northern Netherlands – from Friesland to Groningen and Drenthe – on various dates from now until early December. The festival theme REGENERATE is motivated by the widely-shared feeling that a new, fresh start is needed in our interaction with nature and society. It is about our relationship with our immediate environment, ourselves and the world we live in. We are therefore approaching the festival from three perspectives: REGENERATE LIFE, REGENERATE OURSELVES and REGENERATE SOCIETY. The works on display at Museum Belvédère focus on the first part: REGENERATE LIFE.

The festival also includes a side programme of projects complementing the festival theme, stemming from various collaborations.

REGENERATE is curated by guest curator Eefje Ludwig and Noorderlicht curator Wim Melis.