The World After is a project is inspired by the exhibition Poems for Earthlings by Adrián Villar Rojas. It is indicated to showcase artists’ respond to the Anthropocene after the COVID-19 pandemic. The World After is initiated by the Oude Kerk in collaboration with mister Motley.
In 2019, the Oude Kerk showed Best Bucharest, a film by Hans van Houwelingen in which he talks to a Romanian Orthodox priest about material or spiritual value and the meaning of gold. He also works on the project Rijke Stinkerd (Moneybag), for which he investigates whether once more, a wealthy citizen can be given the opportunity to be buried in the Oude Kerk.
Van Houwelingen’s contribution to The World After is a short film about the Covid-19 virus and the Russian Sputnik of 1957. It is an absurdist story: fantasy, a hoax, or a parody of conspiracy thinking. Should we bow to the earth, or will it bend for us?
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