Is it the sea, is it the wind, is it Flora who prints the print?

The Planetary Printer represents a tool, a rudimentary machine, as well as the person and natural forces that operate it. The Planetary Printer continuously reinvents itself, utilizing local resources such as seaweed, seawater, and natural plant-based colours.

Exhibition text:

THE PLANETARY PRINTER

By Ada Van Hoorebeke, with works by Katja Stoye-Cetin

Anton Rosen´s House, Samsø

July 5 – September 27, 2024

The Planetary Printer is an ongoing project by the Belgian, and Berlin based artist Ada Van Hoorebeke. Through several artist residencies on the Danish island Samsø since 2021, the artist has experimented with extracting colors from seaweed and plants from, among other places, Samsø. Likewise the paper she prints on, is handmade recycled paper, produced in local artist Ulla Enevoldsen’s paper workshop on the island.

At the exhibition room located on the ground floor of the Anton Rosen´s House with its strong decorative style, The Planetary Printer displayed works by-and in collaboration with the artist Katja Stoye-Cetin from Berlin, who has created a series of linoleum cuts with Van Hoorebeke’s natural printing inks. The prints show fragmented advertisement for an opera that never existed. Unlike conventional printing inks, the ink reacts unpredictably and adds a delicate organic texture to her lost characters, printed on glass and poster material.

The Planetary Printer seeks out to bring artists together with non-human actors – such as organic materials, algae, roots and plants as well as sunlight and time – to continuously participate in an ongoing, creative process.

During a printing workshop organized by Agerupgrafik, children and adults interacted with the exhibition’s materials and themes. Here, the concept of ‘planetary news’ was explored, culminating in a newspaper for various species—both human and plant.

The Planetary Printer revolves around and tests the possibilities of recycling and working circularly with materials and nature’s resources, where nature partly is allowed to take over.
For instance,shown in the video and display blocks, home-grown seeds from the old dye plant woad (isatis tinctoria) were incorporated into the paper – the works can therefore potentially be buried and grown into new dye plants in the future. By working with invasive species, such as algae, as a basis for creating printing ink, Ada Van Hoorebeke investigates how efforts to reduce climate footprints can lead to new understandings of the properties of algae.

Ada Van Hoorebeke would like to thank Ulla Enevoldsen and the team from Terraform Samsø 2021 for the introduction to the island and its community. She also thanks the Sofam grant (Belgium) and Flanders State of the Art, which made possible an artist residency earlier this year.

The exhibition is organized by Samsø Municipality’s Art Council and supported by The Danish Arts Foundation and Samsø Municipality.

Katja Stoye-Cetin lives and works in Berlin. She studied art photography at HGB Leipzig and took a master’s degree in Art in Context at UDK Berlin. In 2008, she received a DAAD scholarship for her research in Madrid. Stoye-Cetin’s works have been exhibited at a.o. Galerie Emmanuel Post, Galerie Baer Dresden, Plattform Stockholm, Ballhaus Ost, Galerie B2 Leipzig, UDK Berlin, Bärenzwinger Berlin and sign Ciat, Berlin.

Ada Van Hoorebeke lives and works in Berlin and Belgium. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts in Antwerp (2006). Over the past 18 years she has been researching textile dyeing techniques and, in recent years, the cultivation of plants for natural dye production. Her artistic practice includes long-term collaborations and learning sessions in Europe, Gambia and Indonesia. She was an Artist in Residence at WIELS Contemporary Art Center, Brussels in 2010, R.U. New York City in 2017 and Terraform Samsø in 2021. Van Hoorebeke’s works have been exhibited internationally at a.o. Mu.ZEE in Ostend, WIELS in Brussels, Austrian Cultural Forum New York, Kunsthal Gent and Heidelberger Kunstverein.