From a transmission tower to the core of an extinct pear species
Literary talent encircles the city of Leeuwarden. What do you encounter when you look around from a fixed position on the boundary between city and landscape? What do you see when you’re allowed to turn around your own axis, in all dimensions? You are here—but what does that mean? Who is being addressed? And what is here, really?
Eighteen young wordsmiths who took part in deBuren’s writing residency this year were each assigned a coordinate on the outskirts of Leeuwarden. Eighteen coordinates, then—and eighteen artistic interpretations. From their unique positions, the makers looked out into the world—in all its dimensions—allowed themselves to be inspired by something in their field of view, and began to shape that spark into their own artistic language. They wrote short, powerful texts connected by a single thread: the words You are here.
From a transmission tower to the pit of an extinct pear species, a pirate boat or the material of the road surface, land subsidence or a random passerby on Google Street View—the inspirations they found at “their” coordinate are as diverse and surprising as the poems and short stories these young creators wrote.
During Explore the North, these 18 emerging talents from Flanders and the Netherlands will present their texts to you. At three moments throughout the festival program, you can discover six authors each time.
Friday 21 november
- Ayoub El Ouali – Geen plek voor oud eikenhout
- Jeanne Verwee – een oefening voor recreanten
- Maria Magdalena de Cort – Beton en asfalt hebben andere hechtingsstijlen
- Joshua Snijders – Flesjespost
- Lars Meijer – Tochtig
- Zoë Dankert – gedicht van de woningnood in de hounspolder
Saturday 22 november
- Marlena Tokarska – swing
- Mirthe Wouters – Opdrogen
- Rojda Yavuz – Wolkenkrabbers bestaan niet
- Faye Schumacher – Een goed bommetje
- Jane Stuhlmacher – Mooie Neeltje en de lakei
- Rahman Qul – file in Fryslân
Sunday 23 november
- Maarten Jochems – magia continua manuum
- Mayada Srouji – In uw hoofd was ik allang dood
- Alisa Noa Bloemendaal – Memory Foam
- Eelke Veltman – Deine meid
- Matthijs van Rumpt – Slagbomen dalen automatisch
- Sanne Lolkema – hier daalt de bodem
The authors
Alisa Noa Bloemendaal, Ayoub El Ouali, Eelke Veltman, Faye Schumacher, Jane Stuhlmacher, Jeanne Verwee, Joshua Snijders, Lars Meijer, Maarten Jochems, Maria Magdalena de Cort, Marlena Tokarska, Matthijs van Rumpt, Mayada Srouji, Mirthe Wouters, Rojda Yavuz, Rahman Qul, Sanne Lolkema, and Zoë Dankert. Read more about these creators.
They took part in the 2025 writing residency of deBuren, a talent development program for language-based creators under 30 from Flanders and the Netherlands. Read more about the writing residency.
Special edition of Kluger Hans magazine
The 18 texts will be published in a special edition of the literary magazine Kluger Hans. Visitors of this program will receive a copy of this issue. The 18 texts appear in a special issue of Kluger Hans—a platform for emerging talent in word and image. They are accompanied by new work from two former writing residents: Aya Sabi and Obe Alkema. Acting as mentors, they have taken this issue under their wing and each contributed a text reflecting, from their own literary perspective, on the theme You Are Here.
This special edition also features work by visual artists Thomas Verstraeten and Eline Vansteenkiste.
Read more about Kluger Hans here.
You Are Here is a collaboration between deBuren, Kluger Hans, and Explore the North.