From a transmission tower to the core of an extinct pear variety.
Literary talent encircled the city of Leeuwarden. From a fixed position on the threshold between city and surroundings, what do you arrive at when you look around you? What do you see when you are allowed to rotate around your axis in all dimensions? You are here. But what does that mean? Who is being addressed here? And what is “here,” really?
Eighteen young authors who took part in deBuren’s writing residency in 2025 were each assigned a coordinate on the outskirts of the city of Leeuwarden. Eighteen coordinates and eighteen artistic interpretations. From their unique positions, the makers looked out at the world from all dimensions, allowing themselves to be sparked by something within their field of vision and translating that into their own artistic language. They wrote short, powerful texts, connected by a single guiding phrase: You are here.
From a transmission tower to the core of an extinct pear variety, a pirate boat or the material of the road surface, from land subsidence to a chance passer-by on Google Street View: the inspiration they found at “their” coordinate is as diverse and surprising as the poems and short stories these young makers produced.
During Explore the North Festival 2025, these 18 emerging talents from Flanders and the Netherlands presented their texts on stage.
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 makers.
They took part in deBuren’s 2025 writing residency, a talent development programme for literary makers up to the age of 30 from Flanders and the Netherlands.
Read more about the writing residency.
Special edition of Kluger Hans
The 18 texts were published in a special edition of the literary magazine Kluger Hans—a drilling platform for emerging talent in word and image. Visitors to this programme received a copy of this issue.
Read more about Kluger Hans here.
U bevindt zich hier is a collaboration between deBuren, Kluger Hans, and Explore the North.