Point of departure for the exhibition is the new publication Terrestrial Belts in which Karin van Dam (1959) reviews her older work, that was primarily inspired by urban structures, through the focus on nature which dominates her new work. The long friendship with the Taiwanese/Canadian artist Ed Pien (1958) is important in this regard. Together they undertook several travels through Canada and its omnipresent nature.

They recently participated in the project SOIL in the Northwest Territory, Yukon, in which the care for the earth is a common thread. In the project scientists and artists collaborate in the study of soil, which can be seen as a living archive where the history of nature is preserved layer upon layer. Conversations with First Nations residents, walks through glacial regions, through partially blackened forests and along rugged creek banks have resulted in field notes, which are displayed in a vitrine case. In the exhibition old and new work spanning a period of approximately thirty years are combined. In the words of Karin van Dam: “By creating connections between the works, a new world has emerged between macro and micro systems and structures, between city and countryside, between verticality and the horizon”.