Visual arts

This edition brings the Raaklijn of 2026 together in a single location through a map by Rain Wu. Rain, herself from an island (Taiwan), is a visual artist whose practice often revolves around mapping. Rather than seeing maps as instruments of dominance, she prefers to approach them as tools for imagination.

For this project, Rain learned to work with wool. She chose the material because it is a leftover product of the island, where the sheep are shorn just before the festival. Using wool, she created her own legend and map in which the raaklijn takes shape. The work can be read as a page from her notebook: her way of remembering the island and the places that exist at the edge of the festival.

Context

We chose the name Raaklijn because it is not about a hard boundary, nor about control. In Dutch, the word means “tangent”, though it could also be translated literally as touch line. Rather than a wall, we think of the raaklijn as a line drawn in the sand: a boundary that is not meant to separate, not to divide, but to entangle both sides.

In some places on the island, it is immediately clear how far the festival can extend, and when we need to step back. In other places, this boundary is more subjective, or constantly shifting: when a sand martin is nesting, when natterjack toads have been spotted, or when new dune landscapes have emerged. Raaklijn is therefore about the question of how, collectively and individually, we relate to the changing landscape of which we temporarily become a part, and about the possibility of being touched by something beyond our reach.

In collaboration

Rain Wu, SoAP, Oerol, Antsje van der Zee, Schapenboerderij De Zeekraal