"In our performances we create a world of dreams and imaginations by means of objects, sketches, music machines, dance and projections. In that world we developed our own language and logic, making it look like an obstinate movie in which one picture tells more than a thousand words could."

Hilary Vexil, 1992

Hilary Vexil was an intermedia group coming out from the artistic comunity which lived and worked in the Graan Silo in Amsterdam. The "Graan-Silo" (or rather ‘Silos’: two joined buildings for cleaning, drying, storing, and pumping grain to and from ships and wagons) is one of the most noticeable features of Amsterdam. Like a great gate-castle, it marks the western entry of the wide sweep of Het Ij water across the northern boundary of the inner city. The “Silo” is the most fabulous of a new wave (late 1980s to early 1990s) of large-scale squats, motivated less by politics or a need for work-spaces than the powerful childhood promise of forming one's own home in a locked castle away from the gaze of the alter-ego of mass mores and taste; in a place of marvels that inspires and provides means for invention… Actualising dreams, not as art installations, but to an extent that is tested by living in them.

Henriette Reesema is a dancer, performer, choreographer, physical theater actress, cabaret artist and clown. She has worked in England, Spain and Netherlands in dance, improvisation and object theater companies, also performing several solo and duo cabaret acts. She uses her body to speak any language. She now lives in France and runs the Art center Madonarts. In her role as Zazi, she makes regular disappearances with the  Zigliani family.

Peat Moss

Eric Leaven

Hilary Vexil

Location: Plasy Monastery
Photographer: archive