At 10 o'clock, the museum opens its gates... (Om tien uur opent het museum zijn poorten…)

About this artwork.

In the middle of the garden An oasis in the city, near a circular terrace, hangs a stone slab high on the wall with the poem, At ten o'clock the museum opens its gates...  by Rommert Boonstra. Here, the photographer and poet evokes the atmosphere of the former nature museum, which was housed in the building.
 
Other work in Groningen by Rommert Boonstra – a poem and a photograph – can be found in the pavement near his birthplace at Eeldersingel 38 and under the Herebrug bridge.
 
Boonstra gained fame throughout the Netherlands mainly through his staged photography, which can be seen in train compartments of the Dutch Railways, among other places. “Whoever thinks the snapshot captures reality is not right in the head. The photograph captures the unreality; what it records is the past”, he says. In order to anticipate the illusory reality and transience of the snapshot, Boonstra himself directs what needs to be photographed. Using various materials, he compiles imaginary landscapes, spaces and still lifes into photographic stories.
 
The garden An oasis in the city was conceived by visual artist Noud de Wolf. De Wolf created a fence made of Corten steel at the front and back of the garden. It shows a decorative pattern of stylised tree trunks, branches and foliage: “a compressed forest”, as the artist says.
 
Behind this fence, a winding “sensory path” leads past unusual species of plants. Visually handicapped people know where they are in the route by a simple system of landmarks with an increasing number of stones.

Facts & Figures.

• Design
  Rommert Boonstra

• District
  Centrum

• Year of creation
  1999

• Art type
  Design, Art in / on a building

• Material
  Granite (verde candaias)

• Dimensions
  h 1,70 x b 2,00 x d 0,06 m