With That doesn't play here Bert Scholten assigns new meanings to the historical rituals and customs of the cake board. Our local cultural identity of stories, customs and rituals has always been subject to change. The homogenization that has developed over the years has brought this to a standstill. As a result, an adaptation to widely accepted customs and rituals creates tension, while many others disappear almost silently. It is precisely these forgotten customs, the ones from which the dust must be blown off, that Bert Scholten draws to the present in his work.
Cookie boards are woodcuts into which cookie dough was pushed. The dough took the shape of the woodcut – often a person or animal – and was then knocked out of the board and baked in the oven. Such a cookie served as a gift on special occasions and sometimes as a marriage proposal. The animal and human shapes usually had hidden meanings, often painfully joking. It was up to the recipient to guess the meaning. This brought play and excitement to the ritual, but also the risk of being publicly shamed.
Many of these meanings have faded or been lost over time. Scholten explores the many transformations that the cookie bodies have undergone: Due to church interference, the symbolism of the cookie board went underground in children's stories; the use of machines made the woodcuts less and less sharp; and the addition of butter and spices sometimes made the cookies unrecognizable.
That doesn't play here is a spatial translation of the music album of the same name that Scholten made over de koekplank. A collection of stories, told in images, text and music, that stand with one foot in reality and the other in fantasy. A melodious story of new transformation and how we can relate to it.
Curator: Rianne Zijderveld