Inside Platform POST, the interior group carefully curated the studio space, arranging materials accumulated throughout the lab and supporting the sound and performance group. The long chromatography strip was hung as a central element as a watery score tracing our material encounters with the floodplains, while a table of books and references offered entry points into the lab’s conceptual undercurrents. Nearby, the sound team retreated to work intensively with field recordings gathered along the Rhine, making additional recordings and folding everything into a first-edit soundscape.

In the atrium, the performance setting took shape. Jars of filtered river water from Martine Lubeek’s earlier workshop were arranged around the chromatography score and accompanied by a reflective text, creating a quiet constellation of objects and words. The transition team focused on how to guide the audience beyond the space of POST. They developed prompts and small booklets made from copied watergrams; keepsakes meant to accompany a silent walk, and a gentle guide for quiet contemplation.

Meanwhile, the outside team walked the route through the city, across the bridge, testing timing, transitions, and thresholds. On the far side of the Rhine, they choreographed a moment of collective arrival on the beach, extending the silent walk into a circular movement that would shift participants from individual presence into shared being. At the heart of this planning was a final wish that had surfaced repeatedly throughout the lab: to act in reciprocity toward the river.

Welcoming guests

By early afternoon, we gathered back at POST to walk through the programme one last time. Visitors began to arrive. Nothing felt fully finished, and yet everything was ready; held together by a shared acceptance that perfection was neither possible nor necessary. After a warm welcome and an outline of the programme’s progression, guests were invited to browse the spaces and materials, and engage in conversation. Gently, the group was gathered in the atrium for the performance. The soundscape was played, woven from field recordings of the Rhine, and live-responded to by artist and musician Stijn Brinkman. Members of the group joined in from within the audience, contributing live sounds and gestures. The performance closed with a quiet, deliberate action: the jars of water were sealed and handed to audience members, who were invited to carry them to the river. Upon departing, each participant received a booklet containing a personal prompt to guide reflection during the walk. Together, we stepped outside and moved into silence.

Transitioning

The city centre was loud with weekend life filled with voices, music, bodies brushing past. Gradually, the crowd thinned. Traffic replaced chatter as we crossed the bridge. Beneath us, the Rhine moved fast and full, a broad, continuous sound that felt almost like silence in its constancy. On the far side, the city shifted again. We descended the stairs to the riverbanks, passing a shipyard and a community of houseboats, two radically different ways of inhabiting the river’s edge. Through a small riparian forest, we reached the beach.

Meeting the river

Guided by participant Rosalie Bak, we walked along the waterline in a wide circle, slowly spiralling inward. One by one, everyone entered the movement, experiencing the transition from solitary walking to collective swirl. We ended standing side by side at the edge of the water. From the left, a whisper began… Thoughts, offerings, gratitude softly spoken back to the river. Each person released their leaf into the current. The whisper travelled along the line in a wave, until it dissolved into shared silence.

Then the silence broke, gently, joyfully. Laughter, conversation, kinship. Some waded into the water. Others lingered at the shore. Eventually, we made our way back to Platform POST, carrying with us the sense that meeting a river is never a conclusion, but a practice that continues to unfold, flow, and return.