In this project, materiality is not grasped as something static. To the contrary: the material, the bodily, the corporeal evokes and induces particular dynamics. These dynamics are destructive and erosive but at the same time also constructive and evolving. This kind of material change is everywhere. Things deteriorate, if they are not maintained. Time produces clutter. Some things start to grow. Some of this happens at strange places and unforeseen moments, but also in the bright daylight and under the eyes of us all. Some of this happens very slowly, but change can also come with unanticipated and overwhelming speed.

In this regard, climate change is of particular – and probably vital – interest. On the one hand, it is practically indiscernable and can only be measured using a huge array of technological infrastructure. On the other hand, it affects or could affect an almost inconceivable amount of different aspects that are relevant in our daily lives – thus posing a significant threat.

Do people relate their everyday experiences to climate change? Who does this? How do these changes enter perception? As I stated earlier: perception and action belong together. The materiality and the immateriality of climate change is both experienced and made in our everyday lives.

The East-Frisian islands at the German North-Sea coast are locations where the relations between the forces of nature, technology, everyday life, architecture, work, and tourism have to be constantly negotiated by everyone – and everything – involved. The marked boundaries of these islands along with their limited size make it possible to study the different topological layers and topographic features in adequate detail. It should be possible to trace, map, or deconstruct the patterns of appropriation and disappropriation on one of these islands.

Materiality is a central aspect of the spatialized practices that form life on the island: sand and doormats, wind and doors and windows, walks at the beach and visit to the tea room cottage, physical closeness and flirts in the discotheque along with openness and emptiness at the out-of-season beach, wellness and fatigue, migrant workers and tourists and islanders and migratory birds, cars on the main land and horse carriages on the island, storm floods and coastal protection works, garbage ships and national park, mobile phones and tide-dependant ferries – the list can go on and on.

At these interfaces, or foldings of topology and topography, of nature and technology I want to explore the relations between material and social dynamics. I want to examine the conflicts that arise in this peculiar setting and I want to do all of this with a focus on everyday life, on the perceptions and actions of people on these islands.