Residency Bierumer School, Bierum (2025)
In the old stories, she is seen as an angry mermaid who takes revenge on young men once every seven years. What happens when you listen
to someone who is angry? What if you try to understand what it must feel like to be locked up in fresh water for centuries,
when she might actually prefer to swim in salt water?
The children felted her tail using local wool from Wad en Wolletje, and we carried her two-part tail from one side of the dike to the sea.
There, by the sea, we presented the reimagined story to parents and other visitors together with the children.
Thanks to Groningen Museum Young and Eljafoundation. Photos made by Ravi Steneker
She was the sea woman, the being once born from the sea, yet drowned in her own loneliness, trapped in the whirlpool of lost dreams. The sea smelled different
from the whirlpool. Raw. Salty. Deep. She breathed in, and it stung her lungs, her throat, as if she had forgotten what true freedom tasted like.
She looked at the waves. There she heard her name whispered, not in words, but in sounds only she could understand. The sea still knew her. The sea wanted her back.
The whirlpool was a thing of the past. That dark depth filled with echoes of lost voices, the curse, the waiting, the songs no one heard. It was all over.
Someone, or something had listened to her. Perhaps they were the voices of children, soft, pure, new. They had opened something. Not just a passage to the sea,
but to the world. They had given her a voice not to lure, but to speak freely.
And now, on the edge of the tidal flats, she spoke it. “The time is over… and the sea has returned.” The words rolled from her tongue like waves over sand,
soft yet unmistakable. And the sea answered.
She moved. Slowly. Hesitant at first, then faster. Over the shells. Through the mud. Her fingertips touched the foam of the surf. The water pulled at her,
recognised her. With every step she grew lighter. Stronger. As if the sea was taking her back as its lost daughter.
Then came the leap.
She dove not like a human, but like something ancient and wild and home. The water closed around her like arms. No ripple remained. No trace.
Only the echo of a voice, somewhere in the distance:“The time is over… and the sea has returned…”
And if you stand on the dike on a stormy night, and you think you see something moving between the waves… listen closely.
You might hear her sing. Not of revenge but of freedom.