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(Archive) The Return of the Wolf

A modern fairytale about the return of the wolf to the cultivated landscape of the Netherlands, by Noëlle Ingeveldt

This project was part of DDW 2021
Installation: The return of the Wolf — © Chiaramente studio

The Return of the Wolf is a cross-media immersive experience that tells the wolf's return to the Netherlands. The animated story is told using historical and current media imagery and footage that creates a research-based new fairy tale narrated from the wolf's perspective.

A wolf's fairytale

After an absence of 150 years, the wolf has made her return to the Netherlands. By doing so, she is making us rethink the way we have designed our landscape. In the Netherlands, nature and animals are only allowed to live in fenced areas; this confinement of species contributes to the country's extremely low biodiversity. Wolves aren't held back by fences and roam around where they please. This natural interference shows us that to live in harmony with nature, we must question our human behaviour. We don't know how it is to live amongst wolves. We base our feelings towards the animal on negative emotions originating from old folks' tales and paradigms. Before we can transform our landscape into a suitable environment for all living organisms, we must reassess our feelings towards the wolf. To start this paradigm shift, Berkveldt has created a cross-media immersive experience that tells the wolf's tale. The animated story is told using historical and current media imagery and footage that together create a research-based new fairy tale told from the wolf's perspective.

Visual languages

The visual language and costumes of the experience are based on medieval stories about the different personas attributed to the wolf. The immersive experience takes place in a tent based on tents in which plays were staged in the Middle Ages.

MIARD

This project started as the graduation project of Noëlle Ingeveldt for the Master Interior Architecture Research and Design at the Piet Zwart Instituut in Rotterdam. It was awarded the M.I.A.R.D alumni award and grand.

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Film still of the animation opening scene. — © Berkveldt

Film still from the animation. — © Berkveldt