The Reuring festival has started in Purmerend. This edition there will be a huge cardboard ‘Beemstermolen’ on the Koemarkt. Today are the last preparations, tomorrow it will be built. French artist Olivier GrossetĂŞte is in charge of the project. He has had similar projects all over the world.
“It will be gigantic, but it is not our tallest structure,” says Dirk D’Hondt, the Belgian supervisor of the volunteers who help him build it. The Markthal is strewn with pieces of cardboard that will all have to fit in one way or another. “It’s our first time doing a mill. We’ve already done a few hundred, but this is a complicated construction.”
It is the twentieth edition of Reuring and that is why it is specially celebrated with the construction of the mill. More than a hundred volunteers and students are working on it. The intention is that it will be demolished again on Sunday evening.
wetness
It may well be too late by then. Rain is expected tomorrow evening. Not really handy with a cardboard construction. D’Hondt laughs. “Yes, it seems that it will rain a little. We can work with a little bit of rain. If it collapses, it collapses. But more than fifty percent of the project has already been successful, namely working well with people.”
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D’Hondt is especially looking forward to the moment of building up tomorrow morning: “It’s always a surprise. I’ve been doing this for so many years, but it’s still fantastic when it goes up and everyone is staring with open mouth. It remains an experience. “
