From 25 May to 3 June, artist Dávid Koronczi worked with Erik Pánči at De Zeekraal on Terschelling, focusing on materials and full-scale tests. The farm became a workshop: MDF “salt drawings,” colour studies, and a field of green crates that map the route audiences will take during Oerol.
The residency was deliberately practical. In a barn at organic sheep farm De Zeekraal, Koronczi and Pánči translated sketches into decisions at full scale, shaping the first iteration of the gate that sits at the heart of Guardians of the Savory. Around it, stacks of green crates were arranged and re-arranged into a modest maze — a working diagram of flows and thresholds that can be moved and refined on site.
Material trials happened in the open. Sheets of MDF were dusted and marked with salt to study how crystalline lines form and shift over days; nearby, Pánči — an abstract painter and visual artist — developed colour and surface studies by hand, looking for a rhythm that would sit comfortably in the farm environment. Out by the edge of the Wadden Sea, Koronczi gathered coastal plants for small ferments that will return during the festival as public tasting moments.
Meanwhile, the farm kept moving: lambs were fed, sheep were milked, tractors came and went. That everyday rhythm anchored the build to the place it belongs. By the final day the final shape of the work was clear, but with space for interventions throughout the festival by Dávid, Erik and collaborator Celestína Minichová. The ten days did what they needed to do: turn drawings into things you can walk around, and let the island’s weather and work shape the choices.
What’s next? Final adjustments continue on site ahead of the festival. Guardians of the Savory opens at De Zeekraal during Oerol Festival, 13–22 June 2025, with contributions from Erik Pánči and Celestína Minichová.
