Moving Backwards to Go Forwards is an action during which I draw a chalk loop directly
onto the field before Middelburg rugby club Oemoemenoe’s final game of the season.
Oemoemenoe is a local colloquial expression that compresses the dutch phrase ‘Hoe
moeten we nu’, which translates to something like ‘What do we do now’ or ‘Where to from
here’. It is also the title of Vleeshal’s Local Nomadic programme, as part of which I was
invited to make an intervention that brings exhibitions out of the art space, and into
Zeeland's public associations, clubs and organisations.

The chalk line crosses horizontally over the field, overlapping existing lines that determine
the rules of the game. It is drawn by walking away from the audience stand, making a
loop that bends back on itself before returning while facing the audience, and extending
off the field into the spectator stand. The marking destabilises the binary, normative, hier-
archical, directional, symmetrical and contained nature of sport fields and infrastructures,
while at the same time drawing on a particular rule in rugby––that the ball has to be passed
backwards between players––gesturing towards responding to the question posed by the
programme, in the current context of social and political upheaval.

The movements and bodies of the players gradually wear away the markings, so that
visible traces are physically erased through the game.


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Oemoemenoe #3, Curated by Adriënne van der Werf
Photography by Anda van Riet, Last image: screenshot of game broadcast

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