Cold in Church: Wolves, fans, and cringe tragedy

On the occasion of the exhibition Cold in Church – Sails of Anarchy, the performance collective extends the invitation to three Netherlands based artists with whom they have been in close artistic relation over the past decade.

Three recent video works by Eric Giraudet de Boudemange, Rumiko Hagiwara, and Bea McMahon will be screened. Reflecting on tales of animal populations, offering metaphors for cultural identity and historical exchange, and experimenting with tropes of comedy and tragedy in shared popular culture, the video works offer distinct yet interconnected artistic perspectives on collective narratives and cultural imagination. 

The works either feature members of Cold in Church or were developed in a shared space and time with them. Bringing these works together for this evening is a gesture towards highlighting how the collective enterprise of hydrarchy extends well beyond the collective itself, continuing to involve artistic practices that are closely related in both spirit and practice.

The video works are English spoken with either Dutch or English subtitles. 

RSVP through the button above. 

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8:00 PM | Eric Giraudet de Boudemange

Werewolf Diplomacy (2026)

26 minutes

Werewolf Diplomacy explores how the return of the wolf to the Netherlands has become a diplomatic issue. Inspired by philosopher Baptiste Morizot and the tale of Saint Francis of Assisi and the Wolf of Gubbio, he introduces the character “Francis the Werewolf”: a mediator moving between human and animal worlds. Filmed at Landgoed Welna (in the heart of the Veluwe forest), where a wolf population is present, the work shows how the wolf, as an invisible actor, brings together a tangle of voices — farmers, hunters, forest rangers, ecologists, shamans. The film makes tangible how the wolf symbolizes deeper societal and existential conflicts, and how imagination can contribute to possible forms of coexistence. 

Eric Giraudet de Boudemange (b. 1983, France) is an artist whose interdisciplinary practice spans installation, video, performance, and sculpture. His work reflects a sustained inquiry into cultural identity, ecological systems, and bodily experience within a globalized landscape. Using a methodology grounded in field research, he engages with local traditions, folkloric knowledge, and vernacular rituals as tools to explore how information, belief, and natural resources circulate and intertwine within specific territories. He studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Le Fresnoy, and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam (2012–2013).

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8:30 PM | Rumiko Hagiwara

View of Dejima (2026) 

20 minutes 

A Japanese woman stands in front of the 19th-century folding screen "View of Dejima in Nagasaki Bay" at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, the Netherlands. She is captivated by the image of Dejima—the Dutch East India Company’s trading post and Japan’s only gateway to the West for over two centuries—which takes the shape of a folding fan. She imagines the fan as a metaphor for Dejima; by opening and closing it, one could control the flow of exchange in history between Japan and the outside world. What if that “gate” to the West had remained closed? How might Japan’s culture and economy have evolved—and what would it mean for her, a Japanese woman living in the Netherlands? Between humour and melancholy, the film traces her poetic exploration of history and identity, carried by the gentle swing of her song.

Rumiko Hagiwara (b. 1979, Japan) is a Japanese artist based in Amsterdam. She studied at Tokyo Zokei University, and was a resident at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam (2008–2009). Working across installation, photography, video, and performance, her conceptual practice draws on a cross-cultural perspective to shift perceptions of everyday phenomena, often revealing their overlooked humour and poetry. She co-directs the artist initiative Multiple Choice and is a member of the pop band Dina from Egypt.

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9:10 PM | Bea McMahon

in collaboration with Zhana Ivanova, Artémise Ploegaerts, Nathan O’Donnell, Deniz Buga, Leonid Tsvetkov, Eva Susova, Sam Basu and Dan Walwin.

Crickets Episode 2 (2026) 

40 minutes

Crickets is an ongoing collaborative experiment in artists’ TV. Its genre is ‘cringe tragedy,’ and it is named after the awkward silence that ensues when a joke doesn’t land. It is set in a world where technology sucks power directly out of the junction between life and matter by means of sex and symbols. The resulting work is playful, deploying generic TV tropes and narrative patterns, but underpinned by a critical view of how the technological landscape is marshalled by political forces, and how our bodies are the site where power structures collide. Episode 2 was conceived and made together with Zhana Ivanova, Artémise Ploegaerts, Nathan O’Donnell, Deniz Buga, and Leonid Tsvetkov. Eva Susova, Sam Basu and Dan Walwin joined during post-production.

Bea McMahon (b. 1972, Ireland) is an artist who studied mathematics and mathematical physics before pursuing visual arts. She was a resident at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam (2012–2013). Working across sculpture, performance, song, moving image, and installation, often in collaboration with others, her practice explores conceptions of reality and their manifestations in the physical world. Recent projects include Another Shot at Love, commissioned for the 40th EVA International Biennial in Limerick (2023), and performances with the pop group Dina from Egypt.

Image: Still from Cricket