Galerie 37 Spaarnestad invited Koen Hauser to make new work with material from the Spaarnestad Photo archive, one of the largest press archives in Europe (now part of the Dutch National Archive).
De Luister van het Land (2008) is a caleidoscopic collection of over 400 photographs from this archive. By means of a selection based on personal interests, fascinations and an obsession with the notion of ‘the diorama’, it interweaves impressions that suggest a (re-created) imaginative world with pictures on the process of creation, featuring Koen Hauser's personal appearance.
Next to the exhibition at the gallery a book was created together with graphic designer Bart de Baets, which was nominated ‘Best Designed Book’ in the Netherlands. The radical monochromatic reproduction of the archival images in the book lead to a limited edition series of a small selection of the used archival images printed in a similar fashion.
