Grazing Choreographies is a book that you can enter as a landscape, feels supple like a field guide and spreads out like a meadow that needs to be grazed. The project was conceived and executed by artist collective PolakVanBekkum. The book contains 48 pencil drawings, made outdoors, of the grazing patterns of cows. Every drawing comes with a text that describes the observation process.
“”In 2019 we went into the mountains near Tschlin – Engadin, Switzerland and the flat land near Feerwerd – Groningen to draw grazing patterns. With a water color pencil at hand and our gaze aimed uninterruptedly at the movement of the cattle. The texts take you on a journey: the grazing behavior and social interaction of cows, new ways of looking, signs of movement, and how one can try to control a sheet of paper in all kinds of weather”.

‘Four Swiss Browns and one black and a white dairy cow roam the most southwestern corner of the alpine deposit. This was the first drawing. It ran against half-past three. The cows drifted towards the milking parlor. While this drawing was drying, we heard the shepherd and the dog coming to collect the party.’

The drawings were exhibited at the small museum for contemporary art Het MOW in Bellingwolde, The Netherlands.
Grazing Choreographies is bilingual: Dutch and English.

Published in 2021, softcover, 19,5 x 26 cm, 55 fold-out pages.