This autumn, Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar presents the exhibition From Water to Land. Jan van Scorel & Pé Okx. The exhibition takes as its starting point a nearly 2.5-meter-wide drawn map by Jan van Scorel, on which he visualized an ambitious plan: the reclamation of the Zijpe, an area north of Alkmaar, just above Schagen. The map, preserved in the National Archives in The Hague, forms the central point of departure for the exhibition.

Jan van Scorel (1495 – 1562) grew up in the region and was familiar with the ongoing struggle of local communities against the water. The extensive salt marsh and tidal landscape west of the Westfriese Omringdijk was regularly threatened by flooding. Driven by the desire to protect this vulnerable landscape and create new land, Van Scorel developed a plan to reclaim the Zijpe: a low-lying area of approximately 6,600 hectares (more than 9,000 football fields) that had been shaped by the tides for centuries. The name Zijpe refers to the water that once flowed through an old tidal inlet between Petten and Callantsoog. The word is derived from sijpelen, meaning the slow seepage or gradual flow of water

The exhibition explores how Van Scorel’s plan took shape and the ideas that lay behind it. Through his map, various themes are explored, including his vision of the landscape, the artist as cartographer in the sixteenth century, and the changing relationship between humans and water in the early modern period.

Contemporary artist Pé Okx (b. 1951) builds upon these ideas with new and existing works in which he examines the landscape and our relationship to it. Like Van Scorel, he has contributed as an artist to an intervention in the landscape. His work invites us to reflect on the ground beneath our feet and on the ways in which we shape and give meaning to our surroundings.

Jan van Scorel and Pé Okx connect past and present, showing how imagination continually reshapes the landscape.

Nieuw Peil, Oude Grond

Nieuw Peil, oude grond (New water level, old ground) is a four-year cultural programme (2025–2028) in the north of the province of North Holland, where art and culture highlight urgent water, soil and landscape issues.

The program is a collaborative effort by Karavaan, Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar and BPD Cultuurfonds.