Mondria(a)n, en route to New York

From the translucent golden eggs of the Tibetan bearded vulture to those of the British guillemot with their Jackson Pollock-like splashes, German ornithologist Max Schönwetter (1874-1961) collected them all. He devoted his life to oology, the study of birds’ eggs. But while Schönwetter created order in his world of eggs, chaos broke out in the world around him on the eve of the Second World War.

In Metamorphosis, filmmaker and media artist Pim Zwier chooses a highly original form to depict the life and work of the German artist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), whose study of insects laid the foundations of entomology. Her most important work revolved around the metamorphosis of caterpillars into butterflies: she recorded the process in beautiful prints and engravings and was the first to draw the insects in combination with the plant on which they live.

Inspired by his ideals, architect Han van Loghem travelled to Siberia in the mid 1920s. The Soviet Union was in need of specialists to help design and construct completely new cities and mining and metallurgical centres in the Urals and Siberia. And socially engaged architects from Western Europe headed to the first workers’ state in the world so that they could bring their new architectural ideas to life. Builders Of The Future shows how for van Loghem, the journey to Siberia was also a quest for personal and professional fulfilment, which he was lacking in the Netherlands. Van Loghem's personal journey had its repercussions his relationship with his wife, Berthe Neumeijer, who had initially planned to stay in the Netherlands but then followed him to Siberia in an attempt to save their marriage.