Alter Moderna is the brainchild of the two sisters Jessica and Monique van Deursen. Over the past five years we have made a series of art projects through the medium of music based performances. All these shows have reflected on mankind's ever repeating struggle throughout history, as a species to overcome and control life and nature, instead of living from trust and surrender to a symbiosis with nature. Having written many compositions during those past five years, we now want to share our stories and magic with a bigger audience, with you. For that, we're now working on our debut album.

Our art

We create dreamlike worlds in which we submerge our audiences: this often involves settings consisting of video, performance, fine art and music, which the individual can literally walk into. This way, we sketch and offer experiences of what it might be like if man evolved into an egoless being, accepting and completely trusting the reliance on a symbiosis with nature. Each individual represents a valuable, crucial component in the grand symphony that is life on earth. By becoming more conscious of our own talents, passions and unique character, we can find meaning in applying these qualities towards self development and contributing to the societies we belong to. This is where change begins: living from, not for, the self and in service of the whole. This is what restores the natural balance. For that reason, we see individual spiritual growth and climate change as two sides of the same coin. These themes appear regularly in our lyrics and art work.

Why so Alter Modern baby?

Alter Moderna is what we named ourselves; after the art concept of 'alter modern', a term coined by Nicolas Bourriaud, which is an attempt at contextualising art made in today’s global context as a reaction against standardisation and commercialism. This beautifully encapsulates our vision of the potential and function of impactful made art, such as we think is much needed to be confronted with these days: we want our audience to question the habitual, thoughtless tendencies of modern life and look beyond their own horizons. To put it simply: what does it mean to be alive?

We are both seasoned performers and musicians, having between us travelled throughout Europe and beyond over the last ten years. We showed our work at the Performance Bar in Rotterdam, at Witte Rook in Breda, at Pictura in Dordrecht and even at the International Performance Festival in Latvia's capital city, Riga.

Our aim

We hope to involve as many individuals as we can reach, to build a movement of awareness of the big questions of our time. By recording our music and producing our very first album, we want to invite each and every one of you to join us in this collective movement, of stepping over what seems so solid, safe and sure, into the larger dream that lives inside and is only a decision away. By supporting us, you will help manifest our inciting happenings, which we'll soon bring further alive during performative concerts, with for now, our full length album as a reward.

xxx
Monique & Jessica