Home of the Giants is my latest animated short film and stars a beautiful and tough species: the muskox. Muskoxen are arctic animals that roamed the Earth during the last ice age. In today's day and age, they can be found in tundra ecosystems in nordic countries like Canada, Greenland, Alaska and Russia.

In the 20th century, muskoxen were reintroduced in Norway's National Park Dovrefjell-Sunndalsfjella, which is where I studied this beautiful animal and learned all about the Dovrefjell ecosystem during my research trips in the spring of 2022 and 2023. After returning from my second research studies in Norway, I started working on the production of my animated short film Home of the Giants, in which these incredible arctic animals play a big role.

Home of the Giants tells the story of a man that drives through a vast mountainous landscape and finds his way into the snowy mountains. The animals make way when they spot his car and leave the man plenty of space to pass. One species however, does not step to the side: the muskox. As the man approaches a small herd of muskoxen, they form a protective front behind which their young hide in safety. The man presses on, annoyed that the animals aren't moving out of his way. Tension rises and a confrontation between the man and muskoxen follows.

Who do you think wins?

The underlying story of Home of the Giants revolves around the relationship between man and nature and our (dis)connection with the ecosystem that we are a part of. There are two central questions around which the film revolves:

Do you feel part of the natural world?

How much impact do you have on the world around you?

Before I started working on Home of the Giants, I felt like a spectator in nature, instead of a participant. I missed a feeling of connection with the world that we live in and noticed this same disconnection in many of the people around me. This troubled me and I felt that it could and should be different, especially given the impact and power that we as a species have on the environment.

The research for and production of Home of the Giants challenged myself in many ways and I am proud to say that as of now, I don't just feel like a spectator anymore. I now feel that I am nature, that we all are, and that the connection with the world around us is way more in reach than you might think. Beside this, I have come to realise that the impact that we have on the world around us echoes further than you might think. Therefore, it is important to be conscious about the type of impact that we have.

I invite you to challenge your beliefs on these topics while watching Home of the Giants.

For more information about the muskoxen and several other species in the tundra ecosystem, visit the Home of the Giants website. This website gives more in depth knowledge about the functioning of the ecosystem and the roles that species play in the landscape.

Disclaimer: the Home of the Giants website is still under construction.

The basis of Home of the Giants is made with the monotyping printing technique. I absolutely love the organic shapes and textures that are formed during the printing process of my ink paintings. When I bring the monotypes to life digitally, they create a whole world of textures and monochromes in which I love to get lost.

The production of Home of the Giants is supported by Creative Industries Fund NL.

Special thanks go out to Rewilding Europe, the European Young Rewilders, the Myskoxcentrum in Härjedalen Sweden and Stichting IJssellandschap.

The images shown below are stills from Home of the Giants and photos from my research trips to Dovrefjell.