Asap

In 1772 the navigator Yves de Kerguelen came upon an archipelago in the far south of the Indian Ocean. “These isles are a fearsome trap,” he wrote in his log; all he left there were the few cats he had on board. Two centuries later the scientists of the Popchat mission land on Kerguelen to trap the cats, which have gone wild, and to see how they have adapted to the freezing climate. But who is observing whom?

Four centuries ago Willem Barentsz sailed north and Cornelis de Houtman sailed south from Amsterdam, opening the way to two islands that bear the city's name, in Spitsbergen and in the southern Indian Ocean. Rob Rombout and Rogier van Eck, both with their roots in Amsterdam, follow their tracks. Their expedition is of another kind, but their doubts measure up to the daring of those navigators. Between the polar ice and the southern wind, the city comes into view as a triptych.