Wetter & Moar

Friesland faces major transition challenges in the areas of soil subsidence, water management, and biodiversity. At the same time, Drachten is growing as a multicultural city. The Wetter & Moar project brings these developments together. Wetter & Moar aims to encourage children to look at this transforming landscape with a critical and artistic eye, helping them feel more connected to the ground they live on, to local traditions, and to one another.

Wetter & Moar connects children, artists, and nature. It originated from the ambition to link art and education to the ecological and cultural transition taking place in the heart of Fryslân, where a new-style National Park is currently being developed. Since the first edition in 2023, hundreds of pupils have discovered through this project that their own living environment is a rich source of stories, art, and imagination. They learn to question the future of the landscape and translate their impressions into new music, dance, and visual art—all of which are showcased in a final presentation at Museum Dr8888.

In 2026, two primary schools from Drachten will participate, involving a total of 220 pupils from 11 classes (groups 5, 6, and 7). With more than 40 different cultural backgrounds and home languages, these schools reflect the diversity of society. The school theme “Life and Survival” provides the overarching framework. While children learn about distant ecosystems in their curriculum, Wetter & Moar brings the theme close to home: to the Frisian peat meadow landscape and to their own increasingly green schoolyard.

The project Wetter was launched in 2023 on the initiative of Oeds Westerhof.

Museum Dr8888 is currently undergoing renovation and expansion and is evolving into an innovative creative hub: a shared space where heritage, art, and community come together. Education, participation, and sustainability are central values in this transformation. Wetter & Moar 2026 aligns seamlessly with this vision, showing how children, artists, and schools collaboratively contribute to social innovation and sustainable connections in the region. Museum Dr8888 aims to develop Wetter & Moar into a long-term program in which schools, artists, and nature organizations in Fryslân collaborate over multiple years—an ambition with the potential to inspire similar initiatives both locally and nationwide.