Long Story
We are all threads of a long rope that goes back countless generations and through which everyone is connected. Which threads connect the different generations? How do we experience this connection? What liberates us and what oppresses us? What gets passed on?
The chair refers to the effect of time, the past that continues into the present. Long Story is about my grandmother, a strong woman who got Hansen’s disease at a young age. She was banished to a leprosy colony and quarantined for life. This colony was a former sugar plantation, a similar place to where her ancestors worked and lived as enslaved in Suriname.
Tori Telling
In many cultures there is a lot of sharing during dinner! What stories do we tell each other and what stories do we tell ourselves… what do we share with others, are they memories, ideas about the future…
What stories do we not tell because they are too painful because they expose something that would rather remain hidden?
Installations by art duo Oudenaller & Traxel
Since 2011 I started working with visual artist Peggy van den Oudenaller. As an art duo (Oudenaller & Traxel) we make sight specific installations. Our goal is to explore the connection between humanity and nature, encouraging you to reflect on what you see and the feelings it evokes. We work with diverse materials and disciplines, always ensuring that everything serves the essence of the concept.
Dyed-in-the-wool
For this installation, we use an age-old craft: knitting and crochet. We "paint" with homemade knitting and crocheted work on different "canvases ".
The lying "canvases" together with succulents form a challenging, visual and tactile installation that can be interpreted as a landscape.
There are as many landscapes as you can think of, because a landscape only exists when it is seen and as soon as it is seen it fits in with a reflex at the eye of the viewer.
The craft material shows the vulnerability and is at the same time a metaphor for transience or temporality.
White Garden
White Garden was exhibited in the climate greenhouse of the Weizigt sustainability center in Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
The installation originated from the questions: What is natural, what is artificial? What is nature, what is culture? How far does the influence of man go? What is real?
The installation fills the front part of Weizigt's greenhouse with hanging white plastic flowers on a white flowering bed of flowers. The "pristine white image" competes with the surrounding "lush greenery". "White Garden" was created with plastic waste material from another installation from 2013. Recycle art!
Message in a bottle (3 in 1)
The exhibition "message in a bottle" consists of three installations (Transformation, Message in a bottle and Basilica Minor) in which the relationship between man, nature and visual art is central. Plastic bottles and other discarded material form the basis of the installations.
In a room stands a large “peepbox” in which the video “Natura Morta” is shown. The floor is covered with sand. The video lasts about three minutes, mounted in a loop (continuously repeated). It is a still life (natura morta) of different shaped plastic bottles (garbage) inspired by the paintings of Giorgio Morandi.
Some bottles are filled with water, some flows over. Eventually the image dissolves in the sea. The “box” is painted blue on the outside and small white plastic bottles are randomly attached to the blue wall. Visitors could write a message on a piece of paper and leave it behind in the small white bottles.
Basilica Minor
Basilica Minor
Art project “message in a bottle”
Children from primary school Kompas from Krimpen a/d IJssel are involved in the collection of litter from the nature reserve De Kleine Zaag, Krimpen aan de Lek. The children, together with the visual artists, recreate the found waste from the nature reserve into small still lifes. These pieces of work of the primary school students are arranged around the “basilica” (as a cemetery often surrounds a church) and are also part of the exhibition. This changes the value of the waste found, the loose pieces of waste form a whole. The viewer observes something new.
Geen wolkje aan de lucht (no cloud in the sky)
The installation “Geen wolkje aan de lucht” (“No cloud in the sky “ meaning no problem)
shows a Dutch river landscape look of today.
A landscape in which industry and nature, work and recreation coexist and in which man plays a big role. Inspiration for this installation is the painting “Het pontveer” by Esaias van de Velde from 1622.
Minestrone
The installation “minestrone” is a playful commentary on the consumption trend focused on the food culture and how the media, and in particular advertising, manage to manipulate this compulsion. All senses are stimulated but does that deliver a heavenly delight?
This installation consists of a video (± 6 min.) Of different images from preparing food to eating food, in which the temptation and self-indulgence are highlighted.
This video is supported by voice and sound in collaboration with Tiziana Chessa. Hanging from the ceiling are string bags (± 30 pieces). These bags hang at different heights throughout the entire space. Each bag is filled with one “errand” that can also be seen in the video. In this way the pure products are displayed.
There is a beautifully set dining table with 6 chairs placed on a green artificial lawn, but it does not invite you to take place.
Minestrone was on show at the Paradijs 2018 exhibition of Haagse Kunstkring in The Hague and during the Food exhibition at Galerie De Pieter in Leiden.
