To dare to listen. Listen dear. Inner ear. Is it words we are talking about? Words, worlds. In another language, where ”to name” (something) also means ”to shatter” (something). Shatter to pieces or shatter the unspeakable! You know, I think. Shatter to pieces, destroying cultures. Pieces like sawdust, floating in the sea, taken by the wind. Like seeds they will sprout somewhere else. If you die hard enough you will become alive again. Or? Becoming dark. Seeds die and become something from memory. Memory seeds. Seeds of memory named and shattered, spread out to sprout again somewhere else. To listen to the wind, whatever, cliché. What happens if we shatter the world? Big bang, dust glimmering because they are stars. Big ball of sawdust, dust-ball, really big cloud of dust. Just, to do it all over again. Blessed be the west, destroying cultures and making it alive again. The way we treat nature = the way we treat culture? I don’t know. I’m just a dreamer. No, not romantic enough to be a dreamer. The dream of the earth. To dare to listen. I dare me to listen. Me dare you to listen. Listen to what? Are we talking, ooops! Are we listening to sounds? Stop talking.

“3 2 1 zero and beyond” (2017), mono-print on textile, 120 x 750 cm. Solo exhibition at Lokaal 1b, Amsterdam.

I don’t make anything new. Everything I do have already been done. Maybe even for a 100 years. Maybe even for 1000 years. Maybe even for 10.000 years. Maybe even for 100.000 years. I sure hope so. If what I do have been already done for 100.000 years I know I am on the right track. What I do comes through my hands. What I do comes through my mouth. I speak and make. Through my arm I fit into the world. Through my mouth I communicate with the world. I speak though my hands and make through my mouth. My mouth make much moist too. My hand is usually dry. What does it mean to make something that already has been done? Actually, it depends how you define it, New. I am not interested in any definition. My mind is much wider when I see my gestures as in a line of gestures. Inheritance, shared imagination perhaps. I mean, how else would it be possible. I re-do, re-imagine, re-think, re-enchant, re-discover, re-fit, re-new. Continue. Continue. Continue. Continue.

“3 2 1 zero and beyond” (2017), silkscreen prints, 45 x 60 cm. Solo exhibition at Lokaal 1b, Amsterdam.

Transparency. Shatter the surface! Splash the surface of the water too see what lies beyond. Darkness, wetness, not afraid. Maybe. Need it. Mould, earth, deep waters. Lying there floating, can neither go up or down. Floating in the North Sea, horizon only sea and sky. Water and air meeting on your spine. She sees the sea. Last sentence, strange origin.  Depth, deeper, very deep, dark. Turn off the lights. Then you can see what is hidden from sight. Too see what is really hidden from sight. What a strange thing to say, because it is always there. Life is born out of darkness. Like the seeds. Am I dark inside? Small cells glowing, gleaming, so the others can find the way. Glowing veins. Light from inside to outside.

“3 2 1 zero and beyond” (2017), mono-print on textiles, 260 x 380 cm. Solo exhibition at Lokaal 1b, Amsterdam.

“Migration” (2016), indian-ink and paint, ca. 175m² including sidewalls, height 12 meters, for the exhibition Shifting Spaces at W139, Amsterdam.

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The wall-drawing (indian ink and acryl) was made for the exhibition “Shifting Spaces” at W139 in Amsterdam in 2016. The exhibition were centered on shared notions concerning equality, compassion and openness. During the exhibition period, the space would be used for talks, workshops, parties, concerts, dinners and several of the participants would live in the space for the whole duration of the show.

The whole drawing, including the sidewalls, were about 175m2. I made the wall-drawing thinking of the work to be like a background for the dynamic exhibition. Like a landscape I was thinking. I wrote this small text for the work: “Landscape as foreign. Landscape as home. Landscape as ground. Landscape as where you are from.” Geese are migrating birds. The ability of movement (migration, travel, walking) is a crucial distinction of humanity. It is also interlinked with the development of thought, shared consciousness and spreading of ideas.

“Meganisoptera” (2015), mono-print, textile, wood, 2,2 x 2,5 x 2,7m. Part of the exhibition, A Supernova, VU Hortus, the botanical gardens of the VU University Amsterdam. Photo: Kristina Benjocki.

The tent has a mirrored red and blue mono-print of a drawing depicting a dragonfly. The tent is a spatial exploration of textile as dwelling and architecture. Responding to the surroundings and by adopting the qualities of invisibility, transparency and camouflage in nature, I was inspired to make the tent.

Because of the many fossils we know that the dragonfly have barely changed for almost 350 million years. This unchanged creature represents something mysterious and unknown form a time I cannot grasp. The dragonfly’s short life-span as flying about a summer season seem to not matter within the confines of it’s timelessness.

Where Can I See It? is a beautiful film essay made by artist and organizer Sara de Campos and filmmaker Jasper de Bruin for this special exhibition.

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Drawing workshop at the Univers(e)ity summer school, organized by the Zolder Museum in 2013. The workshop I offered was focused on drawing as a primal gesture and direct translation of thought trough the hand. The exercises were centered on the notion of drawing from outside (what you perceive directly through vision) and drawing from inside (what you have already envisioned or imagined). For the workshop I made a green carpet designed for the floor of the Zolder Museum. Later the carpet would be filled with gestures and drawings from the participants and we would take the carpet to the summer-schools’ final location, which was the studio of Louwrien Wijers in Ferwert, Friesland.

“I can see the sea from here” (2012 – ongoing), silkscreen print, silk and cotton textile, 90 cm x 110 cm.

What is very liberating with thinking about metamorphosis, is that it is nothing new. Creativity in relation to change is claustrophobically associated with the new. I don’t understand what this new is supposed to be. Something pops out of the Black hole? How can I think something that is not already here? So therefore, I think everything. The potential for metamorphosis is right in front of my eyes. The question is then not how far I can see, but how close.

“Weaving a word / weaving a world” (2012), textiles, embroidery and digital print, various size, KABK Academy gallery, The Hauge.

The folded and unfolded work. Unveiling the words and story.

The word window, carries the meaning “an eye to the wind”. Wind-eye or vindauga in origin. A photo and image is like a window, to look out, but to stay separated and protected from the wind. For the being of folds, the wind is inseparable. The textile folds. It is very very windy. The folds of the earth would be it’s sand-dunes perhaps. The folds of water it’s waves. A folded textile work. Thoughts ready to travel or be unfolded. Or perhaps stay folded from sight.

Making the words and images inseparable from it’s form. The thoughts being a thread stitched with a needle into the textile. At the moment the form was given to them, the images and words, thoughts and notes, they grounded and became. A line from a text became a pattern, a color, an image, a shape, an open book, a tale.

“If you listen to me I’ll tell you a story” (2011), wall-drawing ca. 7 x 5 m, part of the exhibition Double solo/Single duo. Performance, video and textile work in collaboration with Rebecca Stephany, De Servicegarage, Amsterdam.

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