Codes of Creation
2023 - 2024. Five years after working with Amazigh weavers in Morocco for my graduation project, I returned to reconnect and take our collaboration further with support from the Cultural Participation Fund. To make our work more professional, I created a work agreement based on the Fair Practice Code and tried to discuss it with the women—an experience full of trial and error due to our different backgrounds and roles in society (it is possible to read more about it in the book).
My aim is to support their journey toward financial independence and creative freedom. With each visit, our bond grows stronger, but without a shared language, progress takes time. Blending traditions with new ideas is both a challenge and an adventure, but I believe our connection, love for the craft, and creative exchange can open doors for artistic and personal growth for all of us.
After establishing a work agreement, we designed samples for a new work. As a design process is unusual for these women, I posed the question: does a carpet has to be square or rectangular shaped? We discussed what connects us, as women and weavers. This resulted in self-invented symbols, divided over unequally shaped pieces that fit together in multiple ways. Six women wove the samples, and I completed the finishings. Also, I compiled a book of photo’s and essays to document this journey photos (see below). My wish is to enlarge our body of work and also to show our work in Morocco.
Dialogues of the Figures
2020 - 2021. This research project started with painting on paper with earth pigments. I fell in love with the deep and rich colors and wondered if I could dye yarn or cloth with them. Supported by the Cultural Participation Fund, I investigated this while learning more about the rich history of earth pigments and their role in the principles of the art world at Verfmolen de Kat in Zaandam. Through trial- and error experiments I found a way to steadily paint on cloth with the pigments, using fermented soybeans.
The project shifted to a collaborative nature when I started to invite artists in my studio for a ‘silent dialogue’. During sessions with Dané Vonk, Vicky de Visser, Yuni Chae, Jaap Kamsma, Aldo Brinkhof, Yulia Ratman & Dorota Radzimirska of Day Collective, symbolic answers were painted together on a 1.5m² cotton cloth to questions such as ‘what do you miss in the lockdown?’ ‘what are the most important values in your art practice?’. It was my way of holding visual dialogues and dealing with the loneliness of that time, working with the same pigments that people used to make their very first artworks and communicative drawings with on wall caves, 30,000 years ago.
The works were exhibited in buurthuis De Meeuw in Amsterdam Noord, April/May 2022.
Dag, Oude Stamppot
March, 2020. Every day, the news announces the latest updates on the coronavirus and its mortality rate. Over a cup of coffee, baristo Leonardo Guidi and I dreamed about how this cold number could be made more tangible and whether it would encourage people to feel more empathy for each other.
This is how Dag, oude stamppot was born: an interactive installation inviting Amsterdammers to share memories of those they missed through recipes tied to them. Scent and taste are powerful memory triggers. Cooking habits, family stories, and photos were shared online and shredded on-site. The growing pile of paper visualised the mortality rate, a stark reminder of the virus’s impact. Each Friday, Leonardo and I ritually shredded new submissions in the window of Gallery Hooffzaak, while some participants performed the act themselves as a farewell.
The collection grew beyond recipes—flyers from canceled events, unused tickets, unpublished books, even an unfilmed movie script—as interrupted dreams and lives took shape. All memories, photos, and stories remain documented on
dagoudestamppot.nl in agreement with the participants.
Dag, oude stamppot is supported by AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts)