Wall
- In 2012 I took part in creating a group show in an old Citroën garage in the city centre of Den Bosch. Prior thereto I worked for four weeks on site. The work I made there was a freestanding wall I added to a room in which there was already a small wall present that was shielding a basement hatch. In the time span I was on site, I took the space into consideration in an almost meditative way.
The freestanding wall I made was bigger then the one that was already there. I used the same materials and finished it with the same paint and I copied the baseboards. At the back side of it I made a fold into one of the corners.
The small wall that was present in the room triggered my thoughts on the specific architecture of the space and the order of things in it. The L-shaped wall seemed purely functional in a sense, but had a clear decorative character as well. I found it quite ambiguous in its status and presence. It was almost like it didn’t want to draw too much attention to itself. It was painted in the same white-greyish colour of the entire room and finished with the same baseboards as the other walls. It wanted to fit in but it remained estranged. It was the only thing that was not structural. It was shielding, covering, obscuring.
Me wanting to make another wall that had the same ambiguity of fitting and yet not fitting in had to do with the longing to add something else to that situation; to the peaceful room with not much in it, but yet with its clear intimate and private interior logic. I somehow wanted to add something to the narrative that messed in a silent way with the functional.