Showing posts with label Minerva. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Minerva. Show all posts

Monday, 24 December 2012

Carolijn Slottje: Interior Design - Artist Interview



Decorations in the park (the Noorderplantsoen), during the ten days that the annual Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival is held are often refreshingly original, and in some cases thought provoking for the viewer. Summer 2012, saw the inclusion of an unusual collection of birds throughout the park: outlines of over 30 familiar species native to the area, and they were constructed from detailed, three-layered laser cutouts of mirror. Each was mounted on heavy iron bases by metal nuts and bolts and displayed at intervals throughout the park; one could spy a kingfisher hanging from a pole, a heron balanced on a branch staring intently into the distance, or groups of birds standing in the water’s shallows.

A promotional postcard from the festival, which turned out to be a pitch to the CBK (Centrum Beeldende Kunst) to realize the project, led my curiosity to contact interior designer, Carolijn Slottje.

Carolijn told me that apart from the obvious decorative aspect, the thinking behind this project was to make people aware just how many bird species are resident in the Noorderplantsoen, and what effect the presence of a festival can have on the indigenous flora and fauna.





I met her at her studio, in part of an enormous, high-ceilinged old school premises destined for demolition, and run by the anti-squat organization, Carex. It is here that she has all the room necessary to work on the five or so projects that she completes per year; either under her own name, or as part of the collaborative label (with Eileen Blackmore, Martijn Westphal): Young and Hanson. We ascend a series of bright red wooden stairs to the slightly warmer, large-windowed, mezzanine area of the studio, and sit in the sun, with large glass beakers of hot amber-coloured tea.

A graduate of Minerva, Carolijn has had a great deal of interest surrounding her work, beginning with her graduation project: Capilliar. This organically formed and ‘intelligent’ display structure has exhibited in Berlin, been written about on blogs, and drawn attention from museums for its originality. Looking like a magnified cross section of blood vessels and arteries on a glass slide under a microscope, and constructed from a series of adjustable rubber membrane cells, plastic straws, and with grey plastic tubes as inner display areas, this book case can be adapted to fit any space.

I ask Carolijn where she gets her inspiration from. It seems that her design philosophy and approach comes from her interest in natural structures, the stories contained within patterning, sustainability and fair trade. Finding inspiration in the mechanical working of things, for example bionics, she then figures out how she can translate this for human use. Or from nature: the already documented information on how a leaf unfurls, or the resistance of a riverbed. Knowledge gained from the former has already been applied to the technology of how a satellite opens in outer space. The natural world for her is inspirational through its planned chaos: “If you fill a pot with stones, whether big or small, they will naturally fall to accommodate each other within the pot, and find their own level.”

It can take up to a year before Carolijn can finally launch a new product on the market. Not only does the designed object have to be able to exist in its surroundings, but there is the question of feasibility; materials have to be costed, the end design has to be tested for safety, and then there is the question as to whether there is a market for it.






Although her income could do with a boost, Carolijn is just able to survive from her work: commissioned interior projects, and the creation of small saleable objects. For example, her fabulous up-cycled Zaanse clocks as bird houses – traditional old style Dutch clocks, with new life blasted into them. Plus of course, products from the design collective: Young and Hanson, in house at Vos Interieur.





For the future, her objective is not so much about making a name for herself, but to maybe work for Ikea or Hema, producing products with the underlying philosophy of them being financially accessible and attractive to all. Also, she would like to use her knowledge for the design of a “good chair for a well-known label.”

If you’d like more information about Carolijn’s work: www.carolijnslottje.com.




First published in the Connections magazine #38 Winter 2013

View all issues of Connections HERE (editor, designer, illustrator: 2006-2013)








Tuesday, 13 April 2010

Shona van Dam - India, Meditation and Minerva




An interview with Shona van Dam took me to her degree show in the Academy Minerva in Groningen. A long, narrow, totally white interior filled with white scrolled pillars of card in various heights and breadths and each poised on a sketchbook. Both imposing and unusual this installation requires interactivity from the viewer to reveal its secrets.

According to Shona the installation is based on a 30-meter high dome-like building, which is the focal point of a community called Auroville in Tamil Nadu, India. Built in concentric circles, the design is based on the galaxy. The dome is known as the Matrimandir or ‘Soul of the city’ has an inner chamber with 12 white pillars, which serve as décor rather than being functional. In the centre of the white marbled inner chamber there is a large ‘crystal’, globe measuring 70 centimeters in diameter, this is the largest optically perfect glass globe in the world. Daylight that emanates from a hole in the ceiling passes through an installation and emerges as a beam of light that passes right through the crystal from top to bottom, ending up in a pond full of lilies. In this chamber the atmosphere is one of purity and calm, and here meditation and reflection are practiced. The ethics of the community are to live in harmony whatever their race or creed, outside of the predetermined restrictions of other countries or states. 

Auroville is Shona’s birthplace. White pillars feature in her work, reflecting calm and purity. By placing rolled up cardboard in pillar form on top of her sketchbooks, the viewer is made to look down into the ‘pillar’, to view her work and thereby physically interact with each work individually. Sometimes you have to stoop down low, at other times stand on tiptoes, or by moving the pillar. In this way the experience is more intense and is in total contrast to the experience provided in most museums, where the observer often remains disconnected from an exhibition, by not being allowed to touch or move anything.

What one sees at the bottom of each tube is an image combined with a spiral of text. This is her way of releasing as she says an ‘over load of the mind’, as a result of the stimuli of life and the world around her. ‘The setup is designed to give the viewer the opportunity to peer through a ‘mini-scope’, into my thoughts, ideas and emotions’, said Shona. Some images are drawn but by burning the paper she creates others. This is done systematically and in diverse ways. One sketchbook shows the use of a very red pigment in combination with the paper. This was created using soil, a kilo of which was sent especially by her mother from Tamil Nadu. Shona has a fascination with the unique characteristics of the materials she uses and their reaction upon contact with paper, as well as the textures, imprints and grains that are left behind.

The daughter of a Dutch mother and English father, Shona originally left India at the age of nineteen to come to Holland to ‘learn art and how to earn her own money’. The former she has accomplished the latter she says she is still learning. She plans to return to India in October to get back to her roots, after which she wants to travel, starting with New Zealand.

To learn more about Auroville their website can be found at here



First published in the Connections magazine #9 July 2005 

View all issues of Connections HERE (editor, designer, illustrator: 2006-2013)