• Identitours: An audio walk The journey starts from the definition: Words set perimeters, but also bridge rivers, carve new paths. The map leads to wondrous and sometimes fantastical transformations in the garden of Buitenplaats Brienenoord: Masks — expressions of virtuality, of the possible as a reality, built with everyday means. Audio pieces guide you through a personal, evolving relationship with labels and exhibit the ways in which I reject, reclaim or reinterpret words. Your walk between points is a performative manifestation of (inner) dialogue, the space where meaning and identity are negotiated. Start (audio) The start is a point in time and a point in space surrounded, preceded, followed, extended, completed by other points. I have been called, among others, “complicated”, “naive”, “strong”, “caring”, “smart”, “stubborn”, “crazy” and “wild”. These saturated by context, circumstance and intention words are my starting points in a journey of performing and transforming meaning. Masks Masks are used in my practice as a primary metaphor, a materialization of the answer to the question “What is the way out?” of the boundaries labels set for identity. The whole process of mask-making relates to the building and re-building of identity, to the perpetual performative and interactive process of looking at what is available, picking and combining elements, (re-)imagining and creating new forms of existing. Materials that are salvaged, recycled, forgotten or not fitting anywhere else; carton, paper, scraps from old textiles and broken toys, are used to express virtuality, our endless potential for change and re-invention. In this sense, masks are not used to conceal but to create space and potential. A final take on biases: The third and last part of presenting Labels, but not for clothes focuses on "the way out" of the confines of labels. After discussing the impact of labels especially during the formative years in the first pubic moment, and systemic biasing in the second, this last exhibition focuses on affordances, performativity and virtuality.
  • Leeszaal in Rotterdam hosted on Monday 24 March 2025 a very important public moment. Among the works exhibited was the second part of the project "Labels, but not for clothes". What was presented: A "game", demonstrating how systemic exclusion supports labeling, based on the actual directives of the latest US administration. A video piece with main source material TV ads from the 80's and 90's setting impossible stereotypes through repetition.
  • The project "Labels, but not for clothes" approaches the topic of labeling and stereotyping from different angles and calls for participation and has developed as a triptych. The project had its first public moment in November, in the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, NL. The purpose of this first part: To show the impact of exposure to biases and labels at an early age. In what ways do words shape us? What was presented: A series of drawings describing a personal experience of growing up surrounded by labels and biases (integrated in the text below). 2 audio pieces: 1 on how people perceive biases and labels and 1 personal story. A soundboard: A small instrument ("Characterization Generator") that treats labels as pieces of sound. How we deal with them is in our hands, like keys on a keyboard. The installation included a feedback form from which a Repository was created.
  • As part of a bigger, collective project and following the subjective map of Rotterdam this project was adapted to fit the city of Groningen. Inspired as always by infrastructure, it grew to include Eemshaven and to pose questions regarding the cost of development and of our increasing needs in energy and data. Below is the video produced from footage of Eemshaven and the city of Groningen, juxtaposing liminal and gentrified (or on the verge of gentrification) spaces and the ever-expanding energy and data factories of Eemshaven.
    An ever-changing mobile population Our mixed paths Our lost orientation Making history that soaks into An angry earthA greedy machine is marching From the end of the worldA new order A dark mirror. We remainStoic like oaksEntangled In deep rooted feeling Or Anchored like house boats In half-deserted portsRocking with the waft The ebb and the tide. In a playful manner, the project also speaks about and celebrates the mundane but magical corners as met by the curious eyes of a stranger. Here are some pictures of the project in its natural environment: SIGN Project Space, commissioned and hosted the work from 26 September to 6 October 2024. The relevant object which compliments the video was created with SIGN's DIY approach in mind. It incorporates elements of temporality, temporariness, orientation as experienced from the viewpoint of the visitor, thoughts on the big issues of the city and 3D-printed GPS logs.
  • This pocket photobook is part of a larger project that explores the role of repetition in the formation and deconstruction of bias. Repetition in this context will be examined from different angles: A frequently taken route, the spreading of news, beliefs and opinions, an obsessive thought. Points of departure: Repetition and nominalism. Repetition and mechanization. Repetition as variation. Repetition as progress. The narrative value of repetition and its role in performativity. The power and the many faces of repetition in connection to the formation of opinion and bias will be explored through different media. This book is the first manifestation, the first topic addressed: Seeking and finding answers through repetition, and the attraction of the familiarity repetition brings. The first edition of this book is printed in limited numbered and signed copies. Each copy is unique and fully handmade. The pictures below show the first one of these copies: 48 pages, grayscale, 11x12 (cm), archival paper 100gr (Conqueror, oyster) on archival paper 240gr, (Dali, chamois), chain stitch: The flip book video shows a color version of the book (physical copy in the making).
    Repetition Locked in a series of movements in a frame made of gestures circling words and behavioral loops that I had to repeat (until I broke through) I learned that progress is a spiral and that there is no such thing as repetition. Although I memorize the steps I follow the sequence I copy and paste the half-empty days and their dummies for reference: A sunset, a beach, a building. The pattern is similar but there is no identical point in time and each repetition brings me closer to a still escaping answer. But even after I quench my question I keep going back to the comfort of the familiar because after all I am just a creature of habit. You can read more about the poetry issues project here.

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