Podcast #4: Ida van der Lee

Van der Lee explains how Names and Numbers received a national variant, and she was therefore able to let it go (in part). What it's like to work with dozens of volunteers and how this project has held its own in the art discourse where artistry is heavily weighted. Another art project that can also be found in the Oosterpark neighborhood is Stolpersteine by Günther Demnig; Van der lee explains why her and his project complement each other well.

Van der Lee explains how Names and Numbers received a national variant, and she was therefore able to let it go (in part)

Saying goodbye seems to be the central theme for Van der Lee. That which is difficult can be alleviated if there is an appropriate ritual. She founded Studio Ritual Art, a network of artists, volunteers, students, clients and teachers who nurture, perform, invent, question or design ritual activities. Van der Lee designs and guides rituals to make lighter and more bearable that which should not be there because it is taboo or painful.

Her project Demolition Hammer Treasury (2003-2006) in the Het Vissershop neighborhood of Zaandam is one of the 100 Key Works, an overview compiled by BK-information in 2020 of outstanding and often high-profile art in public space after 1945. The neighborhood was being demolished and Van der Lee was asked to supervise the changes in the neighborhood. Having to leave your home because it is being demolished is a major event for many people. The emotions and memories that then surface are material for Van der Lee. Where it chafes, hurts and perhaps even disrupts, she sets to work.

Listen

At www.bkinformatie.nl/podcast, in addition to listening to podcasts, you can comment on the statements we formulate for each episode. The statement accompanying the podcast with Ida van der Lee: Artisticness is not an imperative condition for important visual arts.

About the podcast

Under the title What's that doing here? BK-information brings a ten-part podcast series about artists and the social issues they deal with. In each episode, philosopher and expert on art in public space Esther Didden and a co-host discuss artists who realize their work within a social context. A context in which very different criteria apply than within the "usual" art discourse. Why do they work within that context and what does it bring to their artistry? What criteria do they have to deal with? And what does it bring to society? What does an artist add when he or she sits at a conference table?

You can also listen to the podcast via:

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The next podcast appears on April 28. In it, we talk with Stefan Cools and Sandra van den Beuken, founders of The Butterfly House foundation. Cools and Van den Beuken transformed a piece of land near the Bunderbos in Limburg into a nature-inclusive meadow. Their work is a combination of art and nature development, in which knowledge about the landscape is central. How do they gather ecological knowledge and how does it relate to those they work with? What do they do differently from, say, the biologists and ecologists involved? They show their process and work in a museum context; what does such a stage bring them?

What is that doing here? is made possible in part by the Mondrian Fund and the Pictoright Fund.