In March and April 2017, I stayed at Workshop Diepenheim. Upon arrival in Diepenheim, I received a warm welcome in the workshop building. It turned out that my studio had been specially decorated for me by the previous resident, Alex Winters. A sitting area, work tables and a desk with beers, peanuts and chocolate chips. Only the desk stayed in place, the rest I immediately knocked over. Alex's gesture of setting up the space at the end of his work period and welcoming me to it is exactly how I know Alex. A very focused and friendly action, which made me realize above all that I can control the work period entirely to my own will. An action that is also illustrative of a residency as a welcoming and hospitable place.
The guest studio in Diepenheim is part of the Mondriaan Fund's scheme Gastatelier Binnenland. Kunstvereniging Diepenheim, a presentation institution with an insanely beautiful building, offers in collaboration with Werkplaats Diepenheim space for research, development, experiment, reflection and presentation. Diepenheim Workshop is a kind of hub in the web of cultural initiatives that Diepenheim is rich. As a result, the studios (one-room accommodations) and apartments are also home to theater makers, circus artists, lithographers or groups of students. The workshops and studios have a different entrance in the same building, with a common kitchen where I met many people and had coffee. But most of the time there was a calm where there was mostly room to work. In my studio, but also in the surroundings.
In my work, drawing normally plays a role only in the preparatory phase. I often make small working sketches or working drawings with dimensions and design solutions to build an object. I also make drawings to see how an object will relate to a space. In addition, I often make sketches in Photoshop in combination with 3D software to give an idea of the final result for proposals for projects or requests. This is very similar to the way architecture is often visualized in advance.
My plan was to explore whether I could come up with new drawings from my working drawings and sketches that could be work in their own right. I soon found out that my drawings are always in service of another project. In order to try out many different techniques and ways of drawing, I started making designs for a (at that time) fake project. Through the process of drawing, thinking while working, but also especially thinking and stepping into images, a different work process emerged that I am very satisfied with. The working drawings of objects in the public space that could not, or never, be realized have become autonomous trains of thought. In the near future, the results of technical drawings and sketches on photographs will also return more often in my work (process).
Alongside this research, another design emerged whose idea had been on my mind for much longer. Since 2000 I have been working on a growing archive of objects and street furniture in public space. From 2014 onwards I have unlocked this growing archive through out-box.nl. During the experiments in Diepenheim, and working with these photos, I came across a collection of photos that had a lot of text on them. Usually I put this pile aside, but I decided to see if something could come out of it. By focusing on the very elements that made the photo unusable before, the texts in the image, I was able to distill a font. deep current is a lowercase font for both digital and handwriting use. All the choices were aimed at making an alternative to BLOCKLETTERS. Since there was an opportunity to get acquainted with lithography in the litho workshop next to my studio, I made a lithograph as a kind of intermediate result of this graphic experiment.
Besides the time to focus entirely on the practicalities of my studio, there was also a lot of time to read and do theory research. I read a lot about sojourn spaces, public space and place making. I also deepened my knowledge of techniques and updated my knowledge of working drawings, isometrics and project visualization through books or the internet. The surroundings of Diepenheim offer a lot of space and tranquility. I often interrupted the days with bicycle trips to monuments, landscape works and other art in public spaces. The little tower of Wim T. Schippers at the University of Twente in Enschede, a bizarre Hundertwasser-like office building 'aan de Stegge' in Goor, and a beautiful landscape work by Shlomo Koren in Lochem are some examples of the enormous diversity the area offers. I am not even going to mention the natural areas. A huge landmark that I crossed many times was the Twente Canal, largely dug as a work relief in the 1930s with shovel and wheelbarrow. It is an intervention in the region that had to serve the textile industry and still has an impact on the environment and determines where roads and places are.
The impact of working and living in relative splendid isolation Before this residency period, I had mainly experienced this with other artists at Hotel Maria Kapel, where I was part of the daily organization from 2010-2014. A big difference here is that in Diepenheim I did not work purposefully towards a presentation or exhibition, whereas the artists at Hotel Maria Kapel do. By taking apart my work process in Diepenheim and completely replacing some facets, new projects emerged. The presentation of residents 2016/17 of Werkplaats Diepenheim can still be seen at the Kunstvereniging Diepenheim until August 27, 2017. Participating artists: Sanja Medic, Kim Habers, Alex Winters and Wouter Sibum.
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