Containing space

Just as architectural space needs physical contours to be defined, it needs concepts deriving from one’s needs and motivations. Bodily experiences give the consciousness ground for abstraction, by which it changes its physical environment in return.

The work has been built up around a simple object: the round shaped container, may it be a cup, a bowl or a flowerpot. For many years I have been making these containers on the turning wheel and I have slowly realized that they are very powerful things regarding the conception and the experience of space.

               


       


                      

         

Based on these simple objects I am making constructions that always start with a concept: an idea drawn into three-dimensional space.

However, in corporeality things act different than preconcieved ideas; I adjust and react to the particular characteristics of the materials I work with.

During the building up of each work, I am searching for the fine balance of concept and matter to cancel the (illusory) boundaries between the two.

       

Within the process

             

Sub/liminal soundscapes

 



Walls, borders, boundaries, demarcation lines are inherent to our daily lives, perception and thinking process. 

The work focuses on the dynamics of liminal surfaces and the space within and around - inside and outside - to discover how boundaries effect the area they surround.

By the reproduction and altering of a simple plastic flowerpot I gain tools to examine the connection of substance, architectural space and their human perception.

The objects have a casted ceramic base onto which different materials are applied and previously recorded sounds are vibrated directly back into them.

This process results in a layered soundscape as each sound is changed by the material composition it goes through.

Installation photographs Gerrit Rietveld Academie 3-7 July 2019

Sub/liminal soundscapes II

This work is the reassessment of the installation Sub/liminal soundscapes. Using sound waves with the specific frequencies of each object, the material shakes its own ‘voice.’

The audience is invited to touch the containers to feel their vibration and to influence the sound composition.

It is currently being developed within a residency programme of Steim Amsterdam.

 

“…this is how space begins, with words only, signs traced on the blank page. To describe space: to name it, to trace it, like those portolano-makers who saturated the coastlines with the names of harbours, the names of capes, the names of inlets, until in the end the land was only separated from the sea by a continuous ribbon of text. “ 
George Perec




In my BA thesis I use the topic of private space in order to discover how physical space effects our perception, and the other way round, how our conception of space constructs corporeal space.

Starting from language and investigating through the concepts of inside, outside, private and public, looking at architecture, subjectivity and virtual space, I focus on visual access and limitation, boundaries, content and in-between zones.

                            

You can read the text here.

One of my main inspiration lies in the activity of making. Turning clay on the wheel connects me to the long-life tradition of ceramic crafts while it raises a different awareness to my everyday perception. The attention I need for the ceramic process; creating shapes, guiding the drying process, firing the kiln, developing and applying glazes, highly informs my work as an artist and designer.

KOPPA is the collection of the ceramic tableware I continuously work on. If you would like to know more about my products or have a specific request, you can contact me via email or phone.

You can find KOPPA on Instagram here.