Other projects

Bruegel Installation – 2019

In my spare time I work on my art in an open atelier at the Westrand community center. For the Bruegel year they tasked us to use Bruegel’s snowy landscapes as a source of inspiration for their annual exhibition. I immediately thought, ‘I want something interactive’. I had been itching to create an installation where the audience was central to the story and became the performer. So that’s exactly what I did. I created what I lovingly called my ‘hok’, roughly translated to: my pen. I wanted the experience to be individual so I created a small enclosing space made out of bamboo sticks and jut covered in gesso and plaster. I wanted the pen’s all natural look to contrast with the digital livestream of the audience. 

When I started looking to Bruegel for inspiration I noted that his gaze was crucial in his art. For example the peasants in his art were often portrayed in the (negative) way they were regarded by the wealthier class to which Bruegel belonged. I wanted the gaze to stand central to my piece, not the gaze of the artist, however, but the gaze of the audience looking at art which portrays them looking at the art and, at the same time, themselves. And so I developed my piece further and started to think about what the gaze meant in today’s society. Not just the way we look at other people, but the way we look at ourselves and post pictures. Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms out there and people’s use of filters inspired me. I didn’t want a simple portrayal of the audience performing the act of gazing at art, I wanted it to have a filter to comment on our daily filtered and often idealized, digital versions of ourselves.