Coney Island / Conyne Eylandt
photo by Isauro Cairo
About new collaborations
“I can best answer this question from a personal point of view. I was invited to collaborate with the fashion design collective Painted, even though (or perhaps because) I am a theater maker and director. To collaborate in this new context is very challenging for me.
My curiosity is driven by looking for the source of a gesture and the meaning it receives when designing and making things. It’s a dialogue. Working with two fashion designers I see how they make images and forms, while I tend to make gestures and movements that are not necessarily fixed in a form. For me form is temporary, and intended to let life pass through it. I can feel how this new collaboration enriches Painted and the things we make and do. And certainly, it enriches me.
In the context of Pioneers of Change, the collaboration of all the designers created a vibe, first in ‘making’ your own house and then in visiting each others’ houses. Mirroring your own activities in a bigger context gave it more meaning.”
Sweepers Clock by Maarten Baas. A clock in which some people are making the hands of a clock, by sweeping garbage all day long.
About a favorite house:
“I enjoyed Platform21=Repairing because of the very poetic yet concrete and realistic examples of repairing, because of the possibility to do it yourself in the house, because of the manifesto that links the activities, and because of the ‘designers’ who demonstrated their ideas and products themselves. Their spirit and personal approach was inspiring.
Also, the clock of Maarten Baas that passed time with people sweeping was very beautiful, particularly because as a clock it was not ‘complete’. A clock as we know it is just one apparatus to measure time, but what about others? How can cyclic notions of time be portrayed? To me, this clock demonstrates the limits of our concept of time.”
Margreet Sweerts, Painted