COUNTERPOINTS
 Solo exhibition Buitenplaats Doornburgh, 2020

Bridging - beeswax, cheesecloth, wood | Photo by Lize Kraan

Telling the Bees - wood, beeswax | photo by Lize Kraan

Amo et Odi - kasumi marble, electro motor, piezo microphone

Bamboo Phase - bamboo, electromotor

“For Dom Hans Van der Laan, order is the underlying principle of everything. Nature, as God’s creation, is unfathomable. Its forms have countless sizes. Architecture, as the fundamental HABITUS is there to surround us like clothing and to make our environment readable.” - Caroline Voet, 2019

Counterpoints at Buitenplaats Doornburgh (Maarssen, NL) was made during the 2020 Doornburgh artist residency. The exhibition consists both site-specific installations and older works made during the 2020 AIAV residency in Japan, as well as a new composition for violin, cello and double bass. 

As stated above, the underlying principle for De Bossche School was that we need architecture to create a frame from which we can experience and better understand our natural surroundings. Both Telling the Bees and Bridging counter this principle by using a natural material to create a new perspective on the architecture.


Telling the Bees
In Telling the Bees, four beeswax columns are placed in the corridors of the former monastery. Although they seem to be positioned randomly, they strictly adhere to the iconic building ratios of De Bossche School (3:4, 7/4:16/3, 1:6). These monoliths have the same dimensions as the existing columns in the monastery. Their unorthodox placement creates a new relationship between visitor and  architecture. 

The title of the work refers to the old European custom of updating the beehive on every major change in the beekeepers life, be it a wedding, birth or funeral. If the bees were not told about these events, the hive would get upset and leave the nest in search of a better caretaker. 


Bridging
The architecture of Buitenplaats Doornburgh is inward looking. Its secluded rooms have windows looking into the inner garden, but they are not connected to each other. One must always go through a corridor to get into another room, with the exception of the L-shaped library on the ground floor. When both doors of the library are open, they offer a shortcut from one side of the building to the other, and provide a diagonal perspective opening up the space and creating connections between rooms. In other words, the viewer can see the library and two sides of the surrounding hallway at the same time.

Bridging uses a thirteen meter high pine tree, a Douglas-fir, to embody this diagonal, emphasizing the visual bridge between the two sides of the hallway. At the same time, the tree blocks both entrances to the library, shielding a big part of the room from view. The natural material provides, once more, a frame to understand human space and interpret architectural decisions, and forces the visitors to rethink the way they walk through the building.

3/7 of the tree, respecting the Bossche School ratios, is wrapped in cloth soaked in beeswax, conserving its body and offering the fallen giant a death ritual that has its roots in both Arabian and European rites.


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