A MUST SEE

2015
Performance, 45 min
KW Berlin (DE)

A MUST SEE suggested new frames for looking at the public space surrounding KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. I loosely directed the viewer’s attention by running and performing sports-like exercises in public space. The work suggested new frames for the neighbourhood, showing and using the ‘stages’ that were already present. Now and again the public became performers themselves, simply by being a group with an unusual focus and by literally being placed on stages in relation to passers-by and the audience of the next or previous tour.

Ellen Blumenstein, head curator at KW, Berlin: ‘I enjoyed looking at them in the way they made it bodily, physical but explicitly not-sexual and avoiding display of physical achievement. We were allowed to look in a specific way, not peeping or admiring, the set-up of the body in relation to the surroundings makes it an object in a way we are not accustomed to see it.’

A MUST SEE was shown at KW Berlin within the Performative Minute series, curated by Adela Yawitz.

A MUST SEE suggested new frames for looking at the public space surrounding KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. I loosely directed the viewer’s attention by running and performing sports-like exercises in public space. The work suggested new frames for the neighbourhood, showing and using the ‘stages’ that were already present. Now and again the public became performers themselves, simply by being a group with an unusual focus and by literally being placed on stages in relation to passers-by and the audience of the next or previous tour.

Ellen Blumenstein, head curator at KW, Berlin: ‘I enjoyed looking at them in the way they made it bodily, physical but explicitly not-sexual and avoiding display of physical achievement. We were allowed to look in a specific way, not peeping or admiring, the set-up of the body in relation to the surroundings makes it an object in a way we are not accustomed to see it.’

A MUST SEE was shown at KW Berlin within the Performative Minute series, curated by Adela Yawitz.

Summer Shorts

2015
Installation / theatre venue
Various materials
(IM)MERGE Festival, London (UK)

This installation inside a small caravan hosts six different site specific theatre pieces and their small audience groups. Where traditionally a play would come first—or at least its concept or storyline—and the creation of the set would come second, this work sees the visual come first. A set is produced that precedes any plot, and is interpreted after its realisation by the performance makers.  

SUMMER SHORTS was initiated by Robin Linde Productions and produced in collaboration with IMMERGE, a series of events leading up to MERGE Festival, in association with Better Bankside, Borough Market, and Tate Modern. The installation was built with the help of a group of students from the preparatory course of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, of which I owe the most to Felix Schiffman and Alice Ashton. 

This installation inside a small caravan hosts six different site specific theatre pieces and their small audience groups. Where traditionally a play would come first—or at least its concept or storyline—and the creation of the set would come second, this work sees the visual come first. A set is produced that precedes any plot, and is interpreted after its realisation by the performance makers.  

SUMMER SHORTS was initiated by Robin Linde Productions and produced in collaboration with IMMERGE, a series of events leading up to MERGE Festival, in association with Better Bankside, Borough Market, and Tate Modern. The installation was built with the help of a group of students from the preparatory course of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, of which I owe the most to Felix Schiffman and Alice Ashton. 

Zouden Zullen Zijn

2015
Installation
Clear polyester, dimensions variable, individual blocks 90 x 35 x 45 mm
Museum van Loon Amsterdam (NL), Fondation CAB Brussels (BE)

The installation Zouden Zullen Zijn (Would (be) Will (be) Are), consists of a group of small, polyester volumes scattered through interior space. The objects appear in different locations, in various quantities and positions, gaining meaning through their setting. In the case of this iteration, Sijben’s objects are displayed around the Museum van Loon in Amsterdam. Their contemporary volumes disrupt the museum’s narrow version of historical events by reopening a narrative, and, like traffic cones, they suggest that a process is still under construction. 

Bernke Klein Zandvoort, curator: “What is it that makes me an art object? Why is my status confusing? Am I meant to be touched, or should one respectfully keep one’s distance? This is not a constructed theory that Sijben drapes onto their work, but is inherently enclosed in the objects themselves. They are playful, beautiful and confusing and have suspiciously much to do with the world outside of the museum.”

The work Zouden Zullen Zijn was created for Something Thrown in the Way of the Observer, a group show at Museum van Loon in Amsterdam in 2015. It was shown again in the group show Inhabited by Objects at CAB Brussels (BE) in 2016/2017. The blocks of Zouden Zullen Zijn have since then been for sale and have become part of many different private collections, further expanding possibilities for meaning in their interaction with different settings. 

Zouden Zullen Zijn is still for sale for 75 euros per block. Please write an email to mail@sijbenrosa.nl in case you’re interested in purchasing your own.

Photography by Gert Jan van Rooij.

The installation Zouden Zullen Zijn (Would (be) Will (be) Are), consists of a group of small, polyester volumes scattered through interior space. The objects appear in different locations, in various quantities and positions, gaining meaning through their setting. In the case of this iteration, Sijben’s objects are displayed around the Museum van Loon in Amsterdam. Their contemporary volumes disrupt the museum’s narrow version of historical events by reopening a narrative, and, like traffic cones, they suggest that a process is still under construction. 

Bernke Klein Zandvoort, curator: “What is it that makes me an art object? Why is my status confusing? Am I meant to be touched, or should one respectfully keep one’s distance? This is not a constructed theory that Sijben drapes onto their work, but is inherently enclosed in the objects themselves. They are playful, beautiful and confusing and have suspiciously much to do with the world outside of the museum.”

The work Zouden Zullen Zijn was created for Something Thrown in the Way of the Observer, a group show at Museum van Loon in Amsterdam in 2015. It was shown again in the group show Inhabited by Objects at CAB Brussels (BE) in 2016/2017. The blocks of Zouden Zullen Zijn have since then been for sale and have become part of many different private collections, further expanding possibilities for meaning in their interaction with different settings. 

Zouden Zullen Zijn is still for sale for 75 euros per block. Please write an email to mail@sijbenrosa.nl in case you’re interested in purchasing your own.

Photography by Gert Jan van Rooij.