Desiree de Baar - Fragment of a building #1

By Desiree de Baar, participant KNITTED WORLDS exhibition, written the week before the opening

The work is nearly finished, I just have to sew the hinges on. I’m quite thrilled. The size and monumental character of the work is a new step in my work. It was hard work.

This new work is a mockup of the building where I have my studio. It is in an old school from the beginning of the last century in Rotterdam. According to Wikipedia a mockup is a “full-size non-functional model of a structure or device, used for teaching, demonstration, testing a design and promotion”. I did it the other way around. I made it as a reconstruction of an everyday-life site. These three doors used to enclose toilets. Now two of them serve as closets. I love the repetition of the form by the three doors. By isolating them into one image, I put the emphasis on the sculptural qualities of my daily environment. The monochrome colour and material amplify this.

A fragment of a hallway, that I have passed through so many times. Often without paying thís much attention. Instead of using a method like casting, I reconstructed it by knitting. It is a slow and intense technique. This technique, with its repetitive movements, fits the way I want to pay attention to ordinary things. To make a pattern for the knitting I have to measure every detail and listel and calculate the stitches. I like this mathematical aspect of the knitting. Through the knitting and the process involved I put the focus on the details, showing a poetic site of ordinary things.

You are most welcome to visit me on my website to see more of my work and earlier installations involving knitting-work.