Beam Bag, object, 2025
Eight years ago my backpack broke just an hour before I had to take my bus to Hasselt. In this timeframe I challenged myself to build a new backpack starting from an old wooden crate and some worn out hiking bag. The object I made that day would become one of the most precious possessions I had in the years that followed. A while ago I decided to sell it, curious about how that would make me feel. Initially I felt very naked without it, like I was losing a limb. After a while the phantom pain disappeared, but recently I started thinking a lot about that backpack again. When I was making it nothing else existed, I got lost in the process without thinking to much about it's artistic value for others or a certain target group it had to reach out to. It was just for me.
I re-discovered this feeling again while playing around with an old beam that has been in my family for some 80 years. I want to mess around more, pre-think less and let my intuition guide me once again while creating.
Eight years ago my backpack broke just an hour before I had to take my bus to Hasselt. In this timeframe I challenged myself to build a new backpack starting from an old wooden crate and some worn out hiking bag. The object I made that day would become one of the most precious possessions I had in the years that followed. A while ago I decided to sell it, curious about how that would make me feel. Initially I felt very naked without it, like I was losing a limb. After a while the phantom pain disappeared, but recently I started thinking a lot about that backpack again. When I was making it nothing else existed, I got lost in the process without thinking to much about it's artistic value for others or a certain target group it had to reach out to. It was just for me.
I re-discovered this feeling again while playing around with an old beam that has been in my family for some 80 years. I want to mess around more, pre-think less and let my intuition guide me once again while creating.