2023, 6 x 4 x 6 meters, steel, glass, stones and other materials.

The work was made for the IJsselbiennale in 2023, and was placed in Deventer near a former gas-factory.

The title of the work is “Rhizome”. The title refers to the type of root system, which can multiply infinitely. Rhizomes seem to just start somewhere and end nowhere, they have no stem, no center, no hierarchy. Rhizomes grow unbridled, interlock and form connections, creating a strong, virtually ineradicable network. Elaborating on the biological rhizome, the philosopher Deleuze introduced rhizomatic thinking. Characteristic is the lack of a fixed line that determines and directs thinking. Many entrances and exits and a multitude of lines and branches provide space for dimensions instead of units.

The work shows a kind of abstract factory/gas holder. Obviously also referring to the site on which it is placed. The rhizome somehow seems resemble a bit of a kind of creator, as it were, and it also shows the vulnerability of our system. A bit like astronauts experience a view of the earth; a sense of realization that the earth is a very vulnerable system that we should handle very carefully. The work is both monumental and also full of details.

The works strongly relates to hanging installations I started making the last few years in which blue threats connect various models and other objects. "Constellation #1" and Constellation #2".  Works that are referring to geopolitics and the ever growing dependacy of economics, trade, ecology, power, etcetera. The blue threats refer to "blue-prints" and the blue lines in many of my prints, which also derive from the "blue-prints" being used within architecture and technical drawings.

These old blue-prints often showed plans and concepts. Something has a wonderfull and meaningfull contrast with the earthly rootsysten and the brown parts within my prints.