Isabelle Andriessen - Ivory Dampers (2019)

With her work, Isabelle Andriessen (b. 1986) wants to emphasize that everything in this universe is in a constant state of interaction and transformation. Humans and matter influence each other, but humanity is only a small aspect within an immense volume of time and space, and the earth also evolves without human presence. So her works can be understood as an allusion to a distant future in which there are no more people, but many materials that have outlived humanity, such as plastic, aluminium, and non-degradable chemicals, and it is unclear how these will develop over time.

Andriessen rejects the distinction that has always been made between human and object and applies her knowledge of chemistry and physics in order to make materials react to one another and to transform them, without any human intervention being required. Her sculptures solidify, drip, glow, melt, rust, crystallize and secrete substances. With her work, she raises the question of when to label something as living or non-living, and she wants to underline the fact that objects can function independently. She works with a wide range of materials – from prehistoric ceramics to contemporary fibreglass – all of which have a different relationship to time and our surroundings. By taking this approach, Andriessen reinforces her audience’s physical and sensory experience.

The work that Andriessen created for DELIRIOUS also functioned as a living system, which, as a result of the composition of the materials, changed texture and colour over the course of the exhibition. This sculpture, over seven metres in length, which stood on a metal base, was made up of hollow ceramic forms with crystals growing on them and liquid leaking from them. Andriessen’s sculpture just might be a ‘natural’ inhabitant of De Oude Warande in a thousand or ten thousand years’ time.