Emptying the Museum. Drachten 2019

We are showing the record of the piece we carried out last November in Holland invited by the Museum Drachten as part of the cultural events program organized on the occasion of  Leeuwarden-Fryslân: European Capital of Culture 2018.

This piece was called Emptying the Museum and was originally created for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London which invited us in 2010 to intervene their main courtyard.

This piece was meant to “ornamentally” recreate the need many a prestigious museum has to make room for novel artistic proposals that better respond to the interest of their visitors.

We could not carry it out at the end precisely because of the stiffness of this museum which did not want to see its image being damaged by the sight of construction containers over its façade, and our own, as we did not agree to dispense with them.

Hence, this idea remained on standby for 8 years waiting for a more open-minded museum. This opportunity finally arrived thanks to the directors of the  Museum Drachten who asked us to materialize it on its façade on a smaller scale.

We thought about having the piece intervene 4 windows of the museum’s façade to which we added a few debris emptying devices that are commonly used for building restoration. However, we personalized these devices with fabrics in such a way that, though their purpose was understood, one could see large lampshades.

To make these, we chose motifs relating to all sorts of decorative styles. We fitted them together to obtain long tubes descending from the highest windows through the façade to the containers on the street. The magic was of course achieved through interior lighting.

Although the Museum Drachten is very close to the people in the town, we really want to thank them for letting us materialize this piece at last. It was a pleasure for us to carry it out even though it is not in our usual style.

Once the piece was dismantled, the museum kept the lampshades in order to use them in their facilities. The remaining materials went back to their regular use.

It was a pleasure to work with all the friends from the museum who made us feel quite at home. Our special thanks to Thamar, Laura, Nicole, Paulo, as well as the people from Smart Camels whose production work for the piece was fantastic.

Time of installation: 10 days.
Damages: none.
Exhibition time: 10 days.

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