Stamppot

In collaboration with Twinkelbel

Commissioned by: Kazerne Lab

2014, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Initiated by the Kazerne Lab, Stamppot is the result of our collaboration with Twinkelbel, a day care center and ceramic workshop in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The goal of the Kazerne Lab is to foster partnerships between creative professionals and businesses, with an emphasis on the social, economic, and cultural value of the collaboration and resulting projects. Via the power of applied creativity, Kazerne Lab makes an effort towards a livable tomorrow.

Twinkelbel is a unique workshop in that it caters to the mentally handicapped, using ceramics as a medium to generate communication, therapy and play.

All of the patrons, or clients, of Twinkelbel live with various disabilities. Through a guided interaction with ceramic production, clients are able to develop new skills, grow in their own unique creativity, and generate emotional responses to their own handiwork.

Stamppotconsists of a series of ceramic objects that contain a relationship to tableware. While referencing typical Dutch vegetables, the forms remain amorphous; they are designed to be interpreted.

This openness is as much a part of the end product as the production process. One of our main desires was to create a project that would allow room for each client to explore their own level of understanding, and show off or even further develop their own handwriting. Finding the right vehicle for this was no easy task. We returned to the drawing board several times before creating the right balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar, simplicity and suggestion, durability and delicacy.

During our initial interactions, we discovered that the clients at Twinkelbel have a wonderful affinity for their home country, and a pure enthusiasm for all things ‘Dutch’.  We were inspired by this energy and wanted to create a project that would reflect this link in a meaningful way.

 Stamppot is a very traditional Dutch dish created from the combination of potatoes mashed together with different vegetables.

Because of the simplicity of the recipe, there are countless ways it can be interpreted. We were inspired by how the approach of the Twinkelbel workshop, where no single individual is responsible for the entire process, is very much like a cooking recipe.

Stamppot starts with the addition of a light gray pigment to the clay body before casting, referencing traditional Dutch tableware. After the ceramic shapes have been bisque fired, clients are given an image of one of the four vegetables that are most common in the stamppot recipe: potatoes, kale, onions and carrots.

Using a color palette tailored to each vegetable, they are then asked to glaze a given form with their own interpretation of the image, emphasizing texture and pattern.  In this way value is added, where the glazing process is not simply an illustration of the vegetable on a blank canvas, but rather the entire form begins to embody the vegetable, taking on whichever characteristics the artists choose.

While some of the styles are more representational, others are more abstract and the connection to the original inspiration may seem very remote to the viewer. This spectrum of interpretations and understandings is a perfect reflection of the Twinkelbel world, and indeed something that we wanted to highlight in the Stamppot collection.

The emphasis in this collaboration is on ingredients.   Ingredients are, by definition, individual parts that are combined to make a whole.  This is the approach of the Twinkelbel workshop, it is the basis of a cooking recipe, and it is the story that we tell with Stamppot.

Stamppot was a part of KAZERNE LAB #02. SUSTAINABLE DAY CARE BY BCXSY & TWINKELBEL.

With special thanks to:
Annemoon Geurts and Koen Rijnbeek, Salem van der Swaagh, Ruud Balk and all the wonderful people at Twinkelbel: Yvonne van der Maden, Karin Bierens, Wilma van Hoven, Gino van Kuijk, Robért van den Bossche, Edward Berding, Erik Rooyakkers, Karlijn Schoenmakers, Tanja Adriaan, Lian Agricola, Ilse Holthausen, Lex Jamin, Marleen Maas, Sietske Peperkamp, Shirley Philips, Zubin Ruttensha, Kim Ulrich, Susanne Verstegen

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