Responge

text by Marlies van Hak ; design by Peter van den Hoogen (COUP design)

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Author(s)

Marlies van Hak

Publication

[Nijmegen?] : [in house?], 2023

Scope

A3 poster, folded Pages, illustrated, 30 cm.

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Isolde Venrooy (1977-2025) was a visual artist who created viewing tools (such as drawings, paintings, ceramic objects, textiles and installations), social interventions and performative walks. In her practice she meandered through landscapes and explored themes of porosity, borders, migration, language and bodies, by constantly shifting between thinking and making within a context of taking responsibility for social and material relationships in the places and spaces we share (including non-human entities). This handout was designed for Isolde Venrooy’s solo exhibition •R•E•S•P•O•N•G•E• in De Fabriek, Eindhoven, 2022. The publication brings together a number of objects, interventions and walks by the artist. The title refers to Venrooy’s fascination with sponges (animals), sponge cakes, and the sponge like quality in ourselves. The exhibition revealed the interwoven nature of the artist’s walking performances, her Indonesian heritage and her working methods which were rooted in ecological thinking and making. The text takes unexpected detours following the line of ‘between’ in order to queer directions, a connecting theme in Venrooy’s work.

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Person as subject

Isolde Venrooy

Keywords

walking , social practice - participatory art

Location

Cabinet 8 - 3: Kunstenaars

Remarks

in cardboard folder together with 3 other booklets accompanying Venrooy's projects.