About the Resident

Aliki van der Kruijs, alumni of Jan van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands, graduated with an MA in Applied Art at the Sandberg Institute and a BA in Fashion design from the ArtEZ University of Arts. Giving workshops and coaching art-students is a way to share her experience in textile research and design.

Aliki’s work is acquired by the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum (New York), Zuiderzeemuseum (Enkhuizen), Princessehof (Leeuwarden), Textielmuseum (Tilburg), Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (United Arab Emirates), Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (The Netherlands) and private collectors.

Presented in partnership with Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York

alikivanderkruijs.com
@alikivanderkruijs

Learn more about the Dutch Residency

From a background in graphic and fashion design, the craftsmanship of Aliki has a strong focus on the medium textile as a communication tool. Over the past ten years, the Dutch designer/researcher constructed a material database from her main interest in the weather and geology, making her textile work relational to time, place and landscape. By combining crafts with scientific data, her work articulates in an artistic and poetic way about phenomena on Earth.

She collaborates with companies and institutes like Nike, Wolf-Gordon, Zig Zag Zurich, Sandberg Institute, Het Nieuwe Instituut as well fashion designers and architects to apply her materials. She was part of the Weavers Werkstatt, a project by Hella Jongerius / Jongeriuslab.

In the past years, collaborations with architects created space to apply her textiles in the domestic and public environment to enrich the daily living experience with patterns and textures based on (in)visible natural narratives.

Documenting fieldwork:

Her practice fundaments on an intuitive encounter with the world through fieldwork. Crafts are a tool to bridge sensory experience and scientific data and synthesize thinking and making. From a conceptual approach and experimental working attitude she develops a visual grammar in which natural elements such as rain, the sun, heat or salt have been used several times as a “tool” to edit material and generate meaning. Since 2012 she is working on the project Made by Rain, a textile register of rainfall at a specific location. The textiles form a collection of weather data: visual recordings of a drizzly day or even a monsoon, imprinted on textile. Each unique cloth is accompanied with its actual precipitation data of location, time and weather conditions.

madebyrain.com
@made.by.rain

kadanskadans.com

Aliki’s Experience

1. Which was your main objective with the residency in New York?

AVK: The main objective was to explore the city through a textile lens, meeting people who work with/around textiles and to deepen the connection I already had with NY through previous experiences of exhibition and collaboration. From a textile point of view we together with Wanted Design  prepared the program of the residency. 

2. Could you briefly walk us through your daily activities in the city?

AVK: The first thing I did every morning was to photograph the tree behind my house. In the mornings I mostly did some computer work, and tried to reflect on the things experienced the day before. When I left home, the first thing I did was to take a picture of the sky straight up. This resulted in a collection of skies, almost like a ‘out of office’ diary. But was also very useful because it became almost a visual tab in my camera roll.

Afternoons I spent outside, meeting people, meeting the parks, hiking, having some appointments, visiting museums or going to the picture archive in the National Library. 

3. What was the most exciting and unexpected discovery?
AVK: When I arrived to the New York Earth Room, a permanent work by Walter de Maria, something touched me. I was alone in the space, and it was suddenly totally quiet. And perhaps the smell, the serenity of the place or something else made a big impression. Also learning that the soil is there since 1977 made a strong contrast to the world outside where everything is in motion and renewal all the time.

4. Having worked extensively with natural elements and environmental data in your textiles, how do you compare the environmental narratives of New York with those of the Netherlands, did this comparison influence your residency project?

AVK: There is an environmental narrative that I have been exploring, which is the orange skies that were in NY June 2023 after the wildfires in Canada. I have been collecting images from the people I met to create a collection of ‘sky filters’ and observations and experiences of the people who witnessed it. In the short period of the residency I explored some narratives, but it is too soon to make articulated comparisons. 

5. What were your overall impressions of the residency program?

AVK: It was good to feel supported by WantedDesign and the Dutch Embassy, to explore the city on a cultural as well networking level. It is a totally different residency than I did before, as it’s less rooted in learning a craft or specific workshop to go to every day. This made it feel like I was living for a month in NY, and brought the possibility to really explore the city. Many people I met shared that I saw and did so many things in these weeks, things they never had done, or even heard about. 

6. What do you consider was the most important and beneficial outcome of this experience?

AVK: The inspiring meetings I had with people, that brought many extra layers to all the explorations I did on my own. The collection of materials/textures/colours and photography that I created resonate the meetings, echoing the parks, the nature that finds space in between the concrete, and feel that these meetings and materials are seeds for possible new adventures to work on in NY or with people in NY.

7. Are you planning on creating a collection with your the discoveries, insights and inspiration you gathered throughout this month?

AVK: Yes it would be great to create a collection. And I am thinking to make a publication from the photography I did with additional the materials (colours and textures) that I created. 

8. Could you name one thing, person, place or experience that inspired you or gave you a new perspective of yourself, your work or your practice?

AVK: The horizon. Yes, the horizon.  It was almost mind-blowing to see after some weeks of city, when going to the Rockaway point a full horizon again. This gave the insight that I experience it’s healthy to look far away. As well sharing this discovery with others, I discovered that it is something New Yorkers experience as well, missing to look far into a landscape.

9. Would you be interested in coming back and pursuing new collaborations in the US?

AVK: Yes very much. This month felt like a good period to get a deeper feeling and understanding of how the city works, and what can be taken care of and what would be meaningful to do and work on.

10. What’s next for you besides this specific project, do you have upcoming projects, travels, or exhibits you would like to share?

AVK: Next week an exhibition is opening where I am making a new range of textiles that will be influenced by the weather over the 7 moths of the show. And for the upcoming two moths I will be in Japan for a residency where together with a culinary artist Céline Pelcé we will follow a line of research around water, and will use textiles, ceramics and food events to connect different ecologies where water plays a role.

11. How was your experience at Camp David, as well as part of the Industry City community?

AVK: Camp David was like a good save haven to know to be able to work. When I was not exploring the city but wanted to digest the inspiration of the time in museum, city walking, parks, libraries, Camp David was a pleasant place to do this. It was inspiring to work there as part of a community with other makers, good coffee and sweets and other food venues. The many Japanese venues made a kind of bridge to the upcoming residency!