Imke van Boekhold
Fictional Flora
Without ever setting foot on land, Imke Van Boekhold studied the Scottish island of Foula for her graduation. In this way, she mapped out what the 31 residents wear. And she designed a herbarium for the island. While a herbarium normally consists of found plant material, its collection is created purely from the imagination.
Fictional flora, which becomes even more believable through the careful presentation. Van Boekhold plays with natural history, and where better to do that than in a Museum of All Times?
For the young designer, textiles are the material of choice. She turns them into fragile flowers and plants. Meticulously elaborated, they seem to have had a whole life behind them, they really seem to have dried.
Imke Van Boekhold calls it great luck that her plants emerge so realistically from under her machine. With the sewing machine she creates new life from dead matter. Like nature itself. Like the art.
In Maastricht, Ans Verdijk was one of her teachers, ABK Maastricht. Ever since she told me about the Museum, Imke cherished the wish to one day show her work there. Now she has picked flowers in the garden at the Museum of All Times in Beugen. Flowers that she will translate into textiles in her own way.
A designer who bends history to her will and seamlessly connects art with nature – curious about what she will make of the future? Come and have a look at the MvAT.
Previously on display in Milan, at the Dutch Design Week and in Het Natuurhistorisch in Rotterdam, now in Beugen.
August 28 to November 12, 2017.