My work is often about loss, parting, leaving, voyaging, fears and longings: why do we have them and how do we deal with them. At the moment I’m mostly working with islands and the seas surrounding them, particularly because I can’t help wondering if it’s a sheltered or a suffocating way of living. There’s only one way to leave an island and that is boarding a ship; and I can imagine that could be enough to keep a person from ever leaving. I’m investigating how it’s possible that we humans are capable of trusting we will find a safe haven or make a safe return whenever we set out for a journey, even if we’ve never made the voyage ourself. I wonder also: why is fear making the one stay put but driving the other away?
I make what I make because I love storytelling above anything else. Mostly in the shape of an installation in which every element forms a piece that locks together into the whole. The audience being the most essential element: I’m very interested if others read the same story in what I am showing as I think I’m telling. The way I work complements this: I alternate weaving, drawing and writing and while I’m doing the one thing I’m already thinking of how the next technique will form the next element. While weaving I’ll make up the sentences I’ll write down later and during writing I’m planning on what I’ll draw. This proces, I have noticed, has found its form gradually. Where the words run out, the images or threads will take over and vice versa. That also is what my work is often about: when and what for we struggle to find words for and how we search for ways to convey the message anyway.
Working with threads and fibres has always given me inspiration and solace, particularly because they work in ways I find logical and understandable. Fibres lock together to form a connection or they snap and the context is lost. They can bear water, weather, cold, fat, heat; you can and want to touch them; they could be flat or spatial.
In future I would see myself designing and realising more installations in which text, fabrics, drawings and performance all work together to tell a story; also I would love to experiment with techniques that are used in theaters, such as décors, light, production designs. Also I am in the progress of writing a novel, of which I’d imagine I’ll write more at length.
Marianne van Aperen (1993) lives and works in Utrecht.
She studied both at the Textiles and at the Image & Language Department at Gerrit Rietveld Academie Amsterdam, where she graduated in 2018. She’s currently studying for her Masters Degree in Textiles at KASK, Ghent.
Her graduation work was nominated for the Rietveld Awards 2018, for the category Autonomous Arts. The jury, consisting of Margriet Schavemakers and Ad de Jong said:
“The jury was deeply moved by the poetic performance-installation of Marianne van Aperen, in which she seems to be conversing with a disappeared or imaginary person. Marianne created a fragmented architectonic space consisting of panes, ropes, hand stitched cloth and folded paper models. In this handmade setting she recites a suggestive, poignant tale of loss, mourning and trauma from a child’s perspective. Seemingly e ortlessly, Marianne unites opposites: her work is modest and theatrical, concealed and direct, light and dark, intimate and detached. Marianne has a huge performance talent. The jury praises her charisma, strong focus and precision in gesture and tone. Marianne manages to transform a personal experience into a universal one.”
2022
Master Textiles, KASK, Ghent
Resident at GinDS, Hoofddorp, sept-dec
A Two Piece
Duo Exhibition with Jesse Strikwerda, Lokaal Utrecht
2021-2026
Textile work in collaboration with and assigned by Kasper Bosmans
Textile work for Caz Egelie
Group Show Bring home what you can hold, Utrecht
Productional work for Kasper Bosmans, Museum de Pont, Tilburg & WIELS, Brussels
2020
Teacher of Textile and Fibre techniques for grownups, Kunstenhuis Zeist
Art teacher for children in the age of 5-11, Kunstenhuis Zeist
Group Show Open Studios, Utrecht
Performances in CAMPO Gent for Caz Egelie
Productional work for Kasper Bosmans at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
2019
Group Show Gegeven Ruimte at Loods 6, Amsterdam
Performances at Palaias de Tokyo, Paris for Caz Egelie
Productional work for Carlos Amorales at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
2018
Gerrit Rietveld Graduation Show
Nominated for the Gerrit Rietveld Awards in the category Autonomous Arts
Group Show Selected at Looiersgracht60, Amsterdam
Personal assistent Maria Barnas
2017
Residency and performance at the Van Doesburghuis, Meudon val Fleury
2016
Programmer and presenter De Mus, Amsterdam
2016-2017
Art History, Universiteit van Amsterdam
2013-2018
Gerrit Rietveld Academie Amsterdam