Artists in Residence

It's proudly standing on her desk, but still looking for the right home. She lived for many years in Paris and New York and has just returned to her hometown, Amsterdam, where she writes and dreams of the sea.

For the Artists in Residence project, he is writing his first children’s book. “Because of the individualistic Western system I also want to write something for children whereby they learn that “we“ is important as children so often are raised as an individual: the, I, I, I feeling.”

Rosa has become inspired by the long history of the hotel, mainly the St Cecilia convent where it all started back in 1411. “Being the Artist in Residence, I found the idea fascinating to complete one work in a week with the same philosophy my work normally entails - but in this case incorporating the hotel, which also translates to the same philosophy and how we experience the space.”

“Here at The Grand it is wonderful to draw in the Library. It is such a wonderful oasis here. It is as if you can delay time as it feels like a kind of vacuum. What I am working on at the moment is drawings of octopuses. The animals that live in the sea are maybe the animals of which we expect the least because in a way we find it difficult to show empathy towards animals without a soft coat.”

Alferink seeks inspiration in irritation (like the pearl and the oyster). Emotion is his catalyst. In the fashion of the 'classic' Italian designers and architects, Joost decided to add (watercolour) painting to his professional activities.

“The Grand has opened my eyes again in a different way: the building and the architecture are most impressive and very historical. Sometimes, I also look at how something looks graphically and try not to see the depth in it but more so how everything relates towards each other as in a graphic plane. There are many graphic planes in this building and I am trying to create a kind of composition from that.”

“The Grand has opened my eyes again in a different way: the building and the architecture are most impressive and very historical. Sometimes, I also look at how something looks graphically and try not to see the depth in it but more so how everything relates towards each other as in a graphic plane. There are many graphic planes in this building and I am trying to create a kind of composition from that.”

'In fact, though she was trained as one, you can barely call her an architect at all' says Annick Kleizen . 'Her houses just never seem to hold their shape: the walls are fragile, permeable and somewhat ill-defined. Moreover, she makes you aware of their failings - of where sounds leak, the outside world enters and privacy succumbs to neighbors. She deconstructs the solidness of the private shelter and lifts the thin veil of privacy.

Sarah van Sonsbeeck's work is two-sided: on the one hand, she tries to define, defend and extend private space; on the other, she simultaneously reveals the impossibility and perhaps even undesirability of being completely shut off from the world. A case in point is when she tried to contain one cubic meter of silence on the as yet undeveloped plot of land around Museum De Paviljoens in the rapidly developing new town of Almere. One night the reinforced glass cube was smashed with a stone by local youths. She embraced this vandalizing act and renamed the work One Cubic Meter of Broken Silence (2009). Instead of preserving the increasingly rare silence - which, strictly speaking, because of the rustling reeds and chirping insects, was no silence at all - the focus of the work shifted to communication (however violent) and interaction.

Her work focuses on the thin permeable line between interior and exterior - without concern for the façade. This detour brings her to an investigation of a more immaterial side of architecture, in which she scrutinizes all the small elements that determine how we live in our homes, the things the architects cannot control. She amplifies these elements and devises shields against them, but also welcomes the unpredictable and reveals the minute but intimate relationships between people who don't necessarily know each other. Sarah van Sonsbeeck practices architecture after all, of the immaterial - though no less fundamental - kind.'

Sarah van Sonsbeeck (1976) studied architecture at TUDelft (MA) and art at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (BA). In 2008, 2009 she had a residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. She had solo exhibitons at the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam (2017), Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2017). Her work was amongst others on show at De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam (2013), Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2013), Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2012), Museum De Paviljoens, Almere (2009), Musem Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (2011), the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2009). She is represented by Annet Gelink gallery Amsterdam.

Her jewelry is inspired by the Surinam culture, its traditions and the connection with the European culture or intercultural themes.

Jewelry where shapes are inspired by traditions, new customs and stories are embedded. Reflection of globalization, a fusion of divers’ influences and cultures on a homogeneous and symbolic way. Clearly of a maker who grew up between two cultures. Going back to the roots of jewelry, bearer of magical powers and symbols. Where certain materials and shapes have an important role. Ethnic influences dictate and inspire the used form language without them being folkloristic and traditional.