Berndnaut Smilde (1978, the Netherlands)

Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Art Project Depot - 5 questions - Berndnaut Smilde
What are the most essential components of your artistic practice?

Temporality and weather phenomena for now.

How do you interact with space when creating a project?

Through spending time with that specific space and creating counterbalance to its architecture, materials and light.

What is the role of text in your work?

The texts in my work are anagrams of my name (Berndnaut Smilde) that reflect my identity and at the same time refer to the act of building as well and what is left behind. Dismantled Ruben, Builded Remnants, or Timberland Dunes.

What reaction do you attempt to provoke in your audience through your work?

Changing the order of how we perceive things is something I tend to do. By bringing a cloud inside a space or presenting a rainbow upside down, you take elements out of their natural context and read them differently. A sign of hope that a rainbow stands for could become something else. To somehow trigger people by my works is what I want to achieve. I hope to eventually reach a larger state than that, potentially a sublime feeling. This could include hope, beauty, and danger.

What is the place of the research approach in contemporary art?

Most often ideas start with a question like what if? and in order to see things you have to build a structure. What I do is to employ all means for the creation of an idea or image, even if it’s just for a short-lived moment. That differs  with a scientific approach because I just build things to see for myself and I don't necessarily create a model. I'm really more visually orientated.

Selected works