In addition to my former post about Growing Chairs, here’s a small footnote – a project more close to home.
A fellow student in the Rietveld Foundation Year is Ana Oosting,who is working on her ‘free project’. In this project, she works with growing materials. The essay she wrote about this subject is relating to science, focusing on bio art and art in a more general way. In her essay, she also talks about the more simply forms of this, in both nature and art, not specifically to be executed in a lab.
In relation to this essay, she made some pieces in which she experimented with growth – combining nature with art. In one of her works she let two doves build a nest on a pair of slippers (picture below). This changes the shape of the sandals as well as the way the nest is build.
Another work consists of growing different things on crystals. You see a scorpion in crystals (picture above).
Within her ‘free project’, Ana also worked with citrons (she tried to make them grow in different shapes) and she made an attempt to make graffiti out of moss.
In the same way as the designers – mentioned in Growing Chairs – are working, Ana is working together with nature to make interesting new art-pieces.