0168
26-04-2009
SIOPE
Roel van Timmeren
Artist

In recent years most of my work in the public space has been of a temporary nature. Because the spatial manuscript is to be incorporated in Vedute’s collection, a temporary work initially seemed out of the question. Nevertheless, I wanted to remain true to my artistic intentions. I decided to make a temporary building that would fit inside a box measuring 44 by 32 by 7 centimetres and was made of material that would last.

I decided that the temporary building would take the form of a tent and that plastic carrier bags would be eminently suitable as a building material. A plastic bag is far more durable than that which is carried in it. Treated carefully, they can last forever.

The hysterical way in which the bags continue to communicate with the outside world when discarded is tragic. So I sewed white plastic over all the texts on the bags, like typex in a manuscript. I then sewed the bags together to make a single-person tent, with a zip fastener, guy ropes, tent pegs and tent poles. A separate space was reserved for this. When folded in a certain way, the whole thing measures 44 by 32 by 7 centimetres, but that’s a coincidence.
-RvT

demonstrating the tent (video)