Although the idea of beauty is becoming more diverse and inclusive, throughout time, there seems to persist a standard that is casting its shadow on our contemporary and digital society. This installation displays the controversy by staying away from glamour and ideals. It is not here to be nice and shine; it’s here to be loud and red.
Similar to the magic of a carousel that spins on its own, it is highly embellished to look magical and never changes from its purpose of always rotating in the expected direction.
As a child, it had something magical. Now, I find it disturbing—the idea of the perfect and never changing, turning in on itself in a delusional fantasy.
Just like the plastic flower that never changes. It doesn’t age or grow taller. It’s supposed to represent something natural and innocent yet in essence, it perpetuates a deeply unnatural idea of everlasting beauty. We trash the pretty flowers this weekend—another product of overconsumption in the capitalist system. As Laurie Penny puts it in Meat market : "Patriarchy does not simply expect women to be decorative; it expects them to be consumable." ( Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism, 2011)
I don’t want to be nice and decorative. That’s why my decor is trash—displaying a landscape of waste and imperfection.
Rotterdam NL, 2025, Recycled PVC, Recycled Paper & Foamv
https://www.kunsthal.nl/nl/plan-je-bezoek/activiteiten/museumnacht010-2025/
COWERKING AT BUISNESS
March 28, 29, 30, 2025
Each artist invited another artist to be part of this group show. By extending the invitation BUISNESS wants to think through ideas of friendship, conversation and shared interests as a means to support one another’s practices.
Artists: Ghislain Amar, Jake Caleb, Mark Henning, Sarah Lehnerer, Manon Malan, Lisa Meijer
Second edition of “Ich Sehe Rot”, Installation first time shown at Kunsthal Rotterdam- Museum Nacht 2025 this time accessible at BUISNESS!
Although the idea of beauty is becoming more diverse and inclusive, throughout time there seems to persist a standard that is casting its shadow on our contemporary and digital society. This installation displays the controversy by staying away from glamour and ideals. It is not here to be nice and shine; it’s here to be loud and red.
Similar to the magic of a carousel that spins on its own, it is highly embellished to look magical and never changes from its purpose of always rotating in the expected direction.
As a child, it had something magical. Now, I find it disturbing—the idea of the perfect and never changing, turning in on itself in a delusional fantasy.
Just like the plastic flower that never changes. It doesn’t age or grow taller. It’s supposed to represent something natural and innocent yet in essence, it perpetuates a deeply unnatural idea of everlasting beauty. We trash the pretty flowers this weekend—another product of overconsumption in the capitalist system. As Laurie Penny puts it in Meat market : "Patriarchy does not simply expect women to be decorative; it expects them to be consumable." ( Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism, 2011)
I don’t want to be nice and decorative. That’s why my decor is trash—displaying a landscape of waste and imperfection.
Materials: Recycled PVC, Recycled Paper & Foam
13 digital prints, epoxy coating, hand-painted
Material: Paper, acrylic paint, varnish paint, resin & clothes hanger
BE NICE is a participative gathering organized by Manon Malan and Lisa Meijer at BUISNESS, an artist-run space in Rijnhaven Rotterdam. This event brings together community, food, performance, art, research, dialogue and above all emotions.
BE NICE invites FLINTA artists to reflect on our everlasting heritage of repressed feelings: being nice to avoid conflict, smiling for the sake of pleasing. Together, we explore how our behaviours—even when ‘deconstructed’—are still shaped by traditional gender roles, and how we internalize expectations of niceness when we feel frustrated or angry. Why do we soften our voices, lower our tone, and stay cool, when our emotional landscape is burning?
Alongside the joy of coming together around music and food—through a brunch, a participative workshop-performance and a lecture/talk about the history of emotions— this group exhibition creates space for shared experiences, misunderstandings, and emotions. We welcome honesty, anger, mistakes, bad taste, vulnerability and the unapologetic display of feelings. By doing so we hope to open conversations about how we adapt our behaviour to please others, and how we might break free from these patterns—and if we want to break free at all.
Artists:
Romy Bauer
Romy Bauer is a performance and spoken word artist from Limburg. She explores vulnerability, not only as an emotion, but as a form of critique. She is interested in how personal experiences can reveal what often remains hidden within larger structures, such as the art world. Her focus lies on what many artists know but rarely make visible: instability, emotional labor, invisibility. She seeks ways to make something vulnerable, exhausted, and yet connecting visible, within a system that often values marketability over humanity.
Manon Malan
MANON MALAN is a visual researcher and artist based in Rotterdam who collects and transforms images and objects, exploring their identity and meaning. Her work invites interaction and aims to provoke reflection, using art as a tool to share stories and spark emotional connections. With a multidisciplinary approach, she combines textiles, garments, sculpture, lighting, and installations, all rooted in sustainable practices. Her designs emphasize participation and aim to explore social structures, emotional boundaries, and collective experiences. She is especially drawn to texture, distortion, and the layered histories of materials. Urban structures like architecture, monuments, and public spaces form the foundation of her work. Through upcycling and collaging, she reimagines these spaces, challenging dominant narratives and advocating for inclusion, diversity, and social justice. Her goal is to inspire and connect.
“Be Nice Installation” 2025
Dressed up Canvas — Geranium screen print and acrylic paint on PE Satin, Beer benches.
Throw the Towel — Recycled Organic cotton kitchen towels with Geranium prints
Bin Bag — screen printed recycled PE Fabric , foam filling.
Lisa Meijer
Lisa Meijer is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in visual arts, museum studies, and cultural mediation. Her work spans visual studio work, photography, and a practice-based research called IAMAIR, taking the shape of an online agency that explores how performance art and cultural mediation can transform behavior, relationships, and generate poly-perspective narratives by blending fiction with reality. She will document and photograph the Be Nice event
Marie van Haaster
Marie van Haaster is a historian of medicine and emotions. As a PhD Candidate at the European University institute in Florence, she studies practices of consolation in an asylum in Paris at the end of the nineteenth century. Her research shows that the act of consoling someone else or of being consoled, is deeply political. Who are expected to be consoling? Who get to be consoled? What types of suffering - and whose suffering - are worthy of being consoled? In her talk, she will discuss the cultural character of emotions, and show how configurations of gender, ability and class have shaped the way we relate to the suffering of others.Artists:
Romy Bauer
Romy Bauer is a performance and spoken word artist from Limburg. She explores vulnerability, not only as an emotion, but as a form of critique. She is interested in how personal experiences can reveal what often remains hidden within larger structures, such as the art world. Her focus lies on what many artists know but rarely make visible: instability, emotional labor, invisibility. She seeks ways to make something vulnerable, exhausted, and yet connecting visible, within a system that often values marketability over humanity.
Manon Malan
MANON MALAN is a visual researcher and artist based in Rotterdam who collects and transforms images and objects, exploring their identity and meaning. Her work invites interaction and aims to provoke reflection, using art as a tool to share stories and spark emotional connections. With a multidisciplinary approach, she combines textiles, garments, sculpture, lighting, and installations, all rooted in sustainable practices. Her designs emphasize participation and aim to explore social structures, emotional boundaries, and collective experiences. She is especially drawn to texture, distortion, and the layered histories of materials. Urban structures like architecture, monuments, and public spaces form the foundation of her work. Through upcycling and collaging, she reimagines these spaces, challenging dominant narratives and advocating for inclusion, diversity, and social justice. Her goal is to inspire and connect.
“Be Nice Installation” 2025
Dressed up Canvas — Geranium screen print and acrylic paint on PE Satin, Beer benches.
Throw the Towel — Recycled Organic cotton kitchen towels with Geranium prints
Bin Bag — screen printed recycled PE Fabric , foam filling.
Lisa Meijer
Lisa Meijer is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in visual arts, museum studies, and cultural mediation. Her work spans visual studio work, photography, and a practice-based research called IAMAIR, taking the shape of an online agency that explores how performance art and cultural mediation can transform behavior, relationships, and generate poly-perspective narratives by blending fiction with reality. She will document and photograph the Be Nice event
Marie van Haaster
Marie van Haaster is a historian of medicine and emotions. As a PhD Candidate at the European University institute in Florence, she studies practices of consolation in an asylum in Paris at the end of the nineteenth century. Her research shows that the act of consoling someone else or of being consoled, is deeply political. Who are expected to be consoling? Who get to be consoled? What types of suffering - and whose suffering - are worthy of being consoled? In her talk, she will discuss the cultural character of emotions, and show how configurations of gender, ability and class have shaped the way we relate to the suffering of others.
ON / Weelde Forever / Public Light installation Rotterdam 2023
Out of 100 Rottedam streetlights
Comfort is often imitated then truly lived
Textile installation talks about the absurdity of comfort and the conflict it brings within ourselves, but also repeating societal patterns throughout history.
It's more common to criminally repeat what we used to than change or evolve for the better a soft barricade is made out of sleeping bags, looking like material.
From faraway, you can be easily misread as sleeping bags, but if you look closely, you find 2 body bags.Even though the installation is soft, the objects are brutal, like a blockaded exit or entrance and body bags designed to carry corpses.
soft - inviting, comforting, what is usually hard and cold.
Comfort often gets put too fast in context with achievements, money and materialism. To often we focus on doing, instead of just letting go.
While we over focus on it and are living death, while true freedom passes us by ( wanm kebt death) that’s why I chose to work with the body bags.
Objects/Material:
A Brick Wall - Soft Barricade
Polyester print collage of the repetition of various
3.60m x 1.90m
Touch wood blanket
Textile printed with a chipboard pattern (which is also a form of recycled trash wood).
Silver Body bag
with black and white collage repetitive print made out of the confidential lining of police envelopes.
Grey body bag out of letters of the tax authority
More info about the Exhibition
https://www.nestruimte.nl/en/exhibitions/a-scenic-route-to-self
Pêche de Nuits group exhibition 2023 at Peach Art Space in Rotterdam
The first ‘car window painting’ I made. I wanted to work with cars because they are a big victim in the world of vandalism or confrontation. I found the front windscreen in a Berlin car scrapyard. Even for them, it was completely useless trash. This time made an old Range Rover back side window my side
I recycled it into a canvas straightaway without cleaning it. Rather than a flat painting, I wanted to give the viewer the experience of seeing both sides of the ‘canvas’.
Vandalising has something very relieving, car windows remind me of that why I love to work with them.
Material:
Glass, paper, silk, resin, styrofoam, ratchet straps
https://www.peachopposite.com/
Pêche de Nuits group exhibition 2023 at Peach Art Space in Rotterdam
The first ‘car window painting’ I made. I wanted to work with cars because they are a big victim in the world of vandalism or confrontation. I found the front windscreen in a Berlin car scrapyard. Even for them, it was completely useless trash. This time made an old Range Rover back side window my side
I recycled it into a canvas straightaway without cleaning it. Rather than a flat painting, I wanted to give the viewer the experience of seeing both sides of the ‘canvas’.
Vandalising has something very relieving, car windows remind me of that why I love to work with them.
Material:
Glass, paper, silk, resin, styrofoam, ratchet straps
HOW TO DO IT?
Please read carefully and follow the description ‘stepper by stepper” and end in comfort!
As a participant, the only thing you have to do is: believe in it!
Let's say for at least 63 %, easy right? For the rest you can make it as you fake it, just don't tell anyone. For that, there is a clean washing at the end of the journey and you will be free from all your misconduct or bad behaviour.
Do not have any hopes & you won't be disappointed, it will be just fine.
And cool people, don't worry It also works for very cool people who wear sunglasses all the time! This installation can bring you a greater future, so don't miss your chance.
The way to a successful wellness & spiritual parkour journey :
At first feel free to do the parkour together with a friend or a stranger that is not too strange.
Stepper 1 / Enlightenment
Your journey starts with the chandelier.
Find the object and stand close to it.
The chandelier light is not here to back up your D3 vitamins, but it definitely will blind you with enlightenment for a brighter future, especially when you look away from it again.
Please take your time for your enlightenment before you follow the next step.
Stepper 2 / Stroke wood & Molotov's
Sit or kneel in front of stepper 2 and find yourself in a comfortable position
In the Netherlands, people spend about 2.5 hours on a smartphone.
This is a scrolling recovery session, which can be quite scary, but it is a very important part of your journey.
Please stroke the wood pattern of the Molotov's carefully. With this therapeutic action, you will enhance scrolling recovery and will strengthen your resistance to smartphone use.
There is no rush here, focus also on your breathing to meet deep relaxation.
Free like a bird /stepper 3
Find yourself in front of the spiky stuff
Think about 3 things that make you happy at the moment.
Think about 6 activities you would do in the future, reading books, travel plans, a project or eating popcorn at Kino Rotterdam, feel free to choose whatever triggers your excitement.
While you think about those 9 things, Use both sides of your hands and massage them
The Urban trigger point massage is activating your possibilities, after this session, you shall feel free like a bird nothing will be stopping you.
Holly water / clean washing /stepper 4
Poor yourself a small sip
Depending on your needs you are welcome to choose your preferred holy water.
On offer, we have blessed Rotterdam water or Vodka.
No one is perfect, that is why we end this wellness & spiritual parkour journey with a liquid ritual. Holy water for clean washing; this ritual has the power to wash your sins, bad vibes and gilt away.
Please enjoy this sip it's only a limited offer of Manon Malan
Cheers, you made it!
And don't forget to be nice and thankful to yourself anything is possible you are a free bird.
Material:
Kalashikov cocktail sculpture, Glass & printed silk
OPENINGS group exhibition at Extra Practice 2024, Rotterdam
I was invited to create some work with the exhibition title 4 OPENINGS
Im a visual researcher, so taking images is a big part of my practice, as im very interested in public and private related topics. I often photograph different kinds of borders/openings.
That's why I decided to make 3 different windows with a visual collage of my openings!
Collage using excerpts of an ongoing collection of images of openings. Taken on trips in Mafa, Los Angeles, Brussels, Paris and Rotterdam.
Black window
Titel 1/3
‘Open Flower Open Fire’, by Manon Malan, 2024
4 Digital Prints 182 x 122cm
Price on request
White window
Titel 2/3
‘Paradise Expired: Free Like a Bird and Horse Shit’, by Manon Malan, 2024
4 Digital Prints 110 x 100cm
Small window
serie 3/3
‘Trash Before Treasure’, by Manon Malan, 2024
4 Digital Prints 42 x 60cm
Material: Digital Print on paper, Frame: wood/ plexiglass
(Price on request)
INSTALLATION, GROWING SPACE, 2020
This installation is intended to revert the viewer away from the Corona frenzy. The print itself stems from my degree show project which was inspired by how vandalism is beautiful, especially in reference to the vandalisation of a number of colonial statues in the USA in 2016 and again in the UK in 2020 as a response to BLM protests.
It presents itself as a spectacle of exotic plants in a botanical garden like the Q Gardens London, and so the way these textiles look is as though they are trying to get out. An organic cluster of jackets is the final product.
Big thank you to Ecological Textiles Netherlands for supporting this project with beautiful Materials so for Stitching NAC - Kamiel Verschuren curating this exhibition and also big thank you to Growing Space Wielewaal for the space opportunity.
GROUP EXHIBITION AT FOUNDATION B.A.D IN ROTTERDAM 2020
This project is about flowers and their representations on textiles.
More specifically, their utilisation. Floral print exemplifies dressing to look pretty and “nice”. If so, are flowers seen as fake? Can they be a mask by which we entertain others with illusions of prettiness and fragility?
Beyond their overtly feminine context, (which I find to be a poor representation
of female strength), they are also specifically used in a similarly troubling way: In the area of Wielewaal in South Rotterdam, I found many small empty houses had windows that were covered up with a flower print foil. They cover up the crime.
What is more, these houses are waiting to be destroyed so that new, more prestigious (and more expensive) houses replace them. Here again, the appearance seems to be not only secondary to the reality of these derelict buildings, but also a substitute to a sustainable solution such as renovation, restoration and care.
It is also ironic when contextualising flowers in both the fashion and the flower industry. Since they are very large industries, absolutely not beautiful and largely polluting. In essence, floral prints have very little to do with nature.
Big thank you to Foundation b.a.d to give me such a warm welcome to Rotterdam
AUGUST 2020
Zurich based art collective Secret Gäng presented WRAPPED, Believe in you Storage at Perla Mode Gallery, 2015 Zurich
SOLO SHOW AT DISPLAY BERLIN 2019
Is an extension of my CSM Graduate Fashion Print Collection so Mind Your Head!!
The Outlet at Display was to showcase the additional elements of my graduate collection, which would normally be categorised as ‘waste’. In order to recontextualise my processes, scans, tests, unused prints and textiles of my degree show, I gave them the space to present themselves.
The show consisted of, ‘waste’ products and re-established formats:
For example, my scans were printed and then draped and shaped in resin
(see next slide). The car window was an additional found object that was sourced from a scrapyard. It acts as a portal for my unused prints to be displayed over and is a sculpture to be viewed from both sides.
Furthermore, the jumper prints (see right), were labelled and sold as ‘outlet products’ and re-evaluate the process of design once more.
The term outlet itself is a humorous way to indicate they’re ‘imperfection’ and otherness. This also sets a tone of urgency for the viewer. Think Black Friday, but in an installation.
My graduation collection was a big health and safety issue! Please mind the gap.
Thank you, thank you, Thank you
Poster Wall (Feng Pfui Outlet)
I wanted to share more of my ideas behind Feng Pfui Transport Collection.
So much is cut out and never makes it into the final collection, but I wanted to somehow honour all these initial ideas; the visual imagery, materials, collages, sculptures, prints and test garment that led to the final collection. It became a solo exhibition that very honestly displayed my visual fascinations surrounding Feng Pfui.
The inspiration for Poster Wall was from this wall in Paris where over time one poster had been added on top of another & slowly the wall had grown thicker and thicker and started warping into a shape. I liked this image, almost as a garment for the building.
Instead of traditional paper posters, I layered my test textile prints, photographs and other 2D research material and draped them into shape with resin. Again, the imperfection of something is more interesting to me and I love instead that you can see the wear of things; an unframed poster that has been folded once or twice, has a little tear, or a coffee stain. Using resin however also meant that my posters were now resistant to further wear and tear, but ‘framed’ in their imperfection.
Material : Paper, textile, bubble wrap, resin
H185cmx320cm
Mind Your Head (Feng Pfui Outlet)
Playing on the word ‘outlet’ I wanted not only to show my ‘artistic outlet’ but also play with the idea of a clothes sales outlet. I printed archive imagery of my materials, drawings, sculptures and print experiments onto the back of 25 white jumpers and installed them in the exhibition as part of the art work.
To mimic the capitalist sales hype, at the entrance, people were informed that the jumpers were for sale at a ‘special price’ for two nights only.
The jumpers were literally ‘slapping you in the face’ as you had to fight your way through the narrow, claustrophobic corridor to enter the exhibition. Viewers lost their orientation as they were both trying to walk through and at the same time get their fingers on one of these ‘hot jumpers’, before someone else snatched it.
Material: 25 jumpers, ratchet straps
All Inclusive / Paris Fashion Week (Feng Pfui Outlet)
It was important to me that my work takes over the space. The ratchet strap was my tool; it embraced a bearing wall, a toilet and the public letterboxes of the building. It went outside and inside again, attracting and leading people into the building through the back door. Inside, the strap became a framework for the installation, weaving around the whole space, yet only holding an empty beer can strapped to a corner of a wall.
I like the shape of the bin bag. It’s the ‘icon of trash’.But to people it has very little value. We take it out and don’t care what happens after. It’s a kind of mystery where it all goes.
During my time in Paris I also worked at the Paris Fashion Week. I spotted some refugees covering themselves in the green Paris trash bags from the 1st arrondissement. It was their rain protection. As utterly heartbreaking as this situation was, this was definitely the most powerful impression I took with me from Paris Fashion Week.
It’s a jarring world, where some people just throw the trash out, couldn’t care less and for other people it’s their only protection.
Material: Textile, aluminium, security straps
3000cm strap bin 120cm x 60cm
Smash it Pretty (Feng Pfui Outlet)
This is the first ‘car window painting’ I made. I wanted to work with cars because they are a big victim in the world of vandalism.
I found the front windscreen in a Berlin car scrapyard. Even for them it was completely useless trash.
I recycled it into a canvas straightaway without cleaning it. Rather than a flat painting I wanted to give the viewer the experience of seeing both sides of the ‘canvas’. It was installed against, and also blocked the main entrance, which meant it was visible from the outside as well.
The textile looks like a summer dress; at first it’s an innocent and pretty sight. But at closer look it’s a lot darker than that; the car window is completely broken and looks like someone crashed into it.
Material:
Glass, paper, silk, resin, styrofoam, ratchet straps
FINAL COLLECTION AT CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS 2018
The following collection mimics historical sculptures in the midst of being transported which also coincides with vandalism. It is the most imperfect moments of a statue’s life.
With this, the statues have a new life, their content is devoured by the contemporary and they no longer hold their royal status.
Our society alterations are more beautiful and certainly more honest than the original idealisations of these works.
Materials used: resin, silk, cotton, wood, Styrofoam, screen printing techniques, digital silk prints, foil, laser cutting, embroidery.
The project was selected for the CSM press show 2018 It has won the Sally Woodward Award.
1. Hermaphrodite ( FENG PFUI TRANSPORT)
The blue textile print is inspired by a vintage mattress that I spotted in the streets. Empty beer cans where laying around it. The mattress had obviously been used by a homeless person.
I wanted the garment to be a mixture of a Maria veil, a muslim headscarf and an ancient Greek male costume.
If laid down, the outline of the garment is like the outline of a dead body at a crime scene but also the silhouette of the “Sleeping Hermaphroditus” by Bernini.
Between the flowers of the print I added multiple graffiti hashtags and I crossed over everything with a quote: “Health and Safety Kills Too”. In London I was triggered by all the health & safety rules you have to mind: “stand behind the yellow line”/“Please mind the gap”/“Please mind your head”. It can become frustrating. Instead of becoming internally aware of things, you constantly get the impression you have to fear something. Instead of using our common sense we start thinking less as we follow the signs, warnings and announcements. It’s a fake solution. This in the long-term only makes society more ignorant instead of saving it. That is why Health & Safety kills too.
Material: Wood, organic silk, organic cotton, aluminium
L/190CM, W/90CM, H/50CM
2. Wall in my Hood ( FENG PFUI TRANSPORT)
I took the police tape from a crime scene in my neighbourhood. Changing the original words to “Do not cross my line” I wanted to challenge the idea that only authorities have the right to set boundaries, but rather that citizens have boundaries too; for example with privacy or personal freedom.
This is the only sculpture of my collection that I didn’t copy from an ancient one. “The Dude”, from the movie “The Big Lebowsky”, is one of my favourite characters and I think he should be admired as an archetype alongside the other classic sculptures. Even if, or especially because he is a bit of a loser and not perfect at all. The Dude after all made the bathrobe great again.
The collage of the police dress and the granny wrestling pants with the bathrobe creates a deliberately ‘imperfect’ style and an attitude that I like a lot.
I used a pressure sprayer to cover the perfect white bathrobe and wall piece with paint. Vandalising my own work is for me a very direct way of using art and not trying to be too precious. It’s very intuitive and made fast. It becomes very honest.
Materials: Recycled textile , vinyl, paper, acrylic paint, wood, PVC
WALL PIECE: H/320CM W/900CM
POSTER WALL: H/200CM W/110CM
3. Venus ( FENG PFUI TRANSPORT)
The Greek sculptures were usually all brightly painted and for the infamous Venus de Milo, her exact posture is actually unknown. Quite funny if you think that she was seen as a beauty idol even though she is a mystery.
I made my own interpretation of what she could look like & gave her a very female pink pretty dress. The draped fabric is printed with heat-print and large stickers of birds to prevent crazy birds from flying into her, because she is so beautiful!
The oversized business coat is made out of orange ratchet straps, like the ones used for securing cargo in transit. The straps also attach Venus to the pallet she’s placed on. She wears a builders helmet with beers attached, which is another play on health and safety.
Material: Ratchet straps, PVC , Div. textiles, wood
100cmx120cmx 210cm
4. Dancing Maenad / Box-dress ( FENG PFUI TRANSPORT)
I copied the fashion industry; I made a copy of a copy. The original piece is a Greek relief from 406 BC that was later copied by the Romans.
The Dancing Maenad is an immortal female follower of the Greek god of wine, festivity, Dionysus. Their name literally translates as “Raving Ones”. They were often portrayed as drunk or dancing.
I like cocktails, including Molotov’s, but my Molotov’s have red panties. I wanted to make a female rebel symbol.
I have always struggled with this idea of fitting in, doing things in certain ways. Growing up in Zurich I was expelled from school several times because I couldn’t follow ‘the right way to do things’. Being dyslexic I approached learning in a different way, which wasn’t appreciated. Being different can almost be seen as ‘a crime’ in a small country like Switzerland.
When I was 18 I started squatting houses with a female crew and the box-dress is for me a symbol of those times. I celebrate our rebellious side. Not necessarily rebelling against something, but rebelling to be yourself and live how you prefer. My Raver is frozen inside the box, but she might just dance out.
Material: Metal Wood packaging material, glass, resin
MOLOTOVE DRESS
H/190CM, W/110CM, D/80CM
5. Trash Kiss ( FENG PFUI TRANSPORT)
I always work with my surroundings and as much as I love spending time in the library for research, what really inspires me is the city, the people that live there and how they live.
When you walk through east London you quickly notice that late night left-overs like chicken bones and puke are part of the pavement display.
I always liked to make trash piles. I combined this piece with a bin bag full of empty fried chicken boxes. All garments were selected in a second hand store and I printed on them with a chipboard pattern (which is also a form of recycled trash wood).
The fashion industry is a massive overproducer and a lot of clothes end up never being worn or being thrown away. This is both a criticism of that and a romanticisation of my own love for trash.
Material: Wood, recycle garment - textile, resin, paper
L/85CM W/65CM H/110CM
6. The Thinker ( FENG PFUI TRANSPORT)
I turned the ‘strong, serious,’ masculine symbol of the famous sculpture The Thinker into a version maybe less stereotypical. Our society is spoiled and bored and at the same time overloaded with information and consumes hungrily. This is my Thinker of today wearing a flowery sniper hoody. During the performance the performer was scrolling on his phone looking bored & drinking beer.
This sculpture is a reaction to the numbness of our society. It makes a bit of fun of our society that doesn't Think so much anymore but rather spends hours on social media.
The sniper clothing is also a sideways look at the military where soldiers just takes orders and are not allowed to think too much.
Just like a sniper post I wanted the Thinker to be raised up high.
But because of health and safety I had to make it a meter lower than it originally was. It was dangerous, in case the person would fall off the toilet (as we all do daily).
As a dyslexic person, I like to play with the alternative spellings of words and integrate them into my pieces and prints. Fragile became Fargeil, which translates as ‘super horny’ in Swiss German.
Material :
Woods ,silicon ceramics, textile, human
H/208CM. W95CM. W/85CM
2013
Collaboration with Mia Špindler
Up State Gallery Zurich
Pile of clothes, anchored with epoxy
FOR GRAYSON PERRY 2016
Some London residential neighbourhoods feel empty and anonymous. Instead of pedestrians and shops, there are trash bins on the street, CCTV cameras and façades of old draped lace curtains. It almost seems as if these curtains cover up the life and you wonder if it is safer behind the curtains or outside.
The custom piece made for and sold to British artist Grayson Perry.
2010
Collaboration with Mayo Irion
The Actionist Art Festival in the spirit of the international DADA Festival.
exhibition at Motel Nirwana Rote Fabrik, Zürich
Installation: Buy your we!ght, brick pieces per gram.
Sale of pieces of the white brick wall to raise money for the bill of the red factory hiring professional painters to paint the white facade back to red after painstakingly having painted the red factory white.
2010
A group of people including Manon Malan painted the whole territory of "Rote Fabrik" (red factory), a cultural center (theoretically youth center since the 80s) in Zürich, white overnight.
It was a loud call for change and with it came a unique base for new creation.
2010 SECRET GÄNG
Work presented in two exhibitions
Perla Moda Gallery Zurich & The Young Artist Award 2010 ZKB Zurich
15 artists got exactly one kilogram of clay delivered by SECRET GÄNG and the task to form a ball (german: Kugel) from it with the following rules:
-use all the clay
-aim for a smooth surface
-no cavity inside
SECRET GÄNG also picked up the balls and paid 50 swiss francs for each one.
complete list of partaking artists coming soon
2014
London
City trash and mountain nostalgia turns into shirt and printed scarf.
GARMENT & SHORT FILM
INFLATABLE GARMENT, WON THE CSM BELANCIAGA AWARD 2016
I wanted to work with the clear influence of a traditional cardinal dress and transform it into a more modern design. During my research, I came across one particular red evening coat of Balenciaga’s Winter Collection 1954, and it caught my eye. I found these historical paintings fascinating and was especially interested in the similarities with Balenciaga’s own design work.
The form of modernity I chose for this piece is the refugee crisis; a highly sensitive and tragic situation that pervades contemporary life. I hope the juxtaposition between the apparent frivolity of the fashion industry and the stark reality of mass migration can help draw attention to this extreme social issue.
I continued documenting and filming material for this project in Lesbos, while I was working in a refugee camp in 2016.
In 2018 I presented my Short film at the Sustainability week in Bilbao.
SECRET GÄNG
open call to dig out old piece of work from storage and enter it in the SECRET GÄNG auction
This print was created by Norman Wilkinson in World War I. It served to camouflage ships and submarines from radar detection. It was the first time in Europe that women had to enter the industry en masse to replace the men that got sent to war.
It was historically the first time in our modern culture where so many women had
a purpose that went beyond the household setting. The role of the woman started to take on different shapes as the Dazzle printed warships did too.
The print is used to create a spectacle out of the woman wearing it, to counteract her previous role in society. The garment, therefore, is made to stand out not blend in.
2012
London
Recycled garments,sprayed, dipped and dried in new shapes later used as a reference for new fashion and print design development.
2011 SECRET GÄNG
Schaukasten Herisau, Switzerland
The big art exhibition, 50 involved artists, in the small showcase
2011 SECRET GÄNG
Zürich
Performance to install new benches for the homeless and junkies whom the city had previously stolen theirs from.
Duration of presence of present to the neighbourhood two weeks.
2010 SECRET GÄNG
group exhibition at the National Gallery in Prague
Euro
Cross
Pony
2010 Accessible Installation in Pignia GR, Switzerland
Collaboration with August Blum
Old farm tools, 5 meters high
The installation is accessible on two levels, one being a stage for sound performance by Stini Arn making music on an old weaving loom.
2009 SECRET GÄNG
crashing the party
Self-invited participation in the diploma exhibition of ZHdK, art university Zürich.
House constructed from old school tables, assembly without nails or screws.
Eight-step guide to getting officially licensed as an artist, printing your own diploma in a few seconds.
350 artists managed to obtain perfect ZHdK diplomas, indistinguishable from the original.
2009 SECRET GÄNG
Production Design
Construction of props inclusive tank (german: Panzer) for music clip helping a campaign for a ban of war-material-export from Switzerland.
warface video clip https://vimeo.com/9864106
Music: Evelinn Trouble
Politics: GSoA (group switzerland without army)
Camera: Carlotta, Iason and Markus.
Production: Sonja Levy
Directed by Benjamin Weiss
