Christien Meindertsma is a young Dutch designer working with the concept of origin in manufactured products. What ingredients go into a product? How are those ingredients made recognisable or unrecognisable? What is behind our lived lives and the products we surround ourselves with?
The incarnation of these questions, and perhaps some answers, can be found in Meindertsma’s works, some of which are displayed as part of the Pioneers of Change festival of Dutch design, fashion and architecture which is currently being held on New York’s Governors Island.
The festival celebrates 400 years of Dutch-American relations. The designer recently looked at all the products that can be gleaned from a single pig in her aptly titled book ‘ PIG 05049 ‘. She has also looked at the fibers Linen, Flax, Aran knitting, and objects at airports that are required as ‘checked baggage’. Her work leads one to look at products in a closer manner, seeing them either in a different light, a different scale, or even a pre-form of themselves.
Meindertsma’s knitted products for interiors evolve from a study of their components, and the fibres that they draw from. In the rooms of her exhibit are skeins and felted wads of 3 different sheep; Merino [which is fine guage and commonly used for garments], Texcel and Blue Texcel yarns [which are a much coarser fleece and therefore more suited to carpet and flooring]. Dye swabs and colour studies hang on the wall. In a back room a giant skein winder sits in mid wind, with a mass of long felted wool ready to be rolled, and it’s ordered and perfectly formed ball on the rod of the mechanism.
The works are in grand scales, many times larger than life. They bring the immensity and simplicity of form and fabric that is created by the knitting process into gargantuan proportions, and in so doing create new possibilities.
