Xandra van der Eijk nominated for Dutch Design Awards

The project RETREAT from Caradt researcher Xandra van der Eijk is nominated for the Dutch Design Awards.

Research project

The research project RETREAT researches how we can use new rituals, actions, methods and artefacts to better understand our changing environment. With two laptops, a tablet, a 3D scanner and a smartphone, fragments of a retreating glacier in Switzerland have been manually scanned. The scanned surfaces can continue to evolve digitally, as part of a new virtual world. Or physically, as a reinterpretation of time and place.

Committee

According to the committee presents RETREAT a fascinating interplay between data and poetry whereby emotion is strategically used as a research tool. The committee sees a new viewpoint and working method in this whereby ‘care’ is the leading element in addressing concerns about ecological erosion.

(2023 – 2018) Material Ecologies

The starting point of this research are sacrifice zones (those areas and its indigenous people) designated for exploitation regardless of environmental destruction.

‘In my work the concept of time is a recurring theme.’

Xandra van der Eijk is researcher within the Biobased Art and Design research group. She is also the Pathway Leader of Ecology Futures at the Master Institute of Visual Cultures. Xandra has recently accepted a PhD position at Ulster University in Northern Ireland.

Private: Xandra van der Eijk

Research Group: Biobased Art and Design

The research group Biobased Art and Design capitalises on the role of artistic practice in unlocking the unique potentials of living organisms for everyday materials and communicating these to a broader public. In doing so, the group aims to instigate and accelerate our widespread understanding, further development and usage of such materials. The group’s research approach encourages tangible interactions with the living organisms, such as algae, fungi, plants and bacteria, to explore and understand their unique qualities and constraints through diverse technical and creative methods taking artists, designers and scientists as equal and active partners in the material creation.

Caradt

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