Renée van Oploo
info@reneevanoploo.nl
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INSTALLATIONS & ART
RESARCH, WORKSHOPS & WRITINGS
ANIMATED PROJECTS
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works may be for sale
BIO
I am a Dutch artist whose practice combines making and thinking. Through installations, essays, and collaborative projects, I explore how art can open space for ethical reflection and collective experience. Alongside my practice I teach at St. Joost School of Art & Design and conduct research at the Centre of Applied Research for Art, Design and Technology (CARADT). I am also part of YAFF, an artists’ collective. Research, writings & workshops
Artistic Research
A Head Massage Tool or a Crowbar?
Toolbox for the Evaluation of Art in Public Spaces
Keywords:
public space, art, ambition, impact, agonism, participation
ABSTRACTIn this
research project, I present an open and accessible approach to analysing art in
public space. It introduces a toolbox for evaluating both the artist’s ambition
and the artwork’s impact. I use this research to pose a central question: can
such a toolbox serve as a valuable resource for assessing the ambitions and
effects of artworks in public space? Art often engages with overwhelmingly
complex issues such as world peace, climate change, and inclusivity, making it
essential to understand how ideology translates into tangible impact. To
address this, I’ve filled the toolbox with various tools and utilities, whose
applicability I test through case studies that explore the artworks’ ambition
and impact: does the artwork function as a crowbar, a head massage tool, a
noticeboard, or a workbench? In doing so, I try to find a constructive way to
navigate dilemmas surrounding public art, including the roles of commissioning,
disengagement, and participation.
Hold on tight, this research is soon to be seen @ http://ruukku-journal.fi/en
Article
Placemaking for the Common Good
Lessons from the Modellprojekt Haus der Statistik, Berlin
Keywords: placemaking, Haus der Statistik, ...
ABSTRACT This article examines an alternative model of creative placemaking by analysing the Modellprojekt Haus der Statistik (HdS) in Berlin. Unlike conventional placemaking initiatives often driven by market logics and criticised for accelerating gentrification, the HdS project emerged from an artistic and activist intervention that evolved into a city-backed, cooperative redevelopment model grounded in the principle of the Gemeinwohl (common good). Through a Public-Civic Partnership (PCP), artists, civil society actors, and public authorities collaborate in shaping an inclusive urban space that resists extractive development models. Drawing on qualitative research, including interviews and document analysis, the article explores how the HdS challenges dominant urban policy paradigms by prefiguring democratic, equitable, and culturally diverse city-making. The article contributes to the discourse on placemaking by highlighting the potential of artistic activism and community-based collaboration in resisting gentrification and reimagining the role of art and culture in urban development.
*This article is unpublished
Workshop
Welcome to the Weird & Dirty
Workshop in collaboration with Rob Leijdekkers, Sebastian Olma
A subversive design workshop that invited participants to embrace creative mess, alter egos, and material disruption. Through role-playing and hands-on making with second-hand clothing, participants explored alternative ways of creating by customising, deconstructing, and transforming garments. The workshop challenged conventional design processes and encouraged experimentation with hybrid and transdisciplinary methods, fostering new perspectives within critical and artistic practice.
Part of, among others, Studium Generale, St. Joost School of Art & Design
Workshop
Convivial (g)Hosts
Workshop in collaboration with Rob Leijdekkers, Sebastian Olma
During the "Convivial (G)Hosts" workshop, we explored the roles of ‘guest’ and ‘host’ and delved into the subtle dynamics that shape our interactions. The first part of the workshop focused on examining assumptions about one another and exploring existing structures and hierarchies. The term "ghosting" also refers to a familiar social phenomenon, in which someone abruptly ceases communication without explanation or warning. This prompts the question: what does your temporary presence in a place mean, and what do you (or do you not) leave behind?
Keywords: Hospitality, conviviality, artistic research
Essay
Gut Feeling
Dialoog via kunst, esthetiek, ethiek en een onderbuikgevoel
Keywords: kunst, esthetiek, ethiek
INTRODUCTIE In een fictieve dialoog tussen een koper en een verkoper in een elektronicazaak worden de zekerheden van efficiëntie, controle en helderheid tijdelijk opgeschort. In de ogenschijnlijk zekere omgeving van een winkelinterieur, waar marketing retoriek en ‘keuzevrijheid’ domineren, ontstaat een subtiele verwarring. Wat begint als een praktisch gesprek over de aanschaf van een stofzuiger verschuift naar een reflectie op consumptie, esthetiek en morele afweging. Zekerheden blijken niet neutraal, maar contextueel gevormd, strategisch ingezet en cultureel bepaald. De twijfel fungeert niet als obstakel, maar als een productieve toestand waarin betekenis kan ontstaan zonder directe uitkomst. Door verschillende vormen van twijfel — praktisch, existentieel, moreel, esthetisch — naast elkaar te plaatsen, wordt in de dialoog bevraagd hoe keuzes tot stand komen en hoe betekenis wordt geconstrueerd in een wereld waarin het verlangen naar duidelijkheid wordt gestuurd door systemen die tegelijk verwarring veroorzaken.
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Workshop
My Hygiene is (not) Your Hygiene
Philosophical framework for 'A Thinking Landscape #2: Little Flake, Little Hair, Little Booger'"
Keywords:
Hygiene, hospitality, dirt
This essay weaves together a personal encounter, philosophical reflection, and cultural critique to explore the boundaries of hygiene, hospitality, and disgust. Prompted by an incident at a partner’s family home, the author considers how cleanliness operates as both a physical practice and a social code, drawing on thinkers such as Derrida, Lagerspetz, and Nussbaum. Dirt is examined not only as a sensory presence but as a site of moral judgement, social exclusion, and cultural difference. The text reflects on the evolution of domestic cleaning technologies, from the first portable vacuum cleaner to the rise of robotic models, situating these within broader desires for order and control. Dust emerges as a metaphor for the human condition: a mingling of diverse, disintegrating elements coexisting without true cohesion. By tracing connections between bodily debris, consumer products, and social life, the essay questions our fear of contamination and considers whether we might embrace the messy, shared materiality that unites us.
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This essay is published by Thought Magicians
Story
De ezel, de reiger en een vis
Kort verhaal ter ondersteuning van de installatie Art Is Our Only Hope
Een ezel genaamd Hoop, die normaal nooit zijn plek verlaat, wandelt op een avond naar de sloot en treft daar een reiger met een grote vis. Wat volgt, is een onverwachte wending die het lot van de vis volledig verandert.
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