Various works

‘The starting point for my projects is a particular place. A place is the location, the vegetation, the people and animals. Products are given an important value when we know where they came from, how they were made, the effort that has been involved.’

Christien Meindertsma (1980) has an original approach to design. Knowledge of raw materials and production processes was once localised. With the growth of industrialisation and globalisation this information has become ever more complex and unclear, leading to a disruption in our relationship to things. Things are made in one part of the world and assembled in another, so that we lose sight of the making process. Meindertsma wants to break this vicious circle. When a product says something about its origins, it gains in meaning and value. It is a simple yet effective message.

Meindertsma’s design research aims to regain the understanding of processes that have been rendered incomprehensible and distant by industrialisation. She attempts to make the chain transparent in research projects that deconstruct objects: by knitting a jumper with the wool from a single sheep, by producing a rug from the wool from a flock of sheep, or tracing all the products used in the bio-industry back to one source. Her project Pig 05049 shows how after being slaughtered a pig was distributed throughout the world and incorporated into hundreds of products. Components were used in foodstuffs such as liquorice, chewing gum, cheesecake and tiramisu, and in ammunitions, shampoo, anti-wrinkle cream, porcelain and matches.

Christien Meindertsma’s work confronts issues without making a judgement, which she leaves up to the user. She encourages the users of her objects to adopt a political position.