Takeover #194 Anna Reerds
︎ by Sean Louw
Anna Reerds: Instagram / Website
#194 (14/02 - 18/02, 2022) written by Linda Köke
Photographs of impossible architecture; sets of tiny balconies on stilts; scale models of the snackbar that eerily accurately represents the one across the street. All things you can find in the works of Anna Reerds, who graduated in 2019 from Product Design at HKU Utrecht. Her work is about the spaces that we as humans have constructed, whether these are buildings, public spaces or interiors. To her, these spaces reflect our wishes, ideals and shortcomings. Anna shapes her ideas about our construction of space into photography, film or scale models, that she often edits and layers to create new images. She is currently researching a hybrid form of moving versus still images.
“I approach my work as a set of building blocks. Everything I see, collect and edit becomes an element that I use to rebuild. What kind of new buildings and images can I construct from this?”
Buildings can say much about the people that occupy them. It is mainly the imperfect, mundane and ordinary spaces that Anna is drawn to. The grillroom on a busy high street, a grey apartment block in a busy city or a concrete balcony looking over a concrete square. They are comforting in that they show that buildings may have shortcomings and do not always have to be perfect, just like us humans. By enlarging these shortcomings, changing the proportions and capturing it in an alienating way, Anna challenges the viewer to wonder about who is living here. We recognise things in her work, but something is off. The blurrier this border is, the better.
“Sometimes I make a decor for a scene that doesn’t exist yet. I notice that my work is developing more into that direction. What can be my role in this?”
Anna is also open to collaborations in her work with other makers, and to construct a new space together. Recently she collaborated on the film ‘Een Hond die Huilt’, directed by Stijn van Gorkum. Together with Maaike Carree she worked on the production design. The movie is an observation of isolated mankind in its solitude. The film is set on a street where many things and no things at all seem to be happening. In a lockdown-like state, everybody is in their own apartment, trying to get through the day while longing for human contact.
“I love collaborating with other people. I increasingly notice how interesting it can be to have somebody else add an extra layer to your work, instead of executing your work all by yourself.”
In her takeover, Anna will take us behind the scenes and show the building blocks that she uses in her work: an invitation for us to construct our own images in our minds.
“I approach my work as a set of building blocks. Everything I see, collect and edit becomes an element that I use to rebuild. What kind of new buildings and images can I construct from this?”
Buildings can say much about the people that occupy them. It is mainly the imperfect, mundane and ordinary spaces that Anna is drawn to. The grillroom on a busy high street, a grey apartment block in a busy city or a concrete balcony looking over a concrete square. They are comforting in that they show that buildings may have shortcomings and do not always have to be perfect, just like us humans. By enlarging these shortcomings, changing the proportions and capturing it in an alienating way, Anna challenges the viewer to wonder about who is living here. We recognise things in her work, but something is off. The blurrier this border is, the better.
“Sometimes I make a decor for a scene that doesn’t exist yet. I notice that my work is developing more into that direction. What can be my role in this?”
Anna is also open to collaborations in her work with other makers, and to construct a new space together. Recently she collaborated on the film ‘Een Hond die Huilt’, directed by Stijn van Gorkum. Together with Maaike Carree she worked on the production design. The movie is an observation of isolated mankind in its solitude. The film is set on a street where many things and no things at all seem to be happening. In a lockdown-like state, everybody is in their own apartment, trying to get through the day while longing for human contact.
“I love collaborating with other people. I increasingly notice how interesting it can be to have somebody else add an extra layer to your work, instead of executing your work all by yourself.”
In her takeover, Anna will take us behind the scenes and show the building blocks that she uses in her work: an invitation for us to construct our own images in our minds.