26 September, arrival in Zeitz for IPIHAN #16:
When everything disappears beneath a thick layer of dust, it becomes part of the same history. Though I’m not entirely sure yet which history, or which story, that will turn out to be. In the meantime, I clearly belong to that story too — my own search for inspiration, which on this particular spot seems to be deafeningly absent. If I wait here long enough, perhaps everything eventually turns into fossilised traces that together sum up the whole history, my search included. Maybe that forms an image that lets you look differently at everything to be found here, or precisely what’s missing.

Photo’s: Maryna Semenkova

Inspiration can come from a can
So there I sit, behind a dusty, self-built little desk made from a greyed-green door taken from the neighbouring toilets, in a building without inspiration, in a city that is likewise searching for that same inspiration. Where fantastic spaces, wrapped in beautiful brick, built with blood, sweat and tears, could have borne witness to a history and a future with so much to tell. But they’re gone. They’ve made way for gigantic parking lots, waiting for hundreds of cars that will probably never come. Here I want to show you how I see and experience this place.
So it’s no surprise that I look for my inspiration here in the small things, the small remnants that still tell me that people once lived and worked here too, sitting there picking their noses while waiting for an inspiration that came about as often as those cars. Because that’s what I do: I search for traces of people, literal traces, but also traces of their behaviour — sociological, political, recreational, whatever. I don’t judge them, I always claim, I merely observe them, as though those were two fundamentally different things.
I look for the small deviations and interrogate them, or let you interrogate them. And as if that weren’t enough, it’s actually a bit more complicated than that. So complicated that I myself don’t always understand how it works. I carry them around in my head, sometimes for days, sometimes for years, and then bring them to my studio — or in this case: the first floor of this deathly boring, dust-filled building. The last remaining building of the old Oettler brewery, no less. It was probably so uninspiring that even the demolition contractor overlooked it. This building isn’t meant to be just my source of inspiration. For the coming weeks it’s also my temporary studio, the place where the so-called magic is supposed to happen. Where I abstract my thoughts and observations, roughly shape them into visual poetry, and eventually turn them into art — that’s the intention, anyway.
And so here I sit still, at that filthy, hastily cobbled-together desk, which is itself quite thoroughly devoid of inspiration, as if even the furniture has decided not to cooperate. With bags of M&Ms, bottles of cola and beer, and found dented cans — my very last hope of finding some inspiration in there.
Truly everything here seems to have been stripped of colour by time, as if the past, if you wait long enough, will naturally appear in black and white. More likely, it’s the thick layer of dust covering everything that binds it all together, swallowing the whole history of this place and turning it into one whole — a kind of natural preservation, like ancient fossils. The original fluorescent tubes that have flickered off the ceiling, the trampled heating elements, the graffiti, the dented beer cans — together they form a single mass under a thick, grey cloak. And now I belong to that too. To that same history of this building, where people worked, drank, fucked, and argued. If you wait long enough, everything disappears beneath the dust and eventually turns to stone — not like those fossils. Me too, if I can’t find the inspiration in time in those dented cans lying in front of me, on a desk that is slowly dissolving into that same thick layer of dust. Waiting for that one brilliant flash of insight that brings it all together: the poetry, the abstraction, the wonder.
Searching for inspiration in the fact that all inspiration is absent here.

If Paradise Is Half As Nice #14  in Wartenburg, Germany

From August 18 to September 23, I participated in IPIHAN #14, held in an abandoned school in the village of Wartenburg. The presentation took place over the weekend of September 21, during which I introduced a new series titled Umweltfarben. A few works from series can now be viewed on my website, with additional images and details to come soon on the IPIHAN website as well.

This year’s participating artists included Maurice Bogaert, Willem Besselink, Guus Vreeburg, Jette Kelholt, Sofie Doeland, and Mels van Zutphen.

From left to right: Guus Vreeburg, Mels van Zutphen, Maurice Bogaert, Willem Besselink, Sofie Doeland, Ties Ten Bosch, Jette Kelholt.

The abandoned school where we lived and worked for five weeks is located in a small German village along the river Elbe—the same village where I bought an old farmhouse two years ago. Being immersed in this environment, I was inspired by the close relationship between culture and nature here and how they constantly influence each other; the local people adapt to the natural landscape while also shaping it to meet their needs. This shaping often happens in ways that feel traditional or even old-fashioned, evoking a sense of nostalgia. I realized how this resonates with many people in a romanticized way, calling to mind an idealized past—one that perhaps never truly existed.

Umweltfarben (3 Säge)

The works all share the title Umweltfarben, a term that connects to the colours of nature. The German word Umwelt, meaning “environment,” translates literally to “the world around”—a phrase I find both poetic and deeply meaningful.

All but one of the pieces in this series are created from agricultural hand tools, generously donated by local villagers. These are mostly older tools, broken or replaced by more modern, motorized versions. I’ve coated each tool in a unique layer of shredded leaves or grass, giving each a distinct natural colour and connecting it back to the environment for where its purpose lies.

Umweltfarben (4 landwerkzeuge)

The IPIHAN project consistently offers me the chance to work on a larger scale and to create site-specific installations. For the 14th edition, I sought to explore these possibilities again, inspired by the subtle ways in which nature has influenced local culture here—especially in the colors chosen for the old school building’s interior, which featured numerous shades of green and brown.

For this piece, I used a large, donated tractor tire from the village, fully covering it—inside and out—with shredded leaves from a single type of tree. Installed upright in one of the old classrooms, the green-coated tire harmonized with the interior’s muted green shades, blending into the space almost like camouflage. Despite this harmony, the tire’s massive presence dominates the empty room.

Behind the tire, a faint trail of green leaves suggests its movement into the room, as if it left its own natural marks upon arrival. This track hints at a larger story that began before and may continue after this moment, inviting viewers to interpret and imagine their own narratives within the scene.

https://tiestenbosch.com/umweltfarben-traktorreifen/Umweltfarben (Traktorreife)