‘Heart of the House’
Installation by Janet Vollebregt for Iona Foundation Amsterdam
Facilitator Andrea Davina
Curatorial text Maria Rus Bojan
Trained as an architect, Janet Vollebregt is known for her experimental sculptures and installations that integrate in the most unusual surroundings, stimulating spiritual encounters and viewer participation.
Inflecting the stringent aesthetics of Conceptualism and Minimalism with destabilizing elements such as metaphysics, philosophy, anthroposophy or ritualistic performance, Vollebregt developed a unique context-based approach to sculpture.
Poly-referential and always displayed in meaningful configurations, her spatial sculptural interventions speak about temporality, fragility, and the constant need for spiritual exchange.
“Heart of the House”, her site-specific installation conceived for the “Garden Room” of Iona Stichting in Amsterdam offers a remarkable example of the artist’s personal philosophy and determination to constantly challenge the boundary between object and environment, while testing alternative ways of perceiving, viewing and organizing space. The installation addresses the interaction of energy, feeling and space.
This installation incorporates a selection of different sculptures and a carefully choreographed placement of rose quartz stones, in a setting especially designed to create a path toward a greater, holistic understanding of the relational nature of our world.
The focal point of the installation is the “Spirit House”, a sculpture that is meaningfully placed between the two large windows doors of the Amsterdam’s canal building facing the garden side.
Within Vollebregt’s body of works, these “Spirit Houses” sculptures, made of brass, mounted on quartz, agateor onyx stones have the role of creating a participative interface for a process of spiritual offerings and exchange. As the artist herself points out “these sculptures are meant to be placed on land, in a garden or in wild nature to honour the land, its energy or spirits. Offerings can be placed on the crystal plates, and the process of offering is seen both as a ritual for individuals and as a performance that makes people connect with others through sharing their stories on why and what they are offering”.
Inspired by the Asian spirit houses, these objects were especially conceived to allow a participatory experience that stimulates the perception of a more abstract universal language that is both spiritual and sensible, while at the same time activating new connections and energies among the participants.
To a certain extent this installation also opens up a new direction in Vollebregt’s work, one that considers the object as a recipient of that what she calls ”heart-energy”. The offering of small pieces of gold leaf to the participants at the opening was, in this case, a significant gesture of inclusion into a spiritually elevated space, where everyone is welcome to contribute with his or her wishes, feelings and energies.
Alluding to Indian meditation techniques, on the right side of the Spirit House, Vollebregt installed three single pendants with meditation pillows underneath: the “Rose Quarz”- is meant to stimulate the meditation for the heart chakra and love, the “Pirite” -f or solar plexus for feeling and abundance, and the “Crystal Quarz” - for purity and transparency. On the left side the display is complemented with a double pendant that corresponds to the yellow onyx used in the Spirit House.
The entire display considers the prominent fireplace of the room as the heart of the installation. In Feng Shue, the fire element is associated with the colors red, orange purple and pink. The “alley” made up of rose quartz pebbles coming out of the fireplace, the candles, the soft seating structure and the mirror have finally the role to create the right atmosphere for an immersive perception of the sacred.
This interpenetration of categories, resulted from the surprising combination of minimal- conceptual objects with highly polished surfaces, and other types of materialities, each carrying their own signification and symbolism, creates a reality of a wholly different order from “natural” realities, enabling us to experience the embodiment of the spiritual element from a profane perspective.
Maria Rus Bojan, December 20, 2024
Maria Rus Bojan, is a professional curator and art advisor affiliated to IKT (International Association of Professional Curators) and AICA (International Association of Art Critics). Maria Rus Bojan has professional expertise in the field of postwar and contemporary art, specifically research and exhibitions of EasternEuropean art.
