the Greenhouse project (2017)

Performance squashing 225 flowers on paper with an antique book press wearing a tuxedo in a greenhouse

Capturing beauty kills it. Or at least turns it into a melancholic 2D version of it, where people who look at the performance wonder whether it is a waste of beauty, a beautiful small painting or just a mad man with an antique press. Using the greenhouse as a small theatre (in 35 degrees celsius, talk about bad timing), spectators look at a melancholic, almost religious repetition of 225 flowers being squashed meticulously over the course of two days. The denigrating final gesture of tossing the 'artwork' of the pressed flowers on the floor aims to remove the sense of value of the object, trying to keep the value at the performance itself.

This performance has taken place at the Flower museum in Aalsmeer, the Netherlands June 17 and 18.