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UDAD Awards 2019

Second Award- Presence | Studio Roosegaarde

From 22 June 2019, the Groninger Museum presents Daan Roosegaarde – PRESENCE: the artist and innovator’s first major museum solo project. Roosegaarde has created this ground-breaking new interactive artwork in collaboration with the Groninger Museum. Where he previously displayed his work in the external public domain, the artist now adopts the internal museum space for the first time large-scale, with a phosphorescent landscape which changes colour and shape because of the presence of visitors. Unlike most exhibitions, which demand that art should be viewed from a distance, this installation encourages physical interaction and immersion.

GFDA-2020

Second Award- Urban Design & Architecture Design Awards 2019
Firm | Studio Roosegaarde
Category | Product Design
Team | Daan Roosegaarde and his team of designers and engineers, Dielian Djkhoff
Country | The Netherlands

Climate change and a desire to improve the landscape inspired Roosegaarde to make PRESENCE. In the work, visitors’ traces, which eventually disappear to make room for new ones, symbolise the impact of humans’ presence on earth.

Daan Roosegaarde: “I wanted to create a place where you feel connected. You make the artwork and the artwork makes you. PRESENCE shows your relationship with the environment and how we can influence it.”

Another source of inspiration was the landscape and environment art of the 1960s and ’70s in which interactivity and awareness of the earth’s vulnerability played an important role too. These artists made outdoor landscapes an integral part of their art; Roosegaarde however, takes a new step by taking his landscape inside of the museum walls.

Although the 800 m2 PRESENCE installation is the result of innovative material and technical research, it comes across as highly intuitive and immersive. Different areas allow visitors to experience various changes in perspective – from large and solid to small and mobile, from dark to bright. In one gallery, futuristic spheres draw lines on the floor. Another seems filled with luminous stardust, calling to mind a vast city seen from an airplane. Other spaces appear to scan visitors by recording their presence in silhouettes and patterns. The interaction between visitor and work creates constantly changing visual impressions. Not only looking and observing but, most of all, touching, feeling and moving are essential.