Nieuwe Instituut
Nieuwe Instituut

Sonneveld House

Temporary House of Home

Home

Home of Safety

Photo: Johannes Schwartz

At a press conference on 17 April 2020, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said, 'The advice is to stay at home if you can.' But how safe is it there?

Home Sweet Home

The term 'home' usually has positive connotations, especially in the context of furnishing and decorating our interiors. Positive platitudes and saccharine motifs on interior design products leave no scope for a more realistic view of the spaces we live in. In the room of sister-artist-duo Larissa and Michelle Mantel this trend towards over-aestheticisation takes the form of take-away posters.

On second glance, their retake on conventional wall decoration, reveals an uncomfortable, almost uncanny double-vision: the familiar typographic aesthetics of the posters present statistics regarding domestic violence, accidents in the home and cases of rejection by family members. Instead of reassuring slogans, visitors are faced with some of the horrors that take place within the nicely decorated four walls, that we call home.

Research: Romy van Dijjk

Design: Larissa and Michelle Mantel

Nieuwsbrief

Ontvang als eerste uitnodigingen voor onze events en blijf op de hoogte van komende tentoonstellingen.