Three dreams stored

‘Vacancy’ is my starting point.

Not wanting to stay or return, I decided to create a space that connected the two places where I had lived. Over two months, I worked daily on this 'land,' digging, removing, and building. The well, carpet hanger, and shrine were set up as a postcard from the land that once belonged to me, adapting it into a memorial ground. As I grew more attached to this area, I felt a stronger urge to protect every part I touched. But after the show ended, I had to dismantle 'my land.' My two months of effort were gone in two days. Only the top part of the shrine remains, but it’s broken, rusty, and no longer useful.

During the show, I spent a lot of time in 'my land,' waiting for guests. Few people came, and one remarked that the place was too gray, which might have discouraged visitors. Though I ignored the comment, my subconscious did not, leading to three dreams.

In one dream, the well was crowded with fairy tale characters and a waterfall was falling into it. I felt jealous in the dream but was relieved after waking—it wasn’t the well I wanted. A few nights later, I dreamt of colorful carpets hanging on hangers and a shrine in front of my parents’ house, blocking the entrance. It was a deconstructed house, but I knew it was my shrine.

I arrived in the new land with old dreams but never questioned if I wanted to act on them. I saw it as an obligation. Dreaming of reworking art multiple times seemed too special to ignore. I decided to separate the dreams into three locations. I started with where I was when the dreams came: back to the Netherlands to make carpets, then recreating the shrine in Poland that blocked the door to my parent’s house, and finally showing the well in Sweden before last Christmas.

At the end of my master’s program, I presented my efforts and the remnants from three exhibitions in a small room.The space became a storage, where all the elements, no longer needed but forever connected, came together as one.