In the Sahara, near a small Berber village, is the Moroccan artist-in-residency Tissardmine. Babette Kleijn wanted to spend a month there, in search of a “high concentration of sensory experience of nature”. With no vehicle noise, no electricity, and therefore no light pollution, she expected to be able to open up to the desert space and observe the starry sky at night. Part of this research into space – directions, planes, shapes – was to study the curvature of the dunes. In this she saw similarities with Arabic calligraphy, the symbolic transmission of which she wants to study in order to broaden her European-Russian frame of reference. “I then incorporate my observations in my murals. This brings me one step closer to the Babylonian confusion of symbols and references that have to represent my work.

Although Kleijn studied photography at St. Joost, she eventually started working with mixed materials such as paint, wire and iron. She uses this to create delicate assemblages, based on a desire to sharpen her senses and experience of being present. These architectural-looking abstractions arise from a desire to better understand the modernist aesthetic and the idealism behind it. The R&D committee appreciates her oeuvre and believes that this compact research period will give a good impulse.

In the Sahara, in the spring of 2018, she experienced the space, depth and especially the silence as hoped: “The silence I experienced there ensures the continuation of my current process. It also ensures that the experience of the Sahara is still almost tangible, perceptible.” She also made unforeseen discoveries, such as the many ironworks. With this inspiration she started to create a work in situ on an outer wall of the residence, playing with texture and shadows in a merciless climate of heat and sandstorms. The impressions gained form a source for further refinement in a subsequent working period, now in Berlin.