One of the oldest buildings in Amsterdam is to be taken back to its early days as a church of refuge for those travelling by sea.
The Dutch artist Sarah van Sonsbeeck is covering the 3,000 sq. m floor of the Medieval Oude Kerk, which is made entirely from gravestones (including that of Rembrandt’s wife), with the foil emergency blankets handed out to refugees arriving on Europe’s shores by boat.
“These blankets have become [symbols of] migrants and refugees. These are no longer people with histories and lives: they have become abstracted,” Van Sonsbeeck says. By focusing on the foil as a readymade, she says she hopes to “give meaning to the material as much as to refugees”. The gravestones will be partially visible beneath the semi-sheer blankets, which will “protect the dead but also form a barrier between you and the stones”, she says. Van Sonsbeeck, who first used Mylar blankets in a 2012 work to resemble an anti-drone tent, acknowledges the difficulties of working with the material and its associations. “It would be taking a colonial standpoint to think you can help refugees, but it’s important that the crisis is addressed in art,” she says. “Other artists, such as Pamela Rosenkranz and Ai Weiwei, are using these materials to address the issue in a poignant way, however difficult and slippery that territory may be.”
Van Sonsbeeck’s installation is due to be unveiled on 19 (until 17 September).
