Mick Hoogsteder

2025

My graduation work consists of four different pieces. The Open-Endedness of Being is a series of very large garlands that visualise the intersection of grief, joy and celebration. The work speaks of a journey that understands these experiences not as a finish line, but as something we encounter along the way. The scale and materiality draw the viewer in, asking for attention to the embroidered details and inviting reflection on their own personal experiences with grief.

Altars carry a similar nuance. They are places where visitors are invited to voice their joy and their grief, a place for confession. A Devotion to Life is an altar made of ceramic objects that searches for the moment where celebration and mourning coexist. It is not an altar that venerates a God, but one that honours the everyday objects that make life meaningful and pleasurable. At the same time, it is an ode to love, to heroes, and to grief, expressed through images I have collected over the past years. Family photographs, screenshots of messages, archival images of historic protests, poems and people I consider heroes are things that usually remain private and meant only for personal enjoyment, but by placing them in the work I ask where my personal life ends and my artistic practice begins.

The work Memento continues this line of thought, as both an ode to and a materialisation of my personal walking stick. Where an aid is often seen as something shameful, I try to elevate it into something worthy of celebration. I borrow from the tradition of relics, where bones are decorated and elevated into sacred objects. By adorning my own walking stick with buttons, lace and silk ribbon, I create a dedication to an object that witnesses my everyday life and grants me greater freedom.

A service is not complete without a place to sit, which brings me to A Crippled Throne. It is a lounge chair covered with ceramic acupuncture circles that offer not only a pleasant pricking sensation but also visual delight through their colour.

Pain and grief often go hand in hand, but I also want to testify to another way of experiencing. Chairs are usually made with a body in mind that is not mine; my chair is made with my lived experience at its centre. It is both an invitation into my world and an act of defiance: there is only one way to sit, and that is through my experience.

Violence in my work does not refer to physical violence but to a system that is not designed for people who live outside the majority. By reversing this violence back towards the viewer, I hope to create space for reflection. Inclusivity is not only a social issue, but a fundamental question about how we live, and how mourning and celebration can coexist.

Artist statement

How we, as humans, deal with grief, love, friendship and the celebration of life – including the less pleasant parts – is of great importance to me. Death, sadness and pain play a major role not only in my personal life but also in my artistic practice, especially in the belief that pain and grief, too, deserve to be celebrated. At home I was always told that life is one big party, but that you have to hang up your own garlands.

As an artist I position myself at the crossroads of joy, grief, celebration and pain. The use of ambiguity in my work and life is a working method that recognises that everything in the world is designed to break: bodies, systems, feelings and, perhaps most importantly, materials. In my practice I deliberately work with materials that show the intensity of dedication as a layered testimony to the complex puzzle of grief and celebration. Ceramics and textiles are examples of materials that suit this method well; they not only reveal the amount of labour embedded in them, but, like colour, carry an inherent tactile allure.