Huskrooms is an ongoing growing archive of duvets that carry carefully composed found objects and cloth.
The project lands mostly in care institutions and collaborates with various artists and people that are in one way or another part of this context.
Finding sheltering shell-selves
on harmless whistled
scareless scarless fingertips
Half-armed leaning defines
the broken chair chains
of goodness interferes
Bending the stuffed toy necks
next to the one-eyed winding ups
is there in blinking eyes
The newborn’s glaze
the breastfeeding of mankind’s
mammals with enigmatic weeds of wisdom’s
Care
- Poem by Henny Baeken
Lili gathers materials during long walks with friends, family, strangers and collaborators: going to thrift shops or collecting old sheets left behind in dusty closets and boxes in the attic. Next, the materials are put together during focused research on colors and textures, in a search for poetics and meanings that arise through the friction of bringing together abandoned materials that usually are not brought into the same space.
All of this is part of an important practice of spending time together. To open up space for verbal and non-verbal playful conversation around the topic of care. Gestures and thoughts that come up during this joint process are intuitively included in the making of these duvets. The duvets are put together in a time-consuming process of cutting and sewing the artwork, simultaneously creating little performative happenings. Lili shares this practice and engages in this way with the people and entire context of the psycho-social centers and special youth care institutions.
Feb - Mar '23, residency with support of Workspacebrussels & Kaosvzw at Psycho-social center Sint-Alexius, Brussels (BE)
2 Mar '23, talk in Dokter Guislain Museum, Ghent (BE)
25 - 29 Sep '23, residency together with Lucinda Ra at Dokter Guislain (Ghent, BE) in collaboration with the youngsters staying at the psychiatric centre.
Concept: (Ellen) Lili Vanderstraeten // Continuous collaborations with experts Henny Baeken (body-oriented therapy), Renske Maria Van Dam (architecture), Julie Rodeyns (Through Art We Care) and Rona Kennedy. With precious interventions by Lieselot Sidikki, Kito Kotsoane, Anton Cla and Geert Opsomer.