Working with the broad concept of memories, Lobke Roenhorst uses her personal archive that includes photos, videos and notes from her family and youth to search for a balance between the personal and the universal. In some parts vague, like memories tend to be, the images from Roenhorsts’ archive come to life in soft, blue cyanotypes. The different pieces, stitched together, form a patchwork of pictures. Part of the long history of women’s crafts, patchworks or quilts like these are traditionally made to mark important life events. In Roenhorsts’ work, her cyanotype patchworks form symbols for the blueprints in her life.

 

The installation materializes her archive and memories; dried acacia branches found by her grandfather, a fishbone pattern laid in bricks as a reminder of her father’s profession as a road worker. Together, the installation represents a family dynamic. Reconstructing the family memories, or re-re-reconstructing as Roenhorst would say, it gives you a feel of the comfort and softness they entail.

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text written by Milou Terpstra