Badriah Suzanna Hamelink

Where Hamelink’s early works were much more about fragility, her recent works are bold statements. With a hammer and wedges she finds the essence of what lies beneath the matter by splitting it open and showing its insides to us. To the artist the rough surface is like the inner world of the stone, harbouring invisible turmoil that can only meet the eye by the act of splitting. There is something within that stone wishing to come out and manifest itself. There is a distinct field of tension in which to work: the stone might crack in a very unpredictable manner, catalysing a new chain of events. OBEX no.2 is a cast of the negative space of two sides of a ruptured stone. A new element is formed of both the sides uniting the surfaces to an independently standing piece.

In the context of Manifesto 2040, Artist Badriah Hamelink designed a special meeting place for the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment as a focal point for the Sandmotor in Kijkduin. A pavilion where people can walk to from the adjacent beaches. Due to its proportions, this pavilion can be discerned from afar, but because of its shape and appearance it allsocoincides with its surroundings. The shape is taken directly from the environment and reflects the the slight slope of the dunes and sharp edges the wind blows in the sand. For the model Hamelink has chosen limestone as the material. A sedimentary rock that is created by the accumulation of material remains of marine organisms. For the actual pavilion, the sand from the sand motor can be used in a composite mixture, so that the color of the Pavilion matches the sand. As the sea advances and the sand is washed away at the foot of the pavilion, the pavilion will tilt around its central axis. The sand concrete will erode more and more into sand. Over time, all the sand from the sand motor washes away. The remnant of the pavilion remains as a streamlined stone on the seabed. In this way the pavilion finally coincides completely with the North Sea coast.