Biography Simon Heijdens (b.1978. Breda, The Netherlands)

Simon Heijdens’ site-specific installations are merging the narrative and the tangible, and explore the concept of coincidence to trace and reveal the hidden essence and character of the spaces that surround us in everyday life.

‘A marriage of intricate technology and natural processes’ such as his acclaimed projection works ‘Tree’ and ‘Lightweeds’ (site-responsive light projection, 2004) which have been exhibited and installed in over 50 public spaces, museums and galleries throughout Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia, including a one year exhibition of a three wall projection at the Permanent Collection galleries of the Museum of Modern Art New York in 2014/2015.

His works are represented in the permanent collections of MoMA New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria & Albert museum London, Boijmans van Beuningen Museum Rotterdam, Fonds National d’Art Contemporain France, Israel Museum Jerusalem and Hong Kong City council, and it has been exhibited extensively across the world in museums such as Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art Moscow, Katara Art Center Doha and CAFA Beijing.

Commissions include Art Basel/Miami 2013 (the Perrier Jouet commission), Swarovski Crystal Palace 2006, Droog, Wallpaper Handmade and Contrasts Gallery Shanghai. Founded in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in 2002, his studio has been based in London, UK since 2005, where he lectured at the Royal College of Art from 2005 to 2010.

www.simonheijdens.com

Studio Simon Heijdens Ltd.74 Canrobert StreetLondon E2 6PXUnited Kingdomstudio@simonheijdens.comsimonheijdens.com

Simon Heijdens, overview of selected works:

ShadePhare No. 1-9LightweedsTree Broken WhiteReed3, Rising SlowlyWordweaving, Boijmans

(for details and more images please refer to www.simonheijdens.com)

Simon Heijdens, 2010Commissioned by and part of the permanent collection of The Art Institute of Chicago

Exhibitions

London, UK - Now Gallery 2014Chicago, US - The Art Institute of Chicago 2011

Shade

A cellular glass facade that filters natural sunlight into a moving kaleidoscope of light and shadow, directly choreographed by the elements passing outside, to restore the unplanned natural timeline of the outdoors to the interior of the building.

The responsive glass transfuses light varyingly throughout the day, from sharp in the morning to ambient in the afternoon. Wind gusts that pass the building outside directly affect the cells in the glass to turn from opaque to clear, thus passing or blocking sunlight to create a dimensional projection of light and shadow onto the floors and walls of the interior space. As the patterns of wind and the quality of light are constantly changing throughout the day, the interior space regains the unplanned character of the outdoors. At night, the principle is inverted, and interior light is filtered to the outside and projects the kaleidoscopic pattern onto the surrounding pavement.

video: www.simonheijdens.com/shade

Shade (continued)

Now Gallery, London, 2014

video: www.simonheijdens.com/shade

Shade (continued)

Now Gallery, London, 2014

video: www.simonheijdens.com/shade

1. 3.2. 4.

2013

Commissioned for the entry area of Art Basel / Miami 2013 by Perrier-Jouët

Phare No. 1-9

Nine hand-blown glass vessels that use the dimensional characteristics of water and the way it holds and refracts light, to create a new way of dimensionally drawing in mid-water.

Looking at the narrative character of the surface of water and how through its softness it reveals the patterns of wind that is passing over it, the drawn patterns based on live measured wind, ripple between the group of Phares. The drawing manifests itself both in detail within each Phare, as well as in the space as a whole, as the round volume of water forms a lens through which the drawings are projected into the surrounding space.

video: www.simonheijdens.com/phare

Phare No. 1-9 (continued)

Art Basel / Design Miami, 2013

video: www.simonheijdens.com/phare

Lightweeds

Nature is becoming rare in daily life. In the way the urbanising world is generally built and planned, our everyday surroundings are increasingly perpetual and static through conditioned climates and 24 hour lighting. When unpredictable natural elements such as a lifting breeze, a sudden shower, or a setting sun are planned out of our surroundings, the timeline of our everyday is lost.

A living digital organism growing onto an indoor space, through which the space regains the natural timeline that it has walled out. Uniquely generated plant families that grow up, move and behave closely depending on actual sunshine, rainfall and wind as measured live outside. On passing human traffic they bend, loose their seeds and pollenate to other walls throughout the space, to make up a constantly evolving digital bio system that reveals the character of the space and how it is used.

video:www.simonheijdens.com/lightweeds-umnh

Simon Heijdens, 2005 –

Lightweeds is part of the permanent collection of MoMA New York, the Israel Museum Jerusalem and Hong Kong City Council.

Selected Exhibitions & Installations:

New York - Museum of Modern Art New York - 2014-2015Doha, Qatar - Katara Art Centre 2012Jerusalem, Israel - Israel Museum Jerusalem 2012Salt Lake City, USA - UMNH 2011 Hong Kong, China - Council Building 2011London, UK - V&A 2010 Cheongju, South Korea - Bienale 2009New York, US - Museum of Modern Art New York - 2008London, UK - Gallery Libby Sellers 2008Rotterdam, Netherlands - Witte de With 2007London, UK - Frieze / private show 2007Beijing, China - Today Museum 2007Shanghai, China - Da Ning 2007 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Gallery BKVB -2007New York, US - Milk Gallery 2007Lausanne, Switzerland - Gallery Lucy Mackintosh 2007Milan, Italy - Grazie dei Fior 2005

Lightweeds (continued)

video: www.simonheijdens.com/lightweeds-umnh

Lightweeds - permanent site specific installation at UMNH Salt Lake City, 2011

Lightweeds - MoMA New York, Permanent Collection Galleries, Feb 2014 – Mar 2015

Simon Heijdens, 2004

Selected Exhibitions & Installations

Moscow, Russia - Garage CCC 2011Northampton, UK - Square 2010Beijing, China - CAFA Museum 2010London, UK - V&A 2010 Newcastle, UK - Monument 2009Den Haag, NL - Westerbeek - 2009 Amersfoort, The Netherlands - Muurhuizen 2009 Hong Kong, China - Taikoo 2008 Tokyo, Japan - Roppongi Hills 2007 New York, USA - Bank street 2007 Rotterdam, The Netherlands - IFFR 2007 Berlin, Germany - Checkpoint Charlie 2006 Hasselt, Belgium - Z33 2006 Milan, Italy - Porta Venezia 2006 Sheffield, England - 2005 London, England - Design Museum London 2005 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Droog 2005 Cologne, Germany - IM 2005 Eindhoven, Netherlands - Stratum 2004

Tree

Ripples on a puddle of water, footsteps in the sand and slowly gathering grime. Natural processes are existent though becoming rare in our increasingly planned surrounding. While the trees on the streets are no longer nature but carefully controlled and managed, the wind that is moving its branches still is. An installation that traces and amplifies the leftovers of nature in the urban surrounding.

White silhouettes of trees projected 8 meters high onto the facades of several buildings in a city. Its branches and leaves are moving either slightly or intense; directly to the measured wind that passes the facade of the building on which it is projected. Starting full of leaves at dawn, the tree looses one of its leaves each time someone passes it. When the leaf breaks of its branch, it drops down on the ground in an alley nearby. Because the leaves are made of light, they slowly brighten up the alley as they grow in amount over the course of the evening, and form a developping image that reveals the use of the city. The leaves roll out when someone walks through them.

Tree (continued)

10th Anniversary installation, commissioned by SXSW - Austin, Texas, 2014

Simon Heijdens, 2004

Commissioned by Droog for Lille Cultural Capitol of Europe 2004.

Exhibitions

New York, USA - Museum of Modern Art New York - 2011Amsterdam, NL - BKVB - 2007Los Angeles, USA - ACME Gallery - 2006 London, UK - Designmuseum - 2005Lille, FR - Lille2004 - 2004

Broken White

Objects written as a small scenario. Conventionally speaking, nothing is standing still. Compared to how one can follow the growth of a child or a flower, the connection between us and the objects that surround us could be more intense if they were less static, and more open to the specific factors of our personal surrounding. Not static and silent, but alive and talking.

A ceramic family, that initially is white and undecorated. Through using the object, small lines crack into the skin of the ceramic. The cracks slowly begin to form a floral decoration that grows like a real flower would. The family starts white and virgin-like, and after time the cups or dishes you love most stand out because they’re more wealthy decorated. The nature of craquelé is that it is not a state, but a never-ending process. By opening up the static characteristics of ceramics and manipulating the start of this craquelé process, space is made for a nature to reveal itself, and trace the story of cup and user. The patterns are echos of traditional Lille faience, for which the project was commissioned.

Simon Heijdens, 2006

Exhibitions Amsterdam, Netherlands - Lloyd Hotel - 02/2010Eindhoven, Netherlands - Family of Form - 01/2008Amsterdam, Netherlands - BKVB - 10/2007Rotterdam, Netherlands - Tent 09/2007New York, USA - Milk gallery - 05/2007 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Montevideo 09/2006Los Angeles, USA - ACME Gallery - 06/2006 Milan, Italy - TH Gallery - 04/2006

Reed

Nature is becoming rare in daily life. In the way the urbanising world is generally built and planned, our everyday surroundings are increasingly perpetual and static through conditioned climates and 24 hour lighting. When unpredictable natural elements such as a lifting breeze, a sudden shower, or a setting sun are planned out of our surroundings, the timeline of our everyday is lost.

A group of elements that overgrows objects and areas in a space providing both lighting and covering to make muted spots inside a room. The reeds translate outside nature to the indoor space, by slightly waving when a windgust passes the building, as measured by a windsensor that is connected to the reeds. The wind traveling through the reeds has a speed and intensity precisely depending on the force and direction of the windgusts that rise up and lay down throughout the day. The space becomes subtle in spring, intense in autumn - the space regains the natural character that it has walled out.

Simon Heijdens, 2006

Commissioned by Swarovski for Crystal Palace Milan 2006

Exhibitions:

Milan, Italy - Swarovski for Crystal Palace 2006Amsterdam, NL - Gallery bkvb - 2007

3, Rising slowly

Built up like a traditional chandelier – with a structure of threaded crystals that gets its character by subtly dangling crystals that refract the light – but using a smart thread that slightly contracts when activated. Windgusts are measured outside the building and translated to the chandelier hanging inside. Each thread is separately reactive to the sensor, and together they make a subtle ripple travel through its crystals with a varying direction and intensity depending on the character of the wind. So the chandelier makes an exact copy of the wind that passes outside, moving sometimes subtle, sometimes intense, sometimes not at all. An object with a character that is defined by its location, changing along throughout the day and year and restoring the natural timeline of an artificial space. The Jet Back crystals of the skin and clear crytals of the core make up a monochrome object, that through the refraction becomes multicolored when lit.

Simon Heijdens, 2008

Light installation, interior and furniture - commissioned by and permanently installed in Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

Wordweaving / Espressobar Boijmans van Beuningen

A cafe table as a social surface, a carrier of quickly passing information that bears the sign of its time through a fleeting stream of newspaper headlines, magazine articles, flyers and packagings. By not only carrying, but also seeing, interpreting and showing that information, the table becomes a document of its use, and an archive of the local culture that passes the museum. Where the museum curates the art, the espressobar curates its visitors.

An optical software reads and interprets words that appear on the tables of the cafe, and transforms them into projected ceiling ornaments that word by word grow over the days and weeks, fed by the words on the table. The ceiling becomes a slowly expanding archive of the space and it’s use.The readings are also transferred to the till, which prints the words that are in the space at that time on the bottom of the receipt, that therefor becomes a time specific souvenir.