City sinkhole & sea sinkhole

For the exhibition (ON)PEILBAAR WATER, Stadmuseum Woerden asked eight artists to create a work about the relationship between people and water in the Green Heart. For this, Leonie Schneider made two paintings about sinkholes in both the city and nature, created by water washing away the subsoil. In the process, everything seems to be swallowed up by a hole in the ground; a fascinating and at the same time terrifying phenomenon that can create a tourist attraction on the one hand and a disaster site on the other. The paintings capture that field of tension. 

Schneider came to the TextielLab to transform ‘City Sinkhole’ and ‘Sea Sinkhole’ into textiles: a challenging search for materials and colours, which were translated into textured bindings. To create depth in the fabric, thicker yarns were used alongside thinner yarns. Between the matt woollen yarns, a single shiny yarn is also incorporated to get a difference in materiality and make colours stand out. The two representations were merged into one large woven work measuring 480 x 350 cm. A special frame was built to hang it from in the shape of a half-tent that was on display at ‘Prospects 2023’ by the Mondriaan Fund during Art Rotterdam.