‘We sell catastrophes’ Studio C.A.R.E. in Sculpture Park

‘We are radical and we are playful. We pull you out of your comfort zone. We work together with you. We let you form a new relationship with your environment.’ Signed: Studio C.A.R.E. There is not a single word of exaggeration in those statements. C.A.R.E. stands for Catastrophe, Analysis, Relation, Environment. That may sound like abstract management jargon, but the working method of the Rotterdam-based Studio C.A.R.E. is in fact very physical and tangible.

‘We sell catastrophes,’ Christine van Meegen says over the phone. Not that Studio C.A.R.E. inflicts a catastrophe on you, as these catastrophes have already taken place. Instead, Studio C.A.R.E. offers you a way out of a difficult situation. For example, this may involve your immediate surroundings, such as your home. The German couple behind Studio C.A.R.E., Van Meegen and her partner Sebastian Kubersky, do not approach this half-heartedly. Just ask Patrick, the man who gave them permission to remodel his house. Everything was tackled: walls were taken down with a sledgehammer and furniture was sawn apart.

Patrick had not been feeling quite himself for some time and his cluttered living space certainly did not help. Time for a change. NDR, Norddeutscher Rundfund, filmed the Abrissparty - a term that captures the spirit of the event better than the prosaic word ‘renovation’.

The concept is best described as a combination of Help, My Husband is a DIY Disaster - including the setbacks during construction and mental walls people run into - with an extended consultation with a decisive psychologist. But C.A.R.E. uses a sledgehammer instead of the insights of Carl Jung. If all goes well, the renovation has a cathartic effect and by the end, your relationship with your environment will be restored.

It may sound drastic, but nothing could be further from the truth. Studio C.A.R.E. works according to a plan. Everything was discussed with Patrick beforehand: what would happen and what role he and the neighbours would play in the process. That said, there is room for improvisation. Moreover, Patrick was in safe hands. Christine van Meegen has a background in interior design and has studied, among other places, at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Afterward graduation, Van Meegen and Kubersky decided to stay in the Netherlands, with Rotterdam as their base.

The couple’s practice extends beyond the ‘curated catastrophes’, of which Patrick’s apartment is an example. A common denominator is that they work with local residents. This winter, together with residents of the working-class neighbourhood Bospolder-Tussendijken, they developed heating panels. Nine groups developed and tested an infrared panel. These panels heat the body instead of the room, and do so in a highly energy-efficient way. The underlying idea is to prevent people on tight budgets from being left in the cold.

Another example is the playful modular (wall) system ROSy - short for Rotterdam interior - made of perforated board. ROSy allows users to organise a space according to their own preferences and insights. Once again, the duo aims to reconnect people with their environment by giving them control over it.

At Art Rotterdam, you’ll find a sculpture by Studio C.A.R.E. in the Sculpture Park. When we talked to Van Meegen in mid-January, she did not yet know how the sculpture will look. “We often respond to the space that is available to us. We need to gauge how much space we get and what kind of space it is. Ideally, it becomes a sculpture you can physically enter, with a surprise inside.”

Studio C.A.R.E. is represented by Galerie Melike Bilir from Hamburg. The Galerie Melike Bilir stand can be found in the New Art Section.

Written by Wouter van den Eijkel